Fox Pushes Pro-Walmart Myths To Bash D.C. Living Wage Bill

• ALBERT KLEINE/Media Matters For America:

  
  
  Fox News disregarded economic evidence to claim that legislation providing a living wage in Washington, D.C. would deprive the city of jobs and keep workers in poverty, and defended Walmart after the company declared it would nix plans for locating new stores in Washington should the living wage bill pass.
  The Washington, D.C. City Council recently proposed and passed legislation that would require retail outlets with a parent company yielding $1 billion or more in annual revenue to pay a living wage of $12.50 per hour to workers. In a July 9 op-ed in the Washington Post, regional general manager for Walmart U.S. Alex Barron claimed that the legislation would require the company to cancel plans to build three new stores in the district and potentially jeopardize the survival of three existing locations.
  On the July 10 edition of Your World, Fox Business personalities Charles Payne and Elizabeth MacDonald quickly came to Walmart's defense. MacDonald claimed, "Walmart brings economic development time and again, we've seen that, they bring other stores that create jobs in the area."
  Payne responded by claiming that the City Council was doing a disservice to the poor, and that implementing the living wage legislation would deprive them of job opportunities.
  MacDonald's and Payne's assertions about Walmart's positive economic influence are in direct contrast to evidence.
  A study conducted by economists David Neumark, Junfu Zhang, and Stephen Cicarella directly disproves MacDonald's theory that Walmart brings new jobs to areas in which stores are located. The authors found that counties with Walmart locations witness a net reduction in retail employment:

  The employment results indicate that a Wal-Mart store opening reduces county-level retail employment by about 150 workers, implying that each Wal-Mart worker replaces approximately 1.4 retail workers.

  Contrary to Payne's assertion that new Walmart stores would help alleviate poverty, a study by economists Stephan Goetz and Hema Swaminathan found that between 1987 and 1998, counties that had more Walmart locations experienced greater increases in poverty rates during the 1990s.
  Research, however, does indicate that raising the minimum wage for large retailers has a significant positive impact on low-income workers.
  Studying the impacts of the hypothetical scenario of Walmart offering its employees a $10 minimum wage, researchers at the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education found that:

  Those earning between $8 and $10 an hour would receive an 11 percent wage average increase. In dollar amounts, the wage increase to $10 per hour would result in $2,310 to $4,640 average annual pay increases for workers with wages below $8 an hour, and $1,020 to $1,960 average pay increase for workers with wages between $8 and $10 an hour.

  Furthermore, economists have noted that raising the minimum wage has little to no negative impact on employment rates or business activity, and it increases worker productivity.

‘Living wage’ mandate in D.C. sends Walmart running

By Eric W. Dolan/Raw Story

Walmart said Wednesday it would abandon three planned stores in Washington, D.C. and consider stopping the construction of three others over a so-called “living wage” bill.

“Nothing has changed from our perspective: we will not pursue Skyland, Capitol Gateway, and New York Avenue and will start to review the financial and legal implications on the three stores already under construction,” Walmart spokesman Steven Restivo said in a statement. “This was a difficult decision for us — and unfortunate news for most D.C. residents — but the Council has forced our hand.”

The Large Retailer Accountability Act was passed in the D.C. Council by a 8-5 vote on Wednesday. If signed by Mayor Vince Gray, it would require retailers that make more than $1 billion per year and occupy at least 75,000 square feet to pay employees at least $12.50 per hour, minus benefits. Stores with collective bargaining agreements would not be effected by the law.

The Council was apparently unmoved by Walmart’s threats to pull out of the city.

“From day one, we have said that this legislation is arbitrary and discriminatory and that it discourages investment in Washington,” Walmart regional general manager Alex Barron said in an op-ed piece published by The Washington Post.

“As a result, Wal-Mart will not pursue stores at Skyland, Capitol Gateway or New York Avenue if the LRAA is passed,” he added. “What’s more, passage would also jeopardize the three stores already under construction, as we would thoroughly review the financial and legal implications of the bill on those projects.”

Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry was not convinced the big-box retailer would completely abandon the city.

“I don’t believe Walmart at this point, that they’re gonna leave the District,” he said, according to Washington City Paper. “That’s a stickup. And we’re not gonna be stuck up.”

CNN Confronts Walmart Spokesperson Over Retailer’s Low Wages, Poor Working Conditions

By Igor Volsky/Think Progress

As Walmart workers across the country coordinate a Black Friday walkout in an effort to build awareness about the national retailer’s low wages and poor working conditions, the company is on a media offensive to downplay their associates’ concerns and reassure shoppers.

During an appearance on CNN Tuesday morning, Vice President of Communications David Tovar sought to brush aside the fact that Walmart is paying its associates salaries that are just slightly above the poverty line, even as the company reported a 9 percent increase in third-quarter net income, earning $3.63 billion. He insisted that the company has “got great associates” who are “going to do a great job for us this holiday season.”

But when host Carol Costello pressed Tovar on the growing wealth gap in America and Walmart’s role in insuring a robust middle class, he dodged the question, but not before suggesting that the store offers associates a discount to buy Walmart products (and invest their pay checks back into the company):

COSTELLO: The wage gap in this country continues to grow ever wider. you know, we hear from economists all the time, we need a strong middle class to make our overall economy stronger. Is it Walmart’s responsibility to make sure that its employees can support a strong middle-class lifestyle?

TOVAR: We’re working hard every day to provide more opportunities for associates. [...]

COSTELLO: But if a lot of them are making $15,000 a year, you can’t live a strong middle-class lifestyle on that. You just can’t. [...]

TOVAR: Our average rate is about $12.40 an hour far a full time associate. We also offer comprehensive benefit packages as low as $17 a pay period, which is very affordable and we also pay quaterly bonuses, which is something that not a lot of retailers do…. And we know that they appreciate that, they also get a 10 percent discount card. So you have to factor in all of those things when you’re looking for how we’re helping associates.

Watch it:

Walmart CEO Michael Duke has a total compensation of $18.1 million, and is the second highest paid executive in the Fortune 500. According to CNN Money, it would take more than 700 employees’ salaries to match his total compensation package.

Making Change at Walmart, the group leading Black Friday’s protest, is asking for a minimum wage of $13 an hour, more full time positions and affordable health care. Currently, the typical employee is paid $22,100 a year, slightly below the federal poverty line for a family of four (which is at $23,050 in 2012). Walmart earned $15 billion last year.

Wal-Mart gender discrimination decision could change rules for class action suits

By Kase Wickman

The Supreme Court handed down a decision Monday morningthat not only impacts the treatment of women within the Wal-Mart corporation, but could also change the rules of class action lawsuits, and give companies permission to look the other way from unfair practices, the National Women's Law Center said.

"We really believe this decision went the wrong way, but the fight continues," Fatima Goss-Graves, the NWLC's education and employment vice president, said in a press call. "[The women] will continue to pursue their claims, and they should. It's important that they do, because this kind of discrimination cannot stand."

The decision for the case, Wal-Mart v. Dukes, cites the sovereignty that Wal-Mart gives to its individual managers to decide pay, which the women in the suit claimed skews against women on all levels and in all roles, from the blue-vested greeters in the front of the store to the buttoned-up female vice presidents.

"Respondents wish to sue for millions of employment decisions at once," the court's decision reads. "Without some glue holding together the alleged reasons for those decisions, it will be impossible to say that examination of all the class members’ claims will produce a common answer to the crucial discrimination question."

More than 1.5 million women took part in the class action suit, the biggest in history.

Goss-Graves was also concerned that the opinion seems to imply that the suit wasn't legitimate because Wal-Mart's corporate policy forbids gender discrimination, and there's no way to prove that there was a "general policy of discrimination," as a Title VII complaint requires.

"Wal-Mart says, 'We're so big, how are we supposed to know what manager A is doing and what maager B is doing?'," Goss-Graves said. She called it "concerning" that Wal-Mart seemed to be insisting that the best they could do was have a formal policy, and not enforce it.

In fact, the dissenting opinion cited specific evidence that there was control within the company.

"Wal-Mart’s supervisors do not make their discretionary decisions in a vacuum," reads the dissent. "The District Court reviewed means Wal-Mart used to maintain a “carefully constructed corporate culture,” such as frequent meetings to reinforce the common way of thinking, regular transfers of managers between stores to ensure uniformity throughout the company, monitoring of stores “on a close and constant basis,” and “Wal-Mart TV,” “broadcas[t] . . . into all stores.”

The decision's implications for what qualifies as a class action suit will reveal themselves with time, Goss-Graves said. (All justices agreed that the case did not meet the requirements for a class action suit.) The financial cost and hefty time commitment being a plaintiff in an individual suit is not a burden everyone can bear, not to mention the mental distress of fighting a very public courtroom battle. In this case, the suit spans a ten-year history.

"It is extremely difficult to be [lead plaintiff] Betty Dukes," Goss-Graves said.

It's possible that the suit could end up reincarnated in the Supreme Court down the line, or the women may choose to file suit individually, but in the immediate aftermath of the decision, experts are still picking over the language and its implications for businesses, the court and the women themselves. The NWLC has planned rallies of solidarity across the country for Tuesday.

All three sitting female Supreme Court justices dissented, and were joined by Justice Stephen G. Breyer in the 5-4 vote.