The sylvan silence of McDonald’s suburban Chicago corporate headquarters provides executives of the world’s largest fast-food corporation a retreat far from its 860,000 U.S. workers—who face a schedule of days defined by sizzling grease, fast-paced work and low wages.
Irresponsible spending habits are not a cause of credit card debt in U.S. households, according to a new report, The Debt Disparity: What Drives Credit Card Debt in America.
The national survey of working age low- and middle-income households by public policy organization Demos finds that they accrue credit card debt due to lack of insurance coverage, expenses for children and unemployment.
At the McDonald’s annual shareholder meeting on May 22, CEO Don Thompson claimed that his company “has a heritage of providing job opportunities that lead to ‘real careers.’”
This is the face of today's fast food workers -- 70% of whom are over the age of 20, nearly 40% have children and a third of them have spent some time in college, according to U.S. census data. [...]
Public policy group Demos says CEO compensation in the industry just since 2000 quadrupled to $24 million, while average fast food worker's wage only increased 0.3%.
Fast food CEOs also make 1,000 times more than the average worker in the industry.
While many of Walmart's workers rely on food stamps and other government aid to make ends meet, its top eight executives are living better, thanks in part to $298 million in tax-deductible "performance pay" during the past six years.
All across the country, public services are increasingly outsourced to private contractors in the name of efficiency and cost savings. But a new report from the non-profit research group In the Public Interest (ITPI) shows that outsourcing public services hurts middle and working class communities as well as workers.
Walmart employee Janet Sparks claims she's not making a living wage, but insists she's determined to change that. "Across the country, we're all standing together today," she told NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune while holding up a protest sign outside of the big box store.
Sparks and five other Walmart employees, along with local group Walmart Moms and the AFL-CIO protested outside of the Cortana Mall Walmart Wednesday (June 4) as part of a national day of action against the chain store leading up to its annual shareholders' meeting.
Walmart, the world's largest retailer (and America's largest private employer), occupies a rather strange place in the business landscape: a technologically innovative company with a down-home reputation – a low-wage, low-benefit employer that prides itself on a family atmosphere. Walmart masks the lousy working conditions that make its profits with its particular form of market populism: millions of "Walmart moms" can't be wrong for wanting to "save money, live better", can they?
Walmart's top brass and its shareholders face a confrontation with their "moms" at the company's annual shareholders meeting Friday in Fayetteville, Ark. That is, the "Walmart Moms" who are demanding higher wages from the nation's biggest employer. The labor union-supported workers' group is demanding a pay increase to $12.25 an hour, or $25,000 a year for full-time work. Organizers said that workers would picket on Wednesday outside stores in cities including Chicago, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Tampa.
Walmart, the world's largest retailer (and America's largest private employer), occupies a rather strange place in the business landscape: a technologically innovative company with a down-home reputation – a low-wage, low-benefit employer that prides itself on a family atmosphere. Walmart masks the lousy working conditions that make its profits with its particular form of market populism: millions of "Walmart moms" can't be wrong for wanting to "save money, live better", can they?
Even at the mall or a discount store, where women are courted and catered to, they are paid less than men. Women in US retail jobs earn on average $4 an hour less than men, or 72 cents for every dollar men make, according to a new report by Demos, a liberal nonprofit public policy organization. The overall pay gap for women in the US is around 80 cents.
An industry that’s one of the largest employers of women and one of the fastest job creators in the country also has a huge pay gap. The average female retail salesperson makes $10.58 per hour, while her average male colleague makes $14.62, according to a new study from Demos, a think tank focused on income inequality.
Alongside the everyday low prices, Walmart shoppers in Landover Hills, Maryland, might encounter Gail Todd. A mother of three who works there as a sales associate, Gail would like to work full time but has recently seen her schedule cut to as few as 12 hours a week. She has no idea how much she’ll end up making this year; even when she was working closer to full time, she expected to bring home just $17,000. Currently she and her family depend on D.C.’s public health care system, food stamps and low-income housing to stay afloat.
You’ve probably heard by now that a stunning 95 percent of the gains the United States economy has made in the years since the Great Recession have gone to the top 1 percent.
“Working moms” employed by the world's biggest retailer, Walmart, have walked off their jobs in a number of cities across the United States. Union organizers said employees walked picket lines Wednesday throughout the day in 20 cities including Tampa, Miami, Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
Under the banner of "Walmart moms," mothers who work at Walmart launched strikes in 20 cities across the United States on Wednesday to protest what they say are poverty wages and routine policies of retaliation against workers who organize. From Chicago to Pittsburgh to Miami, the mass actions were part of rolling strikes launched last Friday by Our Walmart members.
Walmart workers speaking at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Bentonville, Arkansas, on Friday said the megastore’s staffing problems and poor pay were hurting the company’s image and contributing to lagging sales.
Their statement comes after a week of rallies across the country by labor activists, union representatives and workers in cities such as Chicago; Dayton, Ohio; and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The demonstrators have taken aim at the plight of the company’s low-wage employees and the burden they say Walmart’s staffing policies place on working mothers.
Walmart has grown from a single store in Rogers, Arkansas, into a massive American institution. It takes in more money per year than most countries produce in GDP. It employs 1.4 million people, or nearly 1 in 100 American workers. Its stores cover 1.1 billion square feet.
There was a lot of pomp and circumstance at Walmart's (WMT) shareholder meeting Friday. In the "pomp" department, over 20,000 of Walmart employees were treated to a star-studded spectacle featuring Pharrell, Robin Thicke, Florida Georgia Line, Sarah McLachlan and Harry Connick Jr., among others.