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Washington Push for Higher Minimum Wage for Workers Has Walmart Balking

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Entire article at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/us/washington-push-on-wages-has-walmart-balking.html?ref=business

By TRIP GABRIEL
Published: July 20, 2013

WASHINGTON An attempt by the City Council to force profitable chain stores to pay much higher wages than the city?s minimum has infuriated Walmart, which is threatening to pull out of up to six planned stores.

Mayor Vincent C. Gray, who worked hard to lure Walmart, finds himself caught in the middle, and many residents sound less than grateful to lawmakers.
Those big people in government, they don't understand my situation, said Fred Reaves, 45, who is unemployed and said he would gladly take a job at the current city minimum, $8.25.
Eight-something, it'll motivate you to start going to work, Mr. Reaves said as he stood around the Skyland Town Center, a patch of barren asphalt and shuttered stores where Walmart planned to build. You can start paying some bills. It will help you to come off public assistance.

On July 10, the City Council passed a living wage measure that would require Walmart to pay at least $12.50 an hour, saying it was fighting to protect struggling residents in what has become a high-cost city.
Supporters of the measure say that Walmart, whose revenues in 2012 were $469 billion, can well afford to pay workers more.
Their net income was $17 billion, said Vincent Orange, a city councilman who voted for the ordinance. You don't want to share a little bit with the citizens Come on.
A decade ago, the city gave tax breaks to lure retailers, Mr. Orange said, but now it is booming and can negotiate from strength.

The day before the City Council passed the measure, a Walmart official warned in an op-ed article in The Washington Post that if required to pay $12.50 an hour, the company would cancel three planned stores and consider withdrawing from three projects already under construction.

The next move is up to Mayor Gray, who is weighing a veto.
Officially the mayor has taken no position, but he is widely seen as opposed to the measure. The Council has delayed formally sending it to his desk for action. The measure, called the Large Retailer Accountability Act, would require stores of at least 75,000 square feet that are owned by companies with $1 billion or more in annual revenue to pay the higher minimum wage. Because existing stores and those with unions are exempt, it is seen as squarely aimed at Walmart.

As Walmart, the world's largest retailer, has sought inroads in major cities, it has faced resistance from local merchants, who fear being undercut, and from officials who say minimum-wage jobs mire workers in poverty.

Democrats on the House of Representatives work force committee produced a report this spring contending that the government subsidizes Walmart because employees earn so little that they qualify for Medicaid, food stamps and housing assistance.
Pedro Ribeiro, a spokesman for Mayor Gray, argued the opposite: minimum-wage jobs help the chronically unemployed take a first step into the work force.
?Yes, Walmart jobs are not great, Mr. Ribeiro said. ?But for some people, it will be their first employment and they're not qualified to do anything else. We need that entry-level benchmark in the District.
 
Those big people in government, they don't understand my situation, said Fred Reaves, 45, who is unemployed and said he would gladly take a job at the current city minimum, $8.25.

and that was the entire purpose of the manufactured economic collapse. they wanted people to become so desperate that they will take ANY job that comes along, even low paying dead end jobs with no benefits. essentially laying down and giving up and accepted the fact the poverty is now "their" way of life.
 
Because being wealthy to the point of not being able to spend it all or enjoy it they decide they need the rest.
 
Because being wealthy to the point of not being able to spend it all or enjoy it they decide they need the rest.

I don't understand that kind of greed. when you can buy anything and everything you need or want and the balance of your wealth barley budges...you've won, now sit the fuck down, retire and give somebody else a shot.

obviously it's some form of sociopathy.
 
I would be more interested in this if there wasn't the fact that the DC city clowncel exempted other large retailers located within the city because their work force are unionized. In fact, the largest, Safeway Foods has been unionized for some time. Plus they pay less to the workers than Walmart. This was pandering plain and simple.

I also want to know when it became a sin to be successful in this country.
 
I also want to know when it became a sin to be successful in this country.

when your continued success is now harmful to that society which allowed you to become successful. it's all about math, if the overwhelming majority of income and wealth keeps flowing to the top what is the only inevitable outcome? economic collapse...the direction the US is headed in. the only "sustainable" society and consumption based economy is one where productivity gains are enjoyed by all. like the 40 years post the Great Depression when there were no recessions, no bank failures, no bailouts, etc.

a lot of you say you have no problem about the concentration of wealth yet bitch and moan about the consequences of it.

you can't have it both ways.
 
when your continued success is now harmful to that society which allowed you to become successful. it's all about math, if the overwhelming majority of income and wealth keeps flowing to the top what is the only inevitable outcome?

economic collapse...

I think a better way to say this is, when your business model is based on paying your people so little, that the taxpayers are required to step in and subsidies your work force, you aren't successful. You are looting an economy.

Compare Sam's club and Costco. You can see that Walmart could pay its people a decent wage and maintain profitability.
 
I think a better way to say this is, when your business model is based on paying your people so little,

or one that "business model" is based on various rent seeking activities which does not create new wealth, it only transfers it from one group to another or say from the proletariat to the capitalist.
 
I would be more interested in this if there wasn't the fact that the DC city clowncel exempted other large retailers located within the city because their work force are unionized. In fact, the largest, Safeway Foods has been unionized for some time. Plus they pay less to the workers than Walmart. This was pandering plain and simple.

I also want to know when it became a sin to be successful in this country.

How would Safeway pay less than minimum wage?
 
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How would Safeway pay less than minimum wage?

You know, because union wages are so low, and businesses never complain that unions cost them too much or anything like that.
 
I don't understand that kind of greed. when you can buy anything and everything you need or want and the balance of your wealth barley budges...you've won, now sit the fuck down, retire and give somebody else a shot.

obviously it's some form of sociopathy.

agreed!

sick!
 
They should also push for legislation requiring a certain amount of the work force be unionized. Legal backing and protection of organized labor would create competitive wages and force large retailers to raise wages to compete. Also require repayment of all subsidies if a fund isn't started to help the underemployed into apprenticeship programs and trade school training. The objective of the walmart business model is to externalize all costs. The only sensible response is to legislate internalization of their business costs i.e. regulations.
 
I'm almost positive they are union, so that would be impossible.

Let me correct myself. The Safeway workers are unionized in the DC area. They pay the DC minimum of $8.50 per hour. Walmart entered the area with the intention of paying starting wages at $9.00 per hour.
 
Let me correct myself. The Safeway workers are unionized in the DC area. They pay the DC minimum of $8.50 per hour. Walmart entered the area with the intention of paying starting wages at $9.00 per hour.

That sounds lovely, except for when most of those employees are part-time.

Boo hoo, even if Walmart decided it couldn't handle the burden of paying a livable wage to it's employees and had to pass it on to its customers it would cost .46 cents per trip on average. You clip one Save .50 cents on Midol for your cranky vagina and you're all good. Thats the problem with America, we have these great movements to put more power back in the hands of us Working Class Slaves and still have people who tow a party line against it. Either they are brain-washed or have aspirations to become a corporate power elite. I don't know, but let me warn you now "They are not going to reward you for your loyalty. You are just a pawn in their global strategy. They don't even know who you are, but thank you for helping to grow their obscene bank accounts."

http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/retail/bigbox_livingwage_policies11.pdf
 
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