The following statement is attributable to Paul Blank, campaign director, WakeUpWalMart.com:
“Like most of Wal-Mart’s recent publicity stunts, the company takes one step forward and two cruel steps backwards. Here is what Wal-Mart is really doing: cutting wage increases, imposing salary caps for workers who already get paid poverty-level wages, and shifting hundreds of thousands of full-time workers to low pay, part-time jobs. Wal-Mart should be ashamed of itself.
Instead of doing what is right and raising the salaries of its employees, so they can live above poverty, Wal-Mart has coupled this so-called "salary change" with a salary cap on long-term workers that will not only destroy employee morale, hurt Wal-Mart workers’ families, but will force many long-term associates to leave the company.
Wal-Mart’s changes prove how desperate this company is to cut costs and push out its more senior associates which is exactly in line with a confidential, internal memo written last year by Wal-Mart executive Susan Chambers.
Sadly, based on these latest cruel changes, Wal-Mart is now telling its employees that this is not a company you should come to work for if you are expecting a career, or a decent wage, or affordable health care. Instead, Wal-Mart has stooped to new, immoral low as it transitions into a low pay, part-time work force.
Wal-Mart needs to understand that the American people and its employees will not accept these changes and will demand that Wal-Mart change for the better. Wal-Mart has once again shown its true colors - a company that will sacrifice its workers and the best of American values every single day.
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