Walmart: America's real 'Welfare Queen'

By Paddy Ryan

Walmart, one of the richest corporations in the world, refuses to pay its employees a livable wage or provide any form of decent healthcare, increasing reliance on government assistance, and the need for a social safety net.

At over $446 billion per year, Walmart is the third highest revenue grossing corporation in the world. Walmart earns over $15 billion per year in pure profit and pays its executives handsomely. In 2011, Walmart CEO Mike Duke – already a millionaire a dozen times over – received an $18.1 million compensation package. The Walton family controlling over 48 percent of the corporation through stock ownership does even better. Together, members of the Walton family are worth in excess of $102 billion – which makes them one of the richest families in the world.

What is shameful is that CEO Mike Duke makes more money in one hour, than his employees earn in an entire year. Yet, Walmart – which employs millions of people in its stores, distribution centers, and warehouses – continues to abuse its employees and refuses to pay them a livable wage. The company has frequently been charged with wage theft claims by workers who point to the most common forms of wage theft: the refusal to pay proper overtime, the refusal to honor the minimum wage, and illegal paycheck deductions.

Meanwhile, Walmart routinely blocks any attempt by workers to organize, using anti-union propaganda and scare tactics, firing employees without just cause, failing to provide any form of decent healthcare coverage or a livable wage.

To make matters worse, these abusive Walmart policies have increased employee reliance on government assistance and the need for a government funded social safety net. In fact, Walmart has become the number one driver behind the growing use of food stamps in the United States with "as many as 80 percent of workers in Wal-Mart stores using food stamps."

Wal-Mart's poverty wages force employees to rely on $2.66 billion in government help every year, or about $420,000 per store. In state after state, Wal-Mart employees are the top recipients of Medicaid. As many as 80 percent of workers in Wal-Mart stores use food stamps.

Walmart's employees receive $2.66 billion in government help every year, or about $420,000 per store. They are also the top recipients of Medicaid in numerous states. Why does this occur? Walmart fails to provide a livable wage and decent healthcare benefits, costing U.S. taxpayers an annual average of $1.02 billion in healthcare costs. This direct public subsidy is being given to offset the failures of an international corporate giant who shouldn’t be shifting part of its labor costs onto the American taxpayers.

Wal-Mart workers’ reliance on public assistance due to substandard wages and benefits has become a form of indirect public subsidy to the company. In effect, Wal-Mart is shifting part of its labor costs onto the public.

Recently, Walmart workers have been speaking out against the abuses they face because of excessive corporate greed. For the first time in Walmart's 50 year history, workers at multiple stores are striking. Last week, over 70 Walmart workers in Los Angeles decided to walk off the job.

The Huffington Post reported this week that the recent wave of Walmart strikes has now grown to 12 cities across the United States, with workers walking off the job in Dallas, Seattle, the Bay Area, Miami, the Washington D.C. area, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Chicago and Orlando, in addition to cities in Kentucky, Missouri and Minnesota. 

According to the United Food and Commercial Workers, 88 workers from 28 different stores went on strike yesterday.

And it's not just Walmart's storefront employees speaking out for justice. The warehouse workers that Walmart employs through its supply chain have been striking as well. Walmart warehouse workers in Illinois and California also went on strike earlier this month.

They are fed up. And we should be too. Walmart should no longer be allowed to turn its back on the American worker and push its labor costs onto the American taxpayer. We need to protect our social safety net, American workers and American taxpayers. If Walmart can afford to pay CEO Mike Duke an $18.1 million bonus package, it can afford to provide a living wage for those whose sweat and hard work has made Walmart one of the richest corporations in the world.

Human Rights Campaign: Family Research Council is a hate group

By Eric W. Dolan from The Raw Story

republished by Paddy Ryan

The president of the Human Rights Campaign has refused stop labeling the Family Research Council as a hate group, even after a LGBT activist was charged with shooting a security guard at the organization’s Washington headquarters.

Family Research Council still a hate group

“Designating the Family Research Council a hate group has nothing to do with disagreements about marriage equality, nondiscrimination laws or any other policy debate,” HRC President Chad Griffin wrote in an op-ed piece for the Washington Post. “The real issue is the Family Research Council’s well-documented and continuous pattern of hateful rhetoric.”

Following the shooting, the Southern Poverty Law Center and LGBT rights groups faced criticism from conservatives for labeling the FRC as a hate group.

The Southern Poverty Law Center had labeled the organization a hate group since 2010 “because of its dissemination of false and demonizing propaganda about gays and lesbians.”

National Organization for Marriage president Brian Brown called on the Southern Poverty Law Center and LGBT rights groups to withdraw the “harmful and dangerous labels.” The Christian Broadcasting Network wondered “Did ‘hate group’ label stir FRC shooting?” FRC President Tony Perkins accused the Southern Poverty Law Center of giving the shooter a “license” to commit the act.

“The logic that the Southern Poverty Law Center or LGBT organizations are to blame is preposterous, outrageous and irresponsible,” Griffin wrote. “No matter one’s political views, we can all agree that acts of violence are never justified and should always be condemned.”

Griffin noted that Perkins had claimed that pedophilia was a “homosexual problem.” Other people associated with the FRC have called for deporting gay people from the U.S. and making homosexuality a crime, Griffin said.

HRC is the largest LGBT advocacy group in the nation.

Staffing agencies are above the law

By Paddy Ryan

Temporary employment agencies (also known as staffing agencies) are a relatively new phenomenon. They have exploded onto the scene as a great way of avoiding laws, dodging government regulation and cutting labor costs. States with major ocean ports - like New Jersey and California - have a higher amount of temporary employment agencies than other states, but overall it has become a nationwide issue.

These agencies claim that they are fair and follow all the rules and regulations including the Fair Labor Standard Act (FISA). Agencies say that they are filling a necessary void in the market, doing a good deed and finding work for people who need it most.

They argue that temporary agencies fill personnel gaps that are created with seasonal upsurges, sick or maternity leave, vacations and during times of rapid expansion.

But according to numerous studies, staffing agencies serve a much more insidious purpose:agencies are nothing more than a tool for employers to cut labor costs by dodging taxes and government regulation.

OnTarget Staffing, a temporary employment agency based in New Jersey and Florida, claims that employers using staffing agencies to provide labor to companies save on;

•    Withholding taxes
•    Social security
•    Unemployment/Workers Compensation
•    Payroll Costs
•    Recruiting Costs
•    Turnover Costs
•    Advertising Costs

An employer that hires agency labor is not legally responsible for these hired workers - the staffing agency is the one held responsible. And staffing agencies frequently violate current labor law because the laws aren't strong enough.

Current labor laws don't protect undocumented workers, and they don't contain strong whistle blower protections, so too many workers are afraid to stand up for themselves in fear of retaliation. This allows staffing agencies to retain total control, and continue getting away with stealing from workers and refusing to honor safety standards.

More conservative estimates say that on average, staffing agencies steal wages from at least 50 percent of employees, while almost 6 in 10 agency employees have stated that they work in 'unsafe' conditions.

Most of the temporary workers provided by staffing agencies wind up working somewhere along the supply line of common 'big-box' retailers like Wal-mart, Target, and Home Depot.

Until we strengthen labor laws that prevent employers from hiring temporary employees as a way to evade their legal obligations, and provide workers with wage and benefit protections, this problem will continue to threaten the entire American workforce.

Hardworking families need a living wage

By Paddy Ryan

In today’s tough economic environment, hardworking American families relying on minimum wage salaries desperately need a minimum wage increase. The current federally mandated minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, but its real value in purchasing power is even lower after taking inflation into account. The real value of the minimum wage peaked in 1968. Ever since then, it has failed to keep up with the pace of inflation. If the minimum wage had kept up with the pace of inflation, it would currently exceed $10.50 an hour – a long way from $7.25.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, the real value of today's minimum wage is the lowest it has been in over 50 years.

Over the past 50 years, “as the basic income required to support a family has grown with inflation, the minimum wage has not kept pace with the rising costs of goods.”

It has become a nationwide epidemic. In the richest country in the world, there are people, families, children who go hungry at night, who can't afford school supplies, single-mothers who have to work three jobs just to afford a sub-standard apartment. An hourly wage of $7.25 amounts to an annual salary of $15,080; people who rely on the minimum wage cannot live on $7.25 an hour in an economy where apples cost $3 per pound, or where a gallon of gas costs $3.50.

Take minimum wage worker Margaret Lewis for example:

Margaret Lewis knows firsthand what it's like to live on the edge. She works as a transporter for passengers with disabilities at O'Hare International Airport. She wakes up at 1 a.m. to go to work, and spends the early morning hours pushing wheelchairs to gates and helping travelers on and off planes.With tips, and Illinois' minimum wage -- which is $1 above the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour -- Margaret makes about $18,000 a year, or $10,000 below the federal poverty limit for a household of five.
Margaret lives with her four school-age children in a three-bedroom apartment on Chicago's South Side. Two recent shootings on her block make her fear for her children's safety, but she cannot afford to move. Margaret is unable to pay the $850 per month rent, so she and her family perform janitorial tasks for the landlord to make ends meet. The children's clothing is all secondhand, Margaret uses food stamps to make sure everyone is fed and when it is time to buy shoes for school, she has to save an entire paycheck.

And Margaret Lewis is far from an anomaly. According to estimates, there are about 3.8 million more people like Margaret Lewis, struggling to survive on the current minimum wage.

A federal raise in the minimum wage - like the bill proposed in Congress by Representative Jesse L. Jackson Jr. - would give some relief to these struggling 3.8 million minimum wage workers who make up a sizable part of the working class.

Jackson's bill is called The Catching Up To 1968 Act Of 2012, and it immediately raises the minimum wage to $10.00 per hour and includes automatic minimum wage indexing "in proportion to the increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI)."

Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa has also sponsored a bill introduced in the U.S. Senate, which would increase the minimum wage to $9.80 an hour over two years. The bill is called the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2012. It was introduced and referred to Committee on July 26 of 2012 and it now has 16 co-sponsors in the U.S. Senate.

These bills would provide some much needed support to minimum wage workers in a time of desperation.

But it's not just minimum wage workers that would benefit from a minimum wage increase.

Raising the minimum wage helps everyone.

Of course raising the minimum wage helps those Americans who are struggling to survive on the current minimum wage. But it also helps higher wage earners by fueling economic growth as well.

Consumer spending fuels economic growth and "a 2011 paper by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago found that a $1 minimum-wage increase lifts household income by about $250 and increases spending by about $700 a quarter in the following year."

If 3.8 million minimum wage workers all had their wages increased, we would see an increase in consumer spending. This increase in consumer spending would benefit small and medium businesses - still recovering from the 'great recession' - who would see an increase in customers. This would stimulate the economy and it would, in turn, create more jobs. It's simple economics.

In an interview on his proposed minimum wage bill, Representative Jesse L. Jackson Jr. said,

the economy would be bolstered by increasing “the purchasing power of millions of low-income and low-wage workers, and one proven and effective way of doing that is to raise the federal minimum wage.”

Representative Jackson is right, and it's not just fellow Democratic politicians like Senator Harkin who agree with him either.

A group of prominent economists including Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs, Laura Tyson, and Robert Reich sent a letter Monday July 23 to congressional leaders. The letter urges leaders on Capitol Hill to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $9.80 by 2014.

"At a time when persistent high unemployment is putting enormous downward pressure on wages, such a minimum wage increase would provide a much-needed boost to the earnings of low-wage workers," the group wrote.

Democrats in Congress need to include a minimum wage increase into a list of their top priorities. It's in the best interest of working-class Americans and it is economically responsible because it encourages economic growth. In my opinion, it could be a populist message that may pay off for Democrats in the fall elections.

The only way that a raise in the minimum wage can happen is with pressure from a concerned citizenry. We can make that change happen. So, I ask you to share this diary in the hope that even one Congressional Democratic politician will read this and join us in moving forward with raising the minimum wage. I, again, ask you to share this diary in solidarity with labor and in support of the civil rights of all workers.

Wage theft: abusive employers fuel nationwide epidemic

By Paddy Ryan

Wage theft - the non-payment or the under-payment of an agreed upon wage - has been a growing problem across the country, seen in every industry from retail and service to manufacturing and construction. Wage theft primarily affects low-wage unskilled workers, forcing most families who rely on minimum wage below the federal poverty line. Unfortunately the issue has been widely under-publicized and, therefore, vastly unknown to a majority of the American public.

But many recent studies have been conducted over the past few years that are now shining a beacon of light on how bad the growing epidemic of wage theft has become. Universities, labor organizations, community groups, non-profits, and others have been collecting data on the subject for long enough now that a lot of valuable new information has been discovered.

The most common forms of wage theft: the refusal to pay proper overtime, the refusal to honor the minimum wage, and illegal paycheck deductions like transportation costs. Illegal transportation deductions are most frequently seen in the temporary employment industry, where low-wage 'temp agency' workers are driven to and from the job site.

"Although this practice is of dubious legality, many agency workers have little practical alternative but to accept these [transportation] charges if they hope to have a job."

Studies have been conducted across the United States regarding the wage theft epidemic. An especially disheartening independent study from 2009 - Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers - found that a whopping 76 percent of workers claimed they had been underpaid or not paid at all by their employer. The study – conducted by the National Employment Law Project – surveyed over 4,000 low-wage workers throughout the cities of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

In 2010, the Seton Hall Law School Center for Social Justice released a report entitled All Work and No Pay, which documented rampant wage theft throughout the low-wage community in New Jersey. According to their survey results, "54% of the workers statewide were paid less money than they were promised by at least one employer."

One of the most recent independent studies was conducted by New Labor - a community outreach & labor organization - along with Jason Rowe of Harvard University. The study surveyed 291 workers in the New Jersey logistics industry and found that over one-third (36.1%) of those surveyed were not paid in full for the wages that they had been promised. That's almost 4 out of 10 low-wage workers that have been underpaid, or even unpaid, by their employer!

Wage theft doesn't only affect low-wage workers either; it affects everyones paycheck by driving down salaries across the economic spectrum.

"There is a cost to our local economies, with fewer dollars circulating to local businesses, stunting economic recovery. And there is a cost to growth and opportunity as generations of workers are trapped in sub-minimum wage jobs."

Fighting Back

In 2011, the National Employment Law Project released a guide to combating wage theft entitled Winning Wage Justice, An Advocate's Guide to State and City Policies to Fight Wage Theft.

NELP's guide contains seven basic principles to help stop wage theft:

1. Raise the Cost to Employers for Violating the Law.
2. Make Government Agencies Effective Enforcers of the Law.
3. Better Protect Workers From Retaliation.
4. End the Exclusions in Minimum Wage and Overtime Standards.
5. Stop Independent Contractor Misclassification and Hold Subcontractors Accountable.
6. Ensure Workers Are Paid for All Hours Worked.
7. Guarantee that Workers Can Collect from Their Employers.

NELP was able to publish its suggestions with the help of new information, released by organizations like New Labor and Seton Hall, who have provided a better understanding of the problem, and how to successfully combat it.

However, only a limited number of states are actually listening to these suggestions and trying to do something about the problem.

In both New York and California, Wage Theft Prevention Acts were passed in 2011. The New York Wage Theft Prevention Act, expands the civil and criminal remedies that are available when employers fail to comply with the provisions. The California Wage Theft Prevention Act of 2011 differs significantly from the New York law because it requires that notices be given only to non-exempt (hourly) employees. Massachusetts also has wage theft legislation in place, along with Connecticut, Illinois, and (surprisingly) North Carolina.

But all of these state laws need to be strengthened.

According to a new study from the Progressive States Network,

As it turns out, one of the most important findings of this report is that state wage theft laws, in general, are almost universally inadequate. In our scoring system, the two highest-rating states, New York (with an overall grade of C+) and Massachusetts (with a grade of C), only receive 77% and 74% of the total possible points respectively, and it is a steep fall from there: Connecticut, Illinois, North Carolina, and California follow with grades of D, and the other 44 states and Washington, DC receive F’s. Further underscoring the deep drop-off, the tenth-ranked state receives only 52% of the total points, and the bottom eleven states all receive 25% or less. Two states — Alabama and Mississippi — scored zero points.

However, there is some good news. The legislation passed in 2011 has let workers reclaim millions of dollars in stolen wages throughout New York and California.

The National Employment Law Project reports that, "In the past year alone, workers recovered tens of millions of dollars in unpaid wages from their employers in a range of industries. For example, ... New York car wash workers received $3.5 million in unpaid overtime."

Unfortunately, only six states currently have laws dealing with wage theft, and all of those laws need to be strengthened. The fight against wage theft is just beginning and there is much more to be done. Most workers are not as lucky as those workers who were able to recover millions of dollars in lost wages. Many will continue to suffer from the abuses of wage theft, and still desperately need help. It will take a team effort by the liberal media, an informed and concerned citizenry, community organizations, advocacy groups, Democratic politicians, organized labor and the like, to put an end to wage theft for good.

So in that same spirit, please, if you care about the civil rights of workers and the future of organized labor, share this diary. Thank you.