Teachers union members are trying to persuade consumers to boycott Wal-Mart. The campaign claims Wal-Mart pays low wages, fails to provide affordable health care, discriminates against women, violates child labor laws and shifts "more than $2.5 billion a year in health care and welfare costs for its underpaid and underinsured workers to U.S. taxpayers," reports the San Jose Mercury News.
Retail employees don't make much money, but presumably they prefer a low-wage job to the alternative. Most Wal-Mart employees work full-time and average $9.68 an hour, the company says. Health benefits start at $35 a month. Wal-Mart gave $45 million last year to teachers and students, in addition to selling low-cost school supplies.
So why is Wal-Mart any worse than any other retailer? Don Dawson, a math teacher at Silver Creek High School in San Jose, said the Walton Family Foundation -- run by the heirs of Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart -- has spent about $250 million in the past six years promoting the school-voucher movement and lobbying for tax credits for parents who send their kids to private schools.
I guess that explains it.
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