If this were a just world, nobody would take Working Families for Wal-Mart seriously. If you don’t know, Working Families for Wal-Mart is the name of an organization created with Wal-Mart money to lobby movers and shakers about the “benefits” of Wal-Mart. The New York Times reported a couple of weeks ago that not only does the majority of its Board of Directors have a business relationship with Wal-Mart, the company is pressuring its suppliers to join the group. Perhaps “Oppressed Producers of Cheap Plastic Crap and Fatty Meat for Wal-Mart” would be a better name.

Despite the deceptive nature of this organization, its name is instructive. The fact that Wal-Mart wants to identify “Working Families” as the core of its constituency tells us that the company wants to be seen as Populist. It’s just like finding out that a group calling itself “Citizens for a Green Planet” is a front for the oil industry. Everybody knows this happens all the time.

But let’s forget about Working Families for Wal-Mart’s pedigree and look closely at their reasoning. When paid figurehead Andrew Young joined the group back in February, he declared:

“I have committed my life to helping the poor and I believe that if more companies followed Wal-Mart’s lead in providing opportunity and savings to those who need it most, more Americans battling poverty would realize the American dream,” said Ambassador Young.

My first question for Ambassador Young: How much opportunity are you going to get from a part-time job? From the Washington Post yesterday:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is shifting a portion of its full-time employees to part-time status, company critics say, which they assert will have the effect of limiting health insurance, even though the company is expanding coverage for its part-time workers.

Company spokesman Dan Fogelman said Wal-Mart is not necessarily forcing workers into part-time schedules but is “trying to ensure that our staffing matches our customer shopping patterns. But there is no specific target number in terms of how many associates will be full time versus part time.” The majority of Wal-Mart jobs are currently full time, he said.

To completely appreciate the amount of double speak employed here you have to know that a Wal-Mart worker who has as few as 28 hours per week is considered full-time. But Wal-Mart isn’t satisfied with just destroying the opportunities of their own workers, they have to team up with right wing lobbyists who support mercury poisoning and big tobacco. From Wake-Up Wal-Mart:

Earlier this year, Rick Berman, a well-known right-wing radical and defender of mercury poisoning, drunk driving and Big Tobacco, launched a campaign attacking hard-working union members. At the time of Berman’s launch, Wal-Mart spokesman, Sarah Clark, publicly denied any involvement or connection between Wal-Mart and Berman’s group, the Center for Union Facts. According to the Los Angeles Times, Clark said Wal-Mart had “never heard” of Berman.

Now, Wal-Mart publicly admits it has not only heard of Berman, but has been working with him. The Detroit Free Press reports, “Wal-Mart said it has a relationship in which it exchanges union information with Berman, the group’s head.” [Detroit Free Press, 5/24/06]

Berman also started an anti-union front group called the Center for Union Facts, but he won’t disclose his donors. Wal-Mart denies it funded Berman, but their credibility on such matters ought to be zero.

If Wal-Mart offers few opportunities to workers, what about those savings? Will somebody please tell Andrew Young that it is impossible to buy your way out of poverty? This reminds me of those Ralph Lauren Polo Outlet stores where they charge $50 for a shirt and claim it’s 50% off. Based on Young’s thinking, if I shopped there I’d be making money. The way to get people out of poverty is to get them good jobs with good wages, and that’s what unions do.

When you think about it, Wal-Mart’s motivations in creating Working Families for Wal-Mart are quite simple. They want to paint people like me as elitist. We’re sticking up for special interests while they’re for “working families.” Well, I have news for Andrew Young and his fellow travelers: People who only work 20 hours per week can’t support their working families. It doesn’t matter if part-time workers are eligible to buy health insurance if they can’t afford the premiums. And most importantly, secretly funding anti-union campaigns has nothing to do with the interests of working families and everything to do with making the Walton family even richer than they already are.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 27th, 2006 at 0805 by Jonathan Rees and is filed under Walmart, Working Families For Walmart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.