The following is a statement by Paul Blank, campaign director for WakeUpWalMart.com, regarding Wal-Mart's announcement to raise its dividend to shareholders.
"Wal-Mart's hypocrisy is simply out of control. To give wealthy shareholders a $291 million raise, while arguing you can't offer better wages or health benefits to your employees is hypocritical and morally outrageous. For the Walton family, already worth $70 billion, to get an additional $118 million per year raise, while workers suffer is borderline obscene.
Does Lee Scott have no shame? How does Wal-Mart and Lee Scott justify a $291 million bonus to wealthy shareholders at the same time Wal-Mart cuts health care spending per employee and now has over 775,000 of its employees without company health care.
The American people are growing tired of Wal-Mart's empty promises and meaningless excuses. For more than a year now, Lee Scott has said Wal-Mart pays poverty level wages and provides unaffordable health care because his company supposedly has 'thin profit margins.' The real truth is Wal-Mart's low wages and poor benefits aren't about margins, it's about profits and the cruel financial reward that comes from exploiting 1.3 million Wal-Mart employees and American taxpayers.
Just think, in our new report, the estimated cost to taxpayers of the Wal-Mart Health Care Crisis was $1.4 billion for 2005. Yet, Wal-Mart would rather beg governors for help, shift their costs onto the American taxpayer, and give shareholders a $291 million dollar bonus than pay its fair share for health care.
Apparently, Wal-Mart's "thin profit margins" argument only applies to the working class, not the investor class. The American people, taxpayers, its employees, and communities are growing tired of Wal-Mart's empty excuses and hypocrisy. Wal-Mart has the ability to do the right thing, but it simply chooses not to.
On behalf of the American people, we call on Wal-Mart choose a better road, to start reflecting the best of American values, to work together with us, and to come up with real solutions that improve the lives of their workers and make Wal-Mart a more responsible and better company."
