Welcome to Wal-Mart

In the Dec. 16 New York Review of Books, Simon Head, director of the Project on Technology and the Workplace at the Century Foundation, stated, "the average pay of a sales clerk [italics mine] at Wal-Mart was $8.50 an hour, or about $14,000 a year, $1,000 below the government's definition of the poverty level for a family of three." That the current minimum wage of $5.15 per hour leaves families even farther below the poverty line is a depressing topic for another day.

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Typically, full-time is defined as 40 hours a week or more. At Wal-Mart, it's defined as 34 hours a week. So of course Wal-Mart has more "full-time" workers. Fewer hours worked, I need hardly point out, means that Wal-Mart's "full-time" employees are less likely than employees elsewhere to be able to afford premiums for any health insurance they're offered. According to Head, fewer than half of Wal-Mart's employees can afford even the company's least-expensive health plan.

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In 2003, the most recent year for which I can find data, [H. Lee Scott Jr., the chief executive officer of Wal-Mart,] sucked down $29 million (including stock-option grants). That same year, G.R. Wagoner, president and CEO of General Motors, hauled in about half that amount, $15 million.
  Slate article

This Timothy Noah article is in response to a speech Mr. Scott gave in Los Angeles on February 23 in which he said Wal-Mart is a force for good in the economy.

And this is from a February 23 article at Occupational Hazards:

Less than a week after the U.S. Department of Labor announced it had fined Wal-Mart $135,540 for child labor law violations and agreed to provide the retailer 15 days' written notice before further inspections, the inspector general of the Labor Department said it would look into the agreement that critics are calling a "sweetheart deal."

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While Department of Labor officials reportedly have said the agreement is similar to other deals with major corporations, Rep. George Miller of California, the senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, believes the advance notice would give Wal-Mart stores ample time to hide any evidence of child labor violations and would discourage whistleblowers from filing complaints against Wal-Mart for fear of retribution from the retailer.

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The compliance agreement also stipulated the Department of Labor and Wal-Mart "will develop the terms of any joint or separate statement(s) issued by either party announcing this agreement to the media and/or the public." "This would essentially give Wal-Mart veto power over the nature of and timing of the public announcement," Miller asserts on his Web site.

Miller accuses the retailer and the Department of Labor of brokering a "secret arrangement" and then waiting a month before making it public. "The agreement, reached on Jan. 6, only became public because of a reporter's query to the department," Miller contends.

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Miller, on his Web site, says the $135,540 fine equals 15 seconds' worth of Wal-Mart retail sales in 2004.

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Miller, who called for the inspector general's investigation on Feb. 14, has blasted the compliance agreement as a "favor for a powerful friend and contributor" of the Bush administration "at the expense of workers who do their jobs and still cannot get fair treatment in the workplace."