October 25, 2005

Statement by Paul Blank, campaign director for WakeUpWalMart.com on Lee Scott’s Speech this Morning.

Today, Wal-Mart stole a move directly out of Karl Rove’s playbook. Unfortunately, we have seen this kind of deception before. Just like Karl Rove, Wal-Mart pursues morally corrupt policies that hurt America.

Today’s announcements by Wal-Mart are nothing more than a desperate publicity stunt to try and save a company being hurt by a faltering public image. Rather than address the fundamental reasons Wal-Mart is hurting America, Wal-Mart has decided to launch a series of cleverly named initiatives to try and deceive the American public.

Here is the truth about the Wal-Mart fraud on the key issues of poverty-level wages and poor health insurance.

Poverty-level wages. Wal-Mart says it wants to help wages, but Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott admits in the New York Times that Wal-Mart will do nothing to address its poverty level wages. Scott said, “”Even slight overall adjustments to wages eliminate our thin profit margin.””

Poor health care. Wal-Mart says it is offering cheaper health care, but Wal-Mart admitted today that there would be no significant cost increase because of this proposal. The truth is Wal-Mart’s health care announcements are just a repackaging of the same poor health care plan that has led to more than 600,000 of its workers not covered under the company health care plan.

Once again, Wal-Mart has passed up an opportunity to do the right thing and change. Rather than meet with us and form a new partnership to help Wal-Mart become a better business, Wal-Mart has chosen a publicity stunt designed to perpetuate a fraudulent image on America.