Wal-mart is a company often accused of abusing its lowest paid employees. Their hourly rate for sales associates sets the standard for a retail industry known for meagerness. Workers often work less than full-time and thus fall below the poverty line and thus are able to qualify for government assistance and in particularl food stamps. Presumably many of these same people shop at Wal-mart where food stamps make up about 4% of sales.
Walmart: America's real 'Welfare Queen'
DAILY KOS - Wal-Mart's poverty wages force employees to rely on $2.66 billion in government help every year, or about $420,000 per store. In state after state, Wal-Mart employees are the top recipients of Medicaid. As many as 80 percent of workers in Wal-Mart stores use food stamps.
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It's not enough to keep the abuse at home. This never ending quest to squeeze the last nickel out of the cost chain leads to exploitation all up and down the supply line and leads to low pay and employee abuse around the world. And not just in the Wal-mart loop but these conditions exist among those trying to compete as well.
In an attempt to fend off its on-line competitor Amazon, Wal-mart reaches for the final pinnacle of employee abuse. No pay at all.
Walmart Wants to Take Exploitation to the Next Level and Have Customers Deliver Orders
No form of worker exploitation would exactly surprise me coming from Walmart, a company so dedicated to low-wage labor that many of its workers have to depend on food stamps and Medicaid. But doesn't it seem like there are just a few things that could go wrong with this idea?
Wal-Mart Stores Inc is considering a radical plan to have store customers deliver packages to online buyers, a new twist on speedier delivery services that the company hopes will enable it to better compete with Amazon.com Inc.
Wal-Mart has millions of customers visiting its stores each week. Some of these shoppers could tell the retailer where they live and sign up to drop off packages for online customers who live on their route back home, Anderson explained.
Wal-Mart would offer a discount on the customers' shopping bill, effectively covering the cost of their gas in return for the delivery of packages
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Additional:
Wal-Mart Sues Union Over Protests
The retailer says union groups trespassed on its stores to address unfair labor policies, but critics and competitors say the superstore is missing the point.
Despite trespass laws already on the books that can punish protesters who enter Wal-Mart's stores and that little amendment at the top of the Bill of Rights that protects their presence beyond its parking lot, the superstore decided that suing its foes is the best way to stop an ongoing labor dispute in Florida.
Reuters quoted a Wal-Mart spokeman citing "disruptive tactics" and (the redundant) "illegal trespassing" for pressing the suit against the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) and a group of current and former employees in a union subsidiary known as OUR Walmart. The suit, originally filed on Friday, has as much to do with criticism of Wal-Mart's labor practices as it does with its property rights claims.
