A Look At The New Upscale Wal-Mart

   As you may well know, Wal-Mart has decided to go upscale with many of their stores. They wish to service a more upscale crowd and not just the working class person who frequents their stores the majority of the time.

    While this is well and good, the story is that Wal-Mart is still continuing with their less than stellar business practices and treatment of their employees.

    From Alternet:

Beneath Wal-Mart's new cosmetic sheen lies the same old ugliness. The average employee toils for $8.23 an hour -- a poverty-level wage that amounts to about $16,700 a year gross (in both meanings of that word). Many don't even make that, for Wal-Mart defines "fulltime" work as 36 hours a week rather than the usual 40. It's common for bosses to hold workers to under 24 hours a week, which reduces gross annual income to only about $10,000.

Meanwhile, fewer than half of Wal-Mart's employees get any healthcare benefits at all -- and those who do must pay 41 percent of the cost for a lousy plan that carries a $3,000 deductible per family plus a $300 pharmacy deductible and a $1,000 in-patient hospital deductible. Honchos at headquarters keep insisting that the health benefits they offer are "competitive" with other retailers. But look no further than Costco, where a good plan covers 80 percent of employees and the company pays 90 percent of the premiums.

The richest corporation in retailing, with $312 billion in sales (more than the next five biggest retailers combined), pushes the bulk of its workers onto public-assistance programs, even telling employees how to sign up for government help in a company bulletin called "Instructions for Associates." In all 23 states that have released data on their state-funded health-care programs, Wal-Mart is the corporation with the most employees and dependents enrolled. Also, in a 2005 internal memo, the company's head of benefits conceded that "46 percent of associates' children are either on Medicaid or uninsured."   Entire Article

        So as you can see, even with going somewhat upscale, Wal-Mart employees and their families will still be getting shafted at every possible turn.

    With $312 billion in sales this company should be ashamed of itself!

 

Technorati tags: Wal-Mart

 

Bush Administration Still Grabbing For Power

    The Bush administration, ever so loyal to the business community,signed a directive which gives the government ( White house)more control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy.

 From The Washington Post < Original Article

January 30,2007

By ROBERT PEAR

Published: January 30, 2007

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 — President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy.

In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities.

This strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts. It suggests that the administration still has ways to exert its power after the takeover of Congress by the Democrats.  More

   Once again we have the president still dishing out favors for his politically connected business who have to deal with government agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

    Of course, the general counsel at the White house,Jeffrey A. Rosen said,“This is a classic good-government measure that will make federal agencies more open and accountable.”

     Since when has any agency in the Bush administration been open or accountable?

 

Technorati tags: Bush Administration, EPA