Attention Wal-Mart Shoppers

The fight to stop the Wal-Martization of everything everywhere moves to the streets of Staten Island Saturday. Workers from markets across the area will circulate anti-Wal-Mart petitions in front of their stores. According to the Statin Island Advance members of Local 342 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) and Local 338 of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) will be seeking petition signatures from shoppers in front of Island supermarkets such as Pathmark, Waldbaum's, Stop & Shop and King Kullen. The petitions will be handed over later to Borough President James Molinaro and other local leaders.

Wal-Mart is trying to open its first New York City store over intense opposition.

Mike Mareno, secretary treasurer of UFCW Local 342, says the workers will use coffee breaks and lunch hours and set up tables outside their stores as part of the Stop Wal-Mart effort. "This is just keeping everyone's awareness on the issue and to let Staten Islanders know the issue has not gone away," Mareno said of the weekend petition drive. "People who care about the quality of life on Staten Island should remain vigilant on the issue."

Brian McLaughlin, President of the New York City Central Labor Council told Workers Independent News,”The legacy of Wal-Mart is not lower prices. The legacy of Wal-Mart is really lowering the living standards for working people.” He said, “When you put a Wal-Mart into a community – anywhere in the ring of that community – and you were to study it five years later you would find that revenues are down, that jobs are down. Net jobs, not the promise of the four hundred Wal-Mart’ll bring in – but net jobs are down in the retail industry.”

It is interesting to note that according to Wal-Mart documents CEO H. Lee Scott, Jr. total compensation last year was 871 times that of the average US Wal-Mart Worker and as much as 50,000 times that made by Wal-Mart sub-contracted workers in some parts of the world.

The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) reports that figures provided by Wal-Mart indicate full-time U.S. employees earn on average $9.68 per hour. “The firm,” IPS notes, “has not released pay figures for the 26 percent of its employees that, according to Wal-Mart, work part-time.”

IPS also reports, Wal-Mart’s full-time pay rate of $9.68 is about 37 percent lower than the national average wage of $15.35 for production and non-supervisory workers. As a result of Wal-Mart’s low wages, many employees of the world’s largest company must rely on government healthcare, food, housing and other aid. A study by Congressional Democratic staff estimated that Wal-Mart workers receive on average $2,103 per year in federal subsidies alone.

Over the last two years 13 states disclosed information about employers that were major users of health insurance programs which help low income families. Wal-Mart topped the list in every state, except Massachusetts where it was second, and Wisconsin which did not disclose the usage of employers other than Wal-Mart. Wake-Up Wal-Mart reports, that, “Combined, the 13 states disclose that at least 55,000 Wal-Mart employees, children, and spouses are covered by state health insurance programs. A total of 480,000 Wal-Mart employees work in these 12 states meaning that on average for every nine Wal-Mart employees, at least one Wal-Mart family member is getting state-provided health care” (A total of approximately 505,000 Wal-Mart employees work in the 13 states).

"When Wal-Mart opens, communities suffer," RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum said earlier this year. "The question for New Yorkers is this - What are our real values? Wal-Mart's promise of low prices comes at too great a cost. Wal-Mart's business practices drive down standards for workers putting pressure on all employers to compete at their level. Low wages and high premiums and deductibles keep more than two-thirds of Wal-Mart employees from participating in the company health plan. Nearly 700,000 Wal-Mart workers are forced to get health insurance coverage paid for by other taxpayers. Wal-Mart shifts the cost of health insurance to taxpayers and other employers driving up health care costs for all of us." Sources: Statin Island Advance, Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), Wake-Up Wal-Mart, RWDSU, Workers Independent News