Wal-Mart’s Workforce Reaches 2 Million

From a previous blog:

ok, JOE in, tell me...why should sweeping, stocking shelves, or being a cashier bring in enough money to support a family?

Robert J. Trenwick in Dothan, AL
Monday, May 05 at 04:11 PM

There we have it folks. Two million people who don’t deserve to make a living or deserve a family according to Robert J. Trenwick.
What kind of a corporate citizen is Walmart? Not a very good one.
We are citizens (with families) not just disposable worthless lowlife’s and desperate consumers.

Walmart is a company that forever will have a legacy of greed and selfishness, that showers its executives and the Walton family in riches while exploiting the rank and file.
Walmart will never be a truely great company.

R E M E M B E R
J O N Q U I E R E
Q U E B E C
Home of Walmart Worker Abuse

R E M E M B E R
J A C K S O N V I L L E
T E X A S
Home of Walmart Worker Abuse

How many are full time.

Part time.

Temp.  16 hrs 20 hrs 32 etc.  SEEMS LIKE A BUNCH OF BULL.

How many are full time.

Part time.

Temp.
~JOE

You are right JOE. It makes me sick when politicians talk about home many jobs were created while they were in office.  Jobs are not the same when they are temp or part time. Also who the heck gave Walmart the right to label full time as being something just over 27 hours?

R E M E M B E R
J O N Q U I E R E
Q U E B E C
Home of Walmart Worker Abuse

R E M E M B E R
J A C K S O N V I L L E
T E X A S
Home of Walmart Worker Abuse

Is that why th store have no help. They want 10% full time to 90% part time. They are taking away from the associates and getting rich.

Alex,

“Two million people who don’t deserve to make a living or deserve a family”

What you need to do, is learn the difference between ‘getting paid to do a job’ and ‘being able to support a family’!!  Not All jobs should pay enough to support a family!!

If I worked for YOU, taking your garbage out once a week and had a family of 10 people, should I expect YOU to pay me $45.00 an hour, with a guarantee of 40 hours a week and a good benefit package, so I could support my family on it?

It is up to YOU to figure out how to support YOUR family, after all, they are YOUR family, created by YOU, not your employer’s, they take care of their own family!!

Debbie,

Don’t like it, don’t work there!!  Or, start your own store and get rich yourself!!  Sam Walton did it, why can’t you?  Sitting around ‘crying’, “Oh poor me, I don’t have as much as they do, BOO HOO”, won’t get you anywhere!!  As the NIKE slogan says, “Just Do It”, instead of waiting for someone to give you a handout!!  You can’t win the race, sitting on the bench, you have to actually get up and run!!  Take control of your own life!!

Alex, would say there is a 3rd way, for a union to pick you up and ‘carry’ you around the track!!

“ Also who the heck gave Walmart the right to label full time as being something just over 27 hours? “

They raised it to 32 five or six years ago.  You need to get more up to date information.  If it were any higher then people would be complaining on here how no one could get full time benefits because you have to work so many hours to be considered full time.

RDS aka “The Drama Queen,” Strikes Again!

“If I worked for YOU, taking your garbage out once a week and had a family of 10 people, should I expect YOU to pay me $45.00 an hour, with a guarantee of 40 hours a week and a good benefit package...”

How about $16 per hour with benefits?  Do you have those statistics handy RDS?  Can you tell us how many “associates” Wal-Mart has working for them with a “family of 10”?

So the WORLDS LARGEST EMPLOYER shouldn’t provide jobs that people can live on? Why does your Walmart say it does (on its career screen of its website)? Who is the liar RDS(Bob)? You are your Walmart?

“What you need to do, is learn the difference between ‘getting paid to do a job’ and ‘being able to support a family’!!  Not All jobs should pay enough to support a family!!"~Bob(RDS)

Two million of them Bob, should not get paid to support a family? Since most of the employee’s are store workers? Do they not work hard? Do they not put in the same hour that any other worker puts in? Or are you going to give the good old skill talk just like you guys used to do?
The early settlers built North America with hard labour but now you get a group of people who try to draw a line between those who plan it happening and those who make it happen. I think that Walmart take note of the so called ‘associates’ that walked out of the store in Florida. A few more of those situations and you will find out how much you need those people.

E M E M B E R
J O N Q U I E R E
Q U E B E C
Home of Walmart Worker Abuse

R E M E M B E R
J A C K S O N V I L L E
T E X A S
Home of Walmart Worker Abuse

If I worked for YOU, taking your garbage out once a week and had a family of 10 people, should I expect YOU to pay me $45.00 an hour, with a guarantee of 40 hours a week and a good benefit package, so I could support my family on it?

Sorry Dave its 34 HRS ,that only new hires. Some are 20, some are 28 , New hires are 34. Thats at a 12 week average to get benefits.

Boy.... I can’t believe that people stick up for this company! As a “new” hire for Wal Fart, I was offered 33 hours a week. I asked to be placed in a certain department, but because they needed cashiers, I was thrown into the mix. I hate the job, I hate the hours, I hate management ( corporate ass kissers), and they treat the employees like crapola. I’m looking for another job, but until I find one, I’ll take my $214 a week take home pay and struggle through. I couldn’t even imagine having to support a family of 12, I can’t even support myself on what they pay. And don’t give me any happy horse shit about the benny’s.... I have to wait a year to be eligible, with a $1000.00 deductable before I can even use what I worked for. Don’t EVEN get me started on the “open door policy”. When I attempted to use it, I got the worst case of attitude from my superiors that I could have ever imagined. The place is a joke. No wonder they have 2 million employees… they have to keep hiring new ones for all the people that leave this lousy job. I know there’s a decent job out there somewhere… where they show respect and compassion for their workers. It sure isn’t at Wal Mart.

Screwedby,

“Can you tell us how many “associates” Wal-Mart has working for them with a “family of 10”?”

What difference does it make, if it is only 1, why does that person deserve more than a single person doing the same job?

Look at what “you’re kidding right? wrote, he only takes home $214.00 a week and can’t even support himself, how much take home would a family of four need, $856.00 or $1284.00 a week gross?  That’s $32.10 an hour for 40 hours!!  And, then, HE as a ‘newbie’ can’t figure out why he can’t CHOOSE the job he is to do!!

you’re kidding right?,

“I know there’s a decent job out there somewhere”

With your attitude, you won’t be happy anywhere, if you are complaining already!!

RDS SHUT UP

tell me how many ufcw union grocery workers get full time work and 16.00 an hr screwed by?tell me how many of them get full time work too?

people stick up beacuse the samart ones like me dont buy and fall for all the ufcw union b.s. about walmart on this wmw site.i am a former ufcw union member and saw their tactics and they are pathetic.they dont do squat for their members at the bottom end to get them off govt assistance,food stamps and welfare.they dont get full time work for all members when at the same time they nitpick walmart for everything they do.ufcw and wmw have no credibility at all.

Deja vu, all over again! I’ve had this quote for 5 years, you’re kidding right. See if this doesn’t sound familiar:

“The open-door policy, merit raises, and grass roots policies are nothing but myths in the Wal-mart religion. They are as real as our wonderful healthcare program, and Corporate’s fair work practices, and the tooth fairy. Maybe if enough of us speak up, the general consumer will realize we are not just complaining. If the Wal-mart empire is supposed to be one big happy family, then we are it’s stepchildren.” ~ Sylvia D’Angelo (9 yrs)

P.S....beacuse the samart ones like me...

You can’t make this stuff up! :o)

“merit raises .... are nothing but myths in the Wal-mart religion”
The only people that said that were the ones that didn’t work hard enough to deserve them.  I averaged over one a year until Walmart took a note from the unions and got rid of them, and installed the caps.  I guess that means that unions are really the ones that start the negative employment practices.

RDS you might want to get back into farming,see what the gov is doing.

? when you were a farmer did you do it right, ie 6 yrs on 1 yr off to let the land rest.

just asking, btw you might want to get your grandson into it.

Walmart took a note from the unions and got rid of them...

I love it when you Wal-Mart loyalist get backed into a corner. You get absurdly funny! Wal-Mart taking anything from the unions....HA!

You must have missed my post on the ‘Bentonville Syndrome’, Dave, so let me repeat the part that applies to you:

<i>...which has the result of warping your own psyche...<i>

“.....I averaged over one a year until Walmart took a note from the unions and got rid of them, and installed the caps.  I guess that means that unions are really the ones that start the negative employment practices.

Dave in
Thursday, May 15 at 07:50 AM

So Walmart was forced to end your merit wage increases Dave? I thought that Walmart said they enjoy good relationships with the associates and did not want 3rd party representation? Sounds like you and Walmart are getting a bit mixed up.

R E M E M B E R
J O N Q U I E R E
Q U E B E C
Home of Walmart Worker Abuse

R E M E M B E R
J A C K S O N V I L L E
T E X A S
Home of Walmart Worker Abuse

Published on Monday, January 26, 2004 by the San Diego Union-Tribune
Wal-Mart vs. America’s Middle Class
by James O. Goldsborough

Employers such as Wal-Mart, already under investigation for hiring illegal immigrants and other malpractices, will use amnestied workers to drive wages and benefits down still further.

The grocery business is living on the edge, and not just in California. Traditionally, grocery workers have been able to make a decent living. The wage of full-time unionized clerks averages around $15 an hour – $25,000-$30,000 annually, depending on hours worked. In addition, workers have had health care benefits.

Along comes Wal-Mart, the world’s largest business, whose revenues equal an astounding 2 percent of U.S. GDP and whose power rivals that of the great trusts of a century ago. Specifically, Wal-Mart resembles the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, which in its heyday owned 80 percent of the supermarket business, until Washington used the trust laws to whittle it down to size. 

The WalMart chain keeps its prices low and owners rich. Last year the five Walton heirs saw their net worth increase from $94 billion to $102 billion.
In 1948, the A&P;’s abuses were flagrant enough that the government used the Robinson-Patman Act to enjoin the company from using price discrimination to drive smaller grocers out of business.

Antitrust law once saw its goal as “the organization of industry in small units that can effectively compete against each other,” as Judge Learned Hand wrote in U.S. v. Alcoa, 1945. Today, we have moved away from that view, but to where? Wal-Mart has replaced the A&P;as the grocery leviathan changing the face of whole communities. Is this right?

In economic theory, the answer is, yes. In economic theory, pure competition drives down prices and everyone benefits: consumers with lower prices, owners with greater profits, workers with higher wages.

In the real world, competition is never pure, which is why antitrust legislation was written. The risk to society was that Standard Oil, Alcoa or the A&P;would lower prices to drive competitors out of business.

And then raise prices.

Antitrust laws were one protection against rapaciousness, and organized labor was another.

Taken together, antitrust legislation and organized labor helped to modulate business practices and create the American middle class.

Where will Wal-Mart find minimum-wage workers for its new supercenters, to help lower its prices, break the unions at traditional stores and drive those stores out of business?

hat’s where Bush’s illegal immigrant amnesty comes in. Under his plan, illegal immigrants can be legalized if an employer sponsors them. Wal-Mart, already gaining national attention for its labor abuses, will be the first sponsor in line. Here are three current charges against the company:

A government investigation accuses it of employing illegal immigrants. A group of illegal immigrants is suing it for discrimination. A third case involves the company’s so-called “lock-in” policy, under which employees are locked into stores overnight, a policy that has led to several accidents.  Low prices come at a social cost vastly outweighing their benefits

“So Walmart was forced to end your merit wage increases Dave? I thought that Walmart said they enjoy good relationships with the associates and did not want 3rd party representation? Sounds like you and Walmart are getting a bit mixed up. “

I never said they had unions I said they took a note from unions.  Most unions don’t have merit raises and most do have caps.  You think maybe this is where Walmart got the idea from?  You guys blame Walmart saying that other companies follow their example and that is why they supposedly bring the whole sector’s wages down, so why is it that unreasonable that Walmart would be following other companies’ examples since virtually every other company in retail already had the policies of pay caps and no merit raises.

...unreasonable that Walmart would be following other companies’ examples...

If you knew your Wal-Mart history, Dave, you’d know it’s not “unreasonable” at all.

Despite his success, Sam Walton never stopped monitoring other people’s good ideas. Kmart, probably his chief rival in discount retailing, furnished many of those ideas. According to Kmart founder, Henry Cunningham, Walton “not only copied our concepts, he strengthened them. Sam just took the ball and ran with it.”

In 1983, Walton opened his own version, Sam’s Club, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He complimented Price by admitting that he had “stolen—actually I prefer the word borrowed—as many ideas from Sol Price as from anybody else in the business.” ~James Champy

bull ddrb grocery workers are able to make a decent living.ufcw union stores few anymore are able to get full time work.the companies and unions screw them out of full time work so they dont have to pay benefits therefore screwing working out of being able to afford a decent living so workers have to leave and go elsewhere to get full time work..you are talking to an ex union grocery worker who knows what he is talking about unlikeyou and you ufcw union full of it stats.

most ufcw workers are unable to receive full time work and you have to work there several years to receive full time work.thats wrong and who has the patience to work somewhere for several yrs before getting full time work?

Question: “...and who has the patience to work somewhere for several yrs before getting full time work?”

m att hew vantress in gresham,oregon
Friday, May 16 at 01:53 AM

Answer: WalMart worker wage slaves desperate for any job in a Bush created shithouse economy.

SDV:“On balance, the evidence is more consistent with the claims of Wal-Mart’s critics, although questions remain. In the retail sector, the representative Wal-Mart presence (about eight years) reduces employment by two to four percent. There is some evidence that payrolls per worker also decline, by about 3.5 percent, but this conclusion is less robust. Either way, though, retail earnings fall.”

Neumark’s research confirms widespread anecdotal evidence that Wal-Mart’s low-wage, meager benefits model drives down wages for workers EVERYWHERE.

Dr. Neumark’s paper, “The Effects of Wal-Mart on Local Labor Markets.”

Friday, November 04, 2005,WalMart Watch

sdv target pays less than walmart.why dont you go pick on them? they sell darnear all their stuff made in china and overseas.if walmart was not around i wonder who all you idiots on here like sdv,screwed by ,ken, ddrb and etc would pick on?

ddrb,

Here’s an idea, if the Democrats take the White House and they control Congress, why don’t they just UP the minimum wage to $17.00 an hour immediately, as according to them, it has NO ‘negative’ effect on the employment rate or the economy!!

RDS:Actually,I have read argument that if WalMart upped the wages of their employees,which they CAN afford to do,it would put their competitors at a disadvantage, who can’t afford to pay more to their employees .

Saturday, May 17, 2008
Bay Area Janitors Vote Overwhelmingly to Authorize Strike

SAN JOSE, Calif., May 17, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ ----Janitors who clean Silicon Valley’s high-tech and bio-tech corporate campuses including Apple, HP, Intel, Cisco Systems, Oracle, Applied Materials, Yahoo, Google and other facilities voted today on whether or not to walk off the job. Today’s overwhelming vote authorizing the janitors’ bargaining committee to call a strike, if necessary, means that janitors representing more than 6,000 Bay Area / Silicon Valley janitors could call for a strike at any time.

“I want to be able to imagine a better life for my children, but right now it’s hard to think about the future when I’m struggling to pay rent and put food on the table,” said Roselia Mora, a janitor who cleans Hewlett-Packard in the Silicon Valley. Roselia has worked as a janitor for 12 years and still brings home less than $350 a week, after taxes.

The strike would be the first major one among California janitors since 2000 when Los Angeles janitors united in SEIU Local 1877 staged a three-week work stoppage and galvanized immigrant workers across the nation, widely considered a watershed moment for labor on the West Coast.

News of the Bay Area / Silicon Valley janitors’ strike comes as Los Angeles and Orange County janitors won a new contract with wage gains as high as more than $1,000 a year every year of the four-year pact, expanded pension and family healthcare coverage.

“Silicon Valley’s wealthy corporations could do the right thing, like other major corporate leaders in Southern California have done, but are so far choosing to leave hardworking families struggling to make ends meet,” said Mike Garcia, president of the janitors’ union SEIU Local 1877.

LOW WAGES, HIGH COST OF HOUSING

It would take more than 77% of a Bay Area janitor’s wages to pay rent on a one-bedroom apartment in San Jose, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development fair market rates FY2008.

Bay Area janitors currently earn wages so low that they do not even account for half of what the Economic Policy Institute says it takes to meet basic needs for a family of four, or $54,000 annually. A janitor would need to work 112 hours a week to support their family on the current wages.
Silicon Valley now leads the nation in average median income, but the janitors’ wages fall far below their counterparts in other U.S. cities (New York janitors earn $20.25; San Francisco janitors earn $17.05; Chicago janitors earn $14.20; Silicon Valley janitors earn $11.04).

HEALTH CARE CRISIS

Janitors service some of the most profitable industries and office properties in the country but earn poverty wages and have to choose between paying rent or taking a sick child to the doctor. Bay Area janitors must work more than two and a half years before they become eligible for family healthcare. Los Angeles and Orange County janitors, by comparison, must work only 6 months to become eligible.

COMMUNITY SUPPORT

“Janitors make an important and significant contribution to the success of the Bay Area and Silicon Valley economy,” said California State Assembly Speaker Pro Tempore, Sally Lieber (D-22). “The cleaning contractors and their corporate clients are creating a crisis for our communities by condoning the current conditions for these hard-working, low-wage janitors. Silicon Valley leaders like Google, Apple and others need to take responsibility and ensure good jobs for the janitors now.”

In April, California state legislators called on the state’s top corporations who benefit from the janitor’s work to take responsibility for good jobs for the sake of entire communities as they released a report, “The High Cost of Low Wage Service Jobs: How Communities Pay the Price for Poverty Conditions Among Janitors.”

Janitors On Strike

Strong coalitions of religious leaders, elected officials including former Vice President Al Gore, and Senator John Edwards, and community supporters concerned about the shrinking middle class and the rising income gap have joined with janitors who have staged high profile strikes. Janitor strikes in Houston, Miami and Boston paved the way for thousands of workers to join the middle class. If janitors choose to walk off the job in the Silicon Valley, it will be the first such strike in the area in nearly a decade.

In 1990 Los Angeles police cut short a march by 400 pro-union demonstrators in Century City, clubbing men and women repeatedly to force them to turn back. Widespread television footage of the police action created substantial sympathy for the janitors, according to the Los Angeles Times. In 2000, janitors staged a three-week strike in Los Angeles that galvanized immigrant workers nationwide and is widely considered a watershed moment for West Coast labor.

In 2006, SEIU janitors in Houston went on strike for more than a month. Hundreds of janitors from around the country poured into Houston to back up the janitors there, and engaged in repeated acts of non-violent civil disobedience. Also in 2006, Miami janitors at the University of Miami staged a nine-week, high profile strike that included civil disobedience, marches, rallies, a tent-city, building occupations, and hunger strike by workers and students.
Historic Opportunity To Raise Standards, Improve Entire
Communities

California’s corporate real estate giants such as The Blackstone Group and others as well as high-tech and bio-tech corporate giants such as Apple, HP, Intel, Cisco Systems, Applied Materials, Oracle, Yahoo, Google and others who benefit from the janitor’s work, have an historic opportunity now during contract negotiations to agree to decent wages and family healthcare.

IRRESPONSIBLE CLEANING CONTRACTORS

Irresponsible cleaning contractors have illegally tried to silence janitors who are standing up for justice, according to charges that the janitors’ union is preparing to file with the federal labor board against Able, ABM, One Source, DMS, Service by Medallion and others for intimidating, interrogating, harassing, threatening and retaliating against workers.

“We’re standing up for good jobs so our children will have a better future,” said Roselia Mora. “We’re willing to do whatever it takes so these companies stop breaking the law.”

For more information about SEIU Local 1877 Justice for Janitors visit: www.seiu-usww.org.

Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1877 is part of SEIU United Service Workers West, representing more than 40,000 janitors, security officers, airport service workers, and other property service workers across California. SEIU is the nation’s largest and fastest growing union in North America with more than 1.9 million members.

SOURCE Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1877

SDV,

“it is better to be a janitor than work at WalMart”

Appearently not, as the janitors are going on strike!!

Sounds like the union is using the same argument against those companies you mentioned that they are using against Wal-Mart!!  After all, it’s not Wal-Mart’s fault that places like California, have blown their ‘cost of living’ to sky high limits!!

“It would take more than 77% of a Bay Area janitor’s wages to pay rent on a one-bedroom apartment in San Jose”

So, a one bedroom apartment runs about $1,160.00 a month?  That is outrageous in most of the country!!  What does a two bedroom run, about $2,500.00?

WalMart- Moral relativism is like economic relativism to us as ‘love of money’ psychopaths. At WalMart we don’t give a crap about people, labor, families or ‘cost of living’ realities, just profits. And as we betray America’s workforce we also have a public relations shithouse to try and cast the blame on someone else.

“These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.”
Abraham Lincoln

“...unreasonable that Walmart would be following other companies’ examples…

If you knew your Wal-Mart history, Dave, you’d know it’s not “unreasonable” at all. “

Umm did you read my post?  Thanks for backing me up that it is logical that Walmart got the idea for putting in caps and getting ready of merit raises from their union competitors, even though you just said that Walmart didn’t get any ideas from unions.  I wish you antiWalmart liberal would quit changing your minds.  Is Walmart losing money because of you guys or making so much more money that they need to give everyone huge raises.  Do they take ideas from other people or would they never get any ideas from union?  You guys need to make up your minds.

Dave: WalMart has unions in Communist China? Have they gleaned any ideas from them to incorporate here yet?

Since the unions there do absolutely nothing it would appear not, but it seems like a lot of people in the US, mostly likely yourself included, picked up some things.

Dave: What do you mean they do absolutely nothing?

LABOUR: International Union Sets Up Chinese Links
By John Vandaele

BRUSSELS, Jan 22 (IPS) - The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has decided controversially to start a dialogue with the official All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU).

The move comes shortly before the World Social Forum meetings where the role played by unions will be discussed at length within the context of strengthening civil society.

ACFTU is the largest national trade union in the world. ITUC with 167 million members in 153 countries is by far the biggest international trade union organisation.

ITUC had earlier refused contacts because it did not consider ACFTU, which has links with the Communist Party of China, an independent trade union. Now the growing importance of China in the world economy has convinced ITUC it should try to establish forms of cooperation.

The Brussels-based ITUC decided Dec. 14 to give its secretary-general Guy Ryder the mandate to start a dialogue with ACFTU. These talks could open the way for labour issues in Chinese companies to be given greater international attention.

The majority of ITUC members support the new dialogue, given the process of globalisation and the role that China plays in it. 

“By starting a dialogue with the Chinese trade union, ITUC wants to have more influence on the ground in China,” Ryder said in a statement. “It should enable us also to discuss the role of China in the world.”

They argue also that ACFTU does play a positive role in the field. ACFTU has had to adapt to the changing socio-economic environment in China, with private companies increasingly calling the shots, and millions of internal migrants living in precarious conditions.

As the Chinese government calls for a harmonious society with more equity between workers and company owners, the Chinese trade union federation, or parts of it, have felt encouraged to defend workers’ rights more aggressively.

ITUC sees new labour laws positively. “The laws are a step in the right direction, so we do see them as a positive development,” says Ryder. “Nevertheless there is still a long way to go in terms of China’s labour laws, and also the issues of labour inspection and enforcement.”

Recently, the Chinese telecommunications multinational Huawei wanted to fire 7,000 employees in order to give them new contracts that would have deprived them of 10 years seniority. Under new labour laws introduced last year, Chinese workers with 10-year seniority are entitled to new benefits. ACFTU stepped in, and the dismissals were revoked.

Some see this as illustrating the political connections of ACFTU. Others point to the benefits won for the workers. But whatever develops within China, any cooperation between ITUC and ACFTU could change relations between work and capital in the country where they could be the biggest issue.

Jubak’s Journal
What China needs now: unions

The U.S. trade gap with China is booming, and steps like revaluing the Chinese currency won’t solve the problem. What we really need is for Chinese workers to earn more.

By Jim Jubak

In January and February, the U.S. trade deficit from China jumped 50% from a year earlier. China now accounts for about 25% of the total U.S. trade deficit.

With the trade deficit hitting a new record in February at $61 billion and with March expected to inch a few hundred million higher when those numbers are reported on May 11, something has to be done.

Unfortunately, all the “somethings” being proposed in Washington and on Wall Street won’t do anything to fix the problem. At best, they’re like spitting in the ocean. At worst, they’re the first step to setting off the kind of retaliatory trade war that produced the Great Depression.

But don’t worry. I’ve got the answer. What China needs—and what would close the U.S./China trade gap most expeditiously—is unions. Nothing would close the gap in wages and benefits between China and its trading partners in the developed world faster than giving Chinese workers the right to form truly independent unions. (MSN Money,’05)

The first article was just about two union fighting for recognition.  I hardly consider that to be doing something, at least not something productive.

The key part of the second article was this, “giving Chinese workers the right to form truly independent unions.” While I don’t neccessarily agree with the statement, the union that has “unionized” Walmart over there is the communist parties union which is not “truly independent”.

Dave: Maybe you could contribute some additional constructive material of your own ,rather than a synopsis of what has already been presented.