Wal-Mart Oranges and Washington Apples

Reiko sent a link to another article on Wal-Mart by the Seattle Post Intelligencer about the Washington State teacher’s union (WEA) children’s fund for disadvantaged students. The fund has made a step toward worker solidarity by telling teachers not to buy items at Wal-Mart if the teacher wants reimbursement from the fund.

This article is interesting for two reasons beyond the continued citation of documentation of worker abuse by Wal-Mart and the teacher’s union act of solidarity. The first reason is the intentionally misleading response of the Wal-Mart spokesperson. The second is the lack of investigation or challenge by the reporter of the Wal-Mart misinformation.

Wal-Mart is embarked on a massive public disinformation campaign and they have plenty of money to finance it. One tactic they use is to compare oranges with apples, in this case national oranges with Washington Apples, citing a national average wage of all workers (not just those at Wal-Mart) of $9.35, in comparison with a Washington Wal-Mart Average of $10.14. An honest comparison for Washington State would be the $10.14 wage average for Washington Wal-Mart workers compared to $23.35 wage average for all Washington workers. [Per report from the State of Washington Employment Security Department, the average hourly wage in Washington State was $23.35 in 2003.]

The Wal-Mart spokesman claims 86% of Wal-Mart employees have medical insurance and more than half get it from the company. Assuming that is true, it is an admission that one out of seven Wal-Mart workers have no medical insurance at all, and that Wal-Mart is not providing insurance for two of the remaining six workers. So Wal-Mart, one of the five wealthiest corporations in the entire world, only provides medical insurance for half its employees. It appears about one out of three Wal-Mart employees is either getting medicaid insurance subsidized by the taxpayers or is getting coverage probably through a spouse who works elsewhere, perhaps for a decent employer who has to compete with Wal-Mart on prices.

Reporters should do their homework and correct and challenge this misinformation campaign. Apple and orange comparisons should not be that difficult to detect. And when the issue is how an employer treats its employees, the most significant fact about Wal-Mart and medical insurance for its employees is that only half of them are covered by the Wal-Mart plan, yet the reporter fell for the red herring of putting the 86% figure out there first. I had to look at the article a couple times in disbelief that Wal-Mart could be covering 86% of its employees for medical, before I saw it was actually being reported "backwards".

As for the WEA boycott, with 20-1 member support, it is interesting the article quotes four teachers, one reluctantly shopping at Wal-Mart, one in support of the boycott and two opposed to the boycott. Apparently the reporter considered it balanced enough to quote 2 ½ people against the boycott and 1 ½ in favor, because a true representation of 1 teacher quote against and 20 in favor would have sounded one-sided - but then so was the support for the boycott.

Here’s an idea for the WEA to address the concerns of price conscious teachers. Solicit unionized competitors of Wal-Mart to work with the WEA fund to meet the Wal-Mart prices for purchases by the fund. Giving the teachers and students exposure to a merchant that treats its employees fairly would be good for teachers, students and decent merchants.

As for Wal-Mart’s claimed $40 million tax deductible donation, if true, out of Wal-Mart’s market capitalization of $218.5 billion, that amounts to a contribution of less than two one-hundredths of one percent (.0183%), less than 2 cents per $100 - not much to be tooting about.