Wal-Mart Plays Scrooge This Holiday, Asks Employees To Feed Each Other

A Canton, Ohio Wal-Mart has put up food containers for Wal-Mart associates to donate food for other associates in need during the Thanksgiving holiday. This food drive underscores how poorly Wal-Mart employees are paid.

The world’s largest retailer, which pulls in over 15 billion dollars in profits annually, has decided to hit up low paid workers to help feed other low paid workers for Thanksgiving. The thought of reducing their profit margin by a single percentage point so that Wal-Mart associates could earn an extra 2800 dollars a year (more than enough for a turkey and all the fixings) apparently is not something Wal-Mart considered. Instead they are trying to squeeze generosity out of low wage workers to help feed other low wage workers. According to Glassdoor.com the average Wal-Mart associate makes under nine dollars an hour.

While it is certainly important that working families have food to eat on Thanksgiving, the company, rather than fellow employees, should pick up the slack. Instead of hitting up other employees to provide a box of stuffing and a can of yams, Wal-Mart executives should pay employees a decent wage. The donation bins add insult to injury as they pass responsibility from the wealthy aristocrats in the corporate office down to the low wage workers who are struggling to make ends meet.

If Wal-Mart want their employees to have food on the table for Thanksgiving, they have the capacity to provide them with better pay. Instead, they choose to pass the donation plate around asking one generous poor person to give up their hard-earned money to help feed another, while the miserly company executives continue to amass millions of dollars in wealth off the backs of underpaid workers.

Edited by SS

Keith Brekhus is a progressive sociologist who resides in Red Lodge, Montana. He is co-host for the Liberal Fix radio show. Keith is a former Green Party candidate for US Congress (2002 in Missouri's 9th District). He can be followed on Twitter @keithbrekhus.