WalMart = Bad, Americans = Good

I heard about the efforts of a dot com named Wake Up Wal-Mart. After hearing their arguments, and reading their facts, I was a bit disgusted about their fact-checking and their distorted, out-of-context data comparisons.

Just as I was going to dismiss the whole thing as ridiculous ranting, I took a look at their proposed demands for the giant retailer.

The website proposes (sounds better than demands) the following:

1 - A better living wage for Walmart employees, er... associates.

2 - Affordable health care for all their employees. (Which in turn will raise the cost of health care for all the employees and make it harder to get conditions covered due to a bigger expense for the company.) The concept here is "don't make cheap insurance available to a qualified few, but make expensive insurance available to everyone".

3 - End discrimination. I feel strongly about this one. Having worked for WalMart for a few years, I saw firsthand how women were passed up for managerial positions while less-qualified men snatched up the job.

4 - Zero tolerance for child labor. That's self-explanatory.

5 - Buy American. I like their plan to gradually phase in "Made In America" goods and slowly get away from imported goods.

6 - Respect communities. That's gonna be a tough one. Do we respect the traditionalists who would have us get rid of all those "whipper-snapper" lightpoles in our neighborhood, or do we suck up to the geek-enhanced modern visionaries who envision us pushing hovercraft shopping carts down the virtual aisles at Wally World?

I can handle these specific request for reform at Wal Mart. I just wish the website would get their facts straight, or quit making biased out-of-context comparisons to make their point.

Check it out for yourself, and let me know what you think. I'd love to hear how we stand on the latest assault on this evil giant.

-Texican