I’m Boycotting Wal-Mart

It’s official. I’m boycotting Wal-Mart and I’d like to ask my loyal couple of readers to follow suit (if it’s economically feasible). My reason for this boycott is not because of the fact that 85% of their products are imported or because they are the driving force behind many American companies- like Rubbermaid- to go bankrupt. It’s because of the way they treat their employees.

Take a minute to read this bullshit. Here’s a small excerpt:

The scheduling changes, which have been rolled out in Wal-Mart stores around the country in recent weeks, are a sign that the retailer is acting on ideas outlined in an internal document that was leaked last year. In the memo, a Wal-Mart executive said it would find ways to rid its payroll of full-time and unhealthy employees who are more expensive for the company to retain.

Wal-Mart executives have recently told Wall Street analysts that the company wants to transform its workforce from 20 percent part-time to 40 percent. Recently, it was also reported that older employees in some stores who had back and leg problems were barred from using stools on which they had sat for years.

The moves come as the company is struggling to keep its profits growing at the rapid rate that they have in the past. As it squeezes its workforce expenses and trims costs in all corners, it is also expanding overseas. On Oct. 16, The Wall Street Journal reported that Wal-Mart has agreed to spend $1 billion to acquire Trust-Mart, a closely held Taiwanese company that owns one of the largest food and department store chains in China.

They are trying to weed out older and sicker employees with their new sick leave policy (outlined in the linked article) as well as reduce labor costs by cutting hours. They are also trying to cull the herd (so to speak) by making it more difficult, if not impossible, for single parents to make scheduling changes because of family issues or to miss work because of sick children. Basically they’re cutting the life blood of the working poor, whom they’ve already taken livlihood from by forcing American factories to close. Of course, these employees are already between a rock and a hard place, with no other sustainable income, so they will be forced to choose between their or their children’s health and getting a measley paycheck. And the employees that somehow manage to make it to full time and have some of the paltry benefits that they offer are now at risk at losing the money and the medical insurance. All so that the Walton family can fly around the world in their own fleet of private jets. Isn’t that refreshing?

What pisses me off the most is that they aren’t cutting costs by closing overseas stores or by stopping their massive expansion vision. They are continuing to open more and more stores around the world. But the money that they make is from the American public on whom they’re pissing. Sure, they can make money from the Chinese (but not Koreans- they’ve already lost that market) but are they going to make the kind of money that they make from Americans? They are taking money from the very people that they count on to give them money. It’s a sad state of affairs when Wal-Mart employees can’t even afford to shop at the stores in which they work.

There could be talk of union in Wal-Mart, but that’s highly unlikely. They closed a store in Canada when they formed a union. No, the way to get Wal-Mart to listen to their employees and to actually treat them with some decency (including not dragging American society back to where we were when children worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, you know, before unions) is to cut into their bottom line. That’s why I’m joining the boycott. I guess I’ll have to shop more at Big Lots and Dollar General. Better to spend that money where the employees are actually treated like human beings.

Now, because I seriously hate the Walton family and I love “Harry Potter” to death, I give you this funny spoof of both. Enjoy.

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