Collegiate Times

It?s difficult to speak out against an antagonist waving a flag and grinning with that classic, yellow smirk. But it?s not so difficult when the truth is on your side. If Wal-Mart does one helping handful of good to American society and culture, it must get in 10 sucker punches when we turn our backs.

According to a Wal-Mart store manager, Weldon Nicholson, of 17 years, Wal-Mart readily encourages their employees to seek out government financial assistance (Medicaid, Medicare, and so on). Nicholson also professes that managers are taught how to shave bits of time off of employees? time cards and to gently press their workers to work off the clock. ?You won?t ever find these policies in a Wal-Mart handbook, but every single manager in this country is taught how to do these things ... If you learn to do them well, you are promoted ... If not, then they find a way to force you out? (Walmartmovie.com).

Just why would Wal-Mart employees even need government assistance if they are getting an average wage of ?$10.11 per hour? as was mentioned (CT, Feb. 8, ?ExxonMobil, Wal-Mart ... ?)? Well, the actual average Wal-Mart wage, according to a Business Week study that references a recent lawsuit against the consumer giant, is $8.23 for sales clerks, or ?associates? as they are referred to. Walmartfacts.com lists $9.68 as the entire corporate average wage. Even that latter amount falls below the government-labeled poverty line considering full-time hours. It?s no wonder Wal-Mart employees need taxpayer assistance to make do.

And let?s hope those thousands, tens of thousands of employees don?t get sick while trying to pay rent and buy food. In 2002, Wal-Mart raised the bar on its healthcare benefits requirements: full-time employees (34+ hours / week) now must wait 6 months before applying for coverage, while part-time employees must wait two years, according to Wikipedia.org. Two years! And remember, part-time employees are those working any less than 34 hours per week. Here are a few more facts for those still undecided in their opinions regarding this domestic menace. Wal-Mart pays $7,000 for Anti-Union Camera Packages per store, $7 million for Anti-Union Rapid Response Teams (including Lear jets), and zero dollars for parking lot surveillance not related to the anti-union setup (guess where the many thefts, robberies, assaults, rapes and murders take place on Wal-Mart premises). Wal-Mart received over $1 billion in government subsidies to set up shop in 2004. Once tax concessions for new stores begin to fizzle, Wal-Mart sometimes relocates stores just beyond city limits so as to not endure normal taxation; this practice has left over 350 regularly unusable buildings for sale or lease, totaling to 26 million square feet of steel and concrete (that?s 534 football fields!), according to Walmartmovie.com.

As consumers, we have the ultimate choice and power. Local businesses have a hard enough time paying obscene rents and putting up with landlord blunders. One only has to look at the example of Crossroads Music for that. It?s important to do what we can to see that our local businesses thrive and take root in a nourishing market.