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Walmart, the nation's largest private employee, is notorious for paying poverty wages to its workeforce while refusing calls for better treatment of employees and aggressively blocking efforts at unionization.
According to the Guardian, "Walmart has 1.3 million US employees, about 4,000 of whom currently make either a state or federal minimum wage."
From Bloomberg:
Wal-Mart is weighing the impact of additional payroll costs against possibly attracting more consumer dollars to its stores, David Tovar, a company spokesman, said [...] in a telephone interview. Increasing the minimum wage means that some of the 140 million people who shop at the chain weekly would "now have additional income," Tovar said.
Subsequently, and responding to questions about whether the company would support or resist a renewed push by Democrats on Capitol Hill and the Obama administration to raise the national minimum wage to $10.10, Tovar said: "That's something we're looking at. Whenever there's debates, it's not like we look once and make a decision. We look a few times from other angles."
But, seemingly eager to back off even that mild statement, a second Walmart representative said Tovar's comments had been taken out of context and told the Guardian: "We are looking at it, as you would expect any large company. That does not mean we have changed our position."
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Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |

Walmart, the nation's largest private employee, is notorious for paying poverty wages to its workeforce while refusing calls for better treatment of employees and aggressively blocking efforts at unionization.
According to the Guardian, "Walmart has 1.3 million US employees, about 4,000 of whom currently make either a state or federal minimum wage."
From Bloomberg:
Wal-Mart is weighing the impact of additional payroll costs against possibly attracting more consumer dollars to its stores, David Tovar, a company spokesman, said [...] in a telephone interview. Increasing the minimum wage means that some of the 140 million people who shop at the chain weekly would "now have additional income," Tovar said.
Subsequently, and responding to questions about whether the company would support or resist a renewed push by Democrats on Capitol Hill and the Obama administration to raise the national minimum wage to $10.10, Tovar said: "That's something we're looking at. Whenever there's debates, it's not like we look once and make a decision. We look a few times from other angles."
But, seemingly eager to back off even that mild statement, a second Walmart representative said Tovar's comments had been taken out of context and told the Guardian: "We are looking at it, as you would expect any large company. That does not mean we have changed our position."
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Walmart, the nation's largest private employee, is notorious for paying poverty wages to its workeforce while refusing calls for better treatment of employees and aggressively blocking efforts at unionization.
According to the Guardian, "Walmart has 1.3 million US employees, about 4,000 of whom currently make either a state or federal minimum wage."
From Bloomberg:
Wal-Mart is weighing the impact of additional payroll costs against possibly attracting more consumer dollars to its stores, David Tovar, a company spokesman, said [...] in a telephone interview. Increasing the minimum wage means that some of the 140 million people who shop at the chain weekly would "now have additional income," Tovar said.
Subsequently, and responding to questions about whether the company would support or resist a renewed push by Democrats on Capitol Hill and the Obama administration to raise the national minimum wage to $10.10, Tovar said: "That's something we're looking at. Whenever there's debates, it's not like we look once and make a decision. We look a few times from other angles."
But, seemingly eager to back off even that mild statement, a second Walmart representative said Tovar's comments had been taken out of context and told the Guardian: "We are looking at it, as you would expect any large company. That does not mean we have changed our position."
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