You have to admit there is more than a little irony in the announcement that the Walmart Foundation has contributed $30,000 to NeighborImpact’s Food Recovery Program.
NeighborImpact, as the executive director notes, serves economically disadvantaged people in Central Oregon. Walmart pays lousy wages andprovides crappy benefits, helping to create economically disadvantaged people in Central Oregon.
Six members of the Walton family, the folks who control the company and the foundation, are wealthier than the bottom 30 percent of all American families. Since 2007 – while working-class Americans and many Walmart employeesexperienced a loss in income, savings, health care,jobs and homes – these six Walton relatives increased their combined wealth by45 percent, from $63.7 billion to $93 billion.This tax-deductible $30,000 grant generates phony PR for a cheapskate company that opposes minimum wage laws,spends untold sums of money to fight unions, discriminates against women workers, uses contractors who systematically abuse workers in foreign countries, and delivers huge campaign contributions to politicians who vote to gut anti-poverty programs like NeighborImpact at every opportunity. If Walmart really cared for the poor and the hungry, they could start by spending more money to directlyhelp the people who labor in their stores and for their overseas contractors.
The Walton Gangusesits wealthto create more poverty to the point where many of Walmart employees will need the food bank services at NeighborImpact.Buying a little good will at NeighborImpact at the expense of the people NeighborImpact servesis nothing to celebrate.
-Michael Funke, Bend
This article appears in Jan 12-18, 2012.
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Bla, bla, bla.
Same talking points his group of anti Walmart kooks have been spewing for years.
Funny, no mention of the well funded, union backed and “big box” supermarket supported effort to stop super center sitings all across the country by a lobbying firm called Saint Consulting Group. The paid operatives from this outfit swoop into town using fake names, making phone calls to local leaders, writing letters to local papers, and working to generate negative publicity surrounding the projected build with the locals and at public hearings. They attempt to ensnare the approval by hiring “traffic experts” to create bogus traffic studies……any of this sound familiar? It should. It’s the exact blue print used in Bend. Saint is known to have been hired by Safeway to shut down 30 prospective builds in the west, including OR and very likely the one in Bend.
Everyone of the few dozen dispicable people who opposed the Walmart super center in Bend, of which we will never know how many were on the payroll of Saint, have the obligation to explain why people who desire the option of shopping at the low price leader cannot do so, particularly in difficult times like these.
Besides, people like Funke have never proven the toxicity of Walmart. If you don’t shop there, you won’t be supporting their practices, and if you don’t work there, you won’t be suffering from their supposedly predatory hiring conditions. If you do work there, you are doing so of your own free will, and therefore have agreed that the market price of an hour of your labor is what Walmart is willing to pay. It’s really that simple.
Spare us the Big Lie stuff, Jonny Boy. Saint was nowhere near the Bend Supercenter campaign, no one in Our Community First took a penny for their volunteer efforts, and local individuals contributed thousands of dollars (along with both unions and businesses, but NOT Safeway) to fund the OCF hiring of a land use attorney and a traffic consultant, both of whom exposed the serious problems with WM’s plans. Even the Walmart folks who were here in Bend for this fight wouldn’t make these outlandish claims. Jegglie spews out this s–t and hopes some of it will stick. Instead it just runs down his leg.
One more thing Jon, just to correct some more lies. Our Community First never once suggested a consumer boycott of Walmart. Nor did we ever say people shouldn’t work there. We understood the attraction of slogans about low prices even if they were not accurate. I do believe there are plenty of Bend residents who shop at WM so I don’t see how we somehow have prevented that from happening. An occasional reality check can be helpful. And we certainly recognized that jobs are hard to come by under any circumstances. We applauded those WM workers who stood up for their rights and I personally continue to applaud WM workers around the country who are currently challenging the anti-worker practices of their employer. They are resisting the idea that they are only worth the pittance provided by WM. It takes real courage to fighgt back against a boss who screws you and I applaud them for not buying the notion that a “free market” determines their worth.
In 2001 I was an employee of WalMart. I quit after two months.
I witnessed employees being manipulated and abused in several ways during my short time there. One way they demeaned their employees that I am willing to discuss publicly was represented by a class action lawsuit. I was not involved in the suit.
I worked the graveyard shift. As the shift ended, many of the management routinely and loudly directed the staff to clock out. We were asked repeatedly and almost daily, after we followed that direction, to do one last thing as we were leaving the store.
I refused every time, but many of my peers, certainly afraid for their jobs, almost always acquiesced. It became obvious to me that WalMart’s abuse of their employees is protracted and deliberate.
I have seen, read, or heard nothing to suggest that they have found new respect for their “associates” in the last decade. WalMart is not good for our town, and potentially displaces other businesses that could be treating better our neighbors.
I also have many economic reasons for opposing WalMart.
One of them is the HIGH COST OF LOW COST. WalMart, and other big corporations that come here to our home, come to take more than they put in.
We will become better served, and more prosperous when we drive this ravenous beast from us and allow locals to create businesses that will tend to keep our money and prosperity here.
Thank you for thinking about it.
Spare us the grass roots we just care about the little guy stuff. The anti Walmart movement is a well funded, big union backed, nationally networked organization whose desired end state is to accomplish one thing…….organize the corporation. Sorry that the dirty little secret about Saint is out there, but the fact is that what I wrote is verifiable and correct.
“I do believe there are plenty of Bend residents who shop at WM so I don’t see how we somehow have prevented that from happening.”
Not sure if this little snippet of insanity deserves a response but here goes. Walmart plans supercenter for Cooley road property. OCF stops build with biased traffic study. OCF takes credit for stopping the build. Cooley property sits empty 7 years later, therefore nobody is shopping there.