Translating the Walmart PR Spin

[One Sweet World]

Walmart's hometown newspaper, the Northwest Arkansas Morning News, has an interesting article up today about Walmart executives meeting with 200 of their cronies at a conference and outlining their plans for 2009. It could be a watershed year for progressives, but the Bentonville behemoth has some plans of its own and they ain't pretty.

So I thought I'd go through each one of Walmart's plans and translate some of their PR spin – or wipe the lipstick off the pig, if you will. All stats and figures are compliments of WakeUpWalmart.com, with whom I do some work.

On Growth Projections, Walmart sez:

"Worldwide capital spending is projected to be $13 to $14.5 billion through next year and will add up to 20 million square feet next year, up from the 18 million square feet added last year."

The ugly truth is, Walmart stores currently occupy more square acreage nationwide than the island of Manhattan. Talk about steamrolling the little guy and unfettered sprawl.

On Union Legislation:

"'I thought it was titled the 'forced choice act,'" Walmart CEO Lee Scott joked. "We like driving the car and we aren't going to give the steering wheel to anybody but us."

Funny. The Wall Street Journal broke a story in August about mandatory meetings Wal-Mart was having where they were telling their employees not to vote for Democrats. This is, hands down, a disgusting abuse of power, and it may just be illegal too!

On Getting into the Mortgage Business:

Scott said the retailer was recently on the verge of offering mortgages.

Wow, mortgages? Walmart can't even take care of its own employees. The average two-person family (one parent and one child) needed $27,948 to meet basic needs in 2005, well above what Wal-Mart reports that its average full-time associate earns. Wal-Mart claimed that its average associate earned $9.68 an hour in 2005. That would make the average associate's annual wages $17,114.

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The list could go on but thankfully these are the only big topics that Lee Scott addressed. If you're willing to join the fight to combat Walmart's ugly business practices, I urge you to join WakeUpWalmart.com today!

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Is that annual wage full time or part-time?

I have been told only managers can owrk fulltime and thus get benefits, such as they are.
Most employees work just under the amount of hours that would give them any benefits.
I know some people who work at our local Wal Mart..they are terrified of talking about their jobs, wages, anything.