Portrait, Robert Reich, 08/16/09 (photo: Perian Flaherty)
31 August 13
esterday
a Walmart spokesman criticized the petition I've been circulating that
asks Walmart (and McDonalds) to pay their employees at least $15 an
hour.
Walmart's spokesman told the Huffington Post that my
petition fails to mention that Walmart is a major job creator and that
it promotes some of its employees.
The spokesman is correct. In fact, Walmart is
America's biggest employer. And I'd be shocked if some of its employees
weren't promoted.
But the brute fact is Walmart's typical employee is still paid less than $9 an hour.
To offer lousy jobs on such an extraordinary scale is not something to brag about. Indeed, the point of the petition - as well as the national movement to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour - is to recognize that most people who work for big-box retailers like Walmart, as well as those who work in the fast-food industry, are adults. They are responsible for bringing home a significant share of their family's income. A decent society requires they be paid enough to lift them and their families out of poverty.
To offer lousy jobs on such an extraordinary scale is not something to brag about. Indeed, the point of the petition - as well as the national movement to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour - is to recognize that most people who work for big-box retailers like Walmart, as well as those who work in the fast-food industry, are adults. They are responsible for bringing home a significant share of their family's income. A decent society requires they be paid enough to lift them and their families out of poverty.
When Martin Luther King, Jr., led the March to
Washington for Jobs and Justice, fifty years ago this week, one of the
objectives of that March was to raise the minimum wage to $2 an hour. $2
an hour in 1963, adjusted for inflation, comes to over $15 an hour in
today's dollars. Walmart doesn't come close to the American dream.
Robert B. Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public
Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of
Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the
ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has
written thirteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock" and "The
Work of Nations." His latest is an e-book, "Beyond Outrage." He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.
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