February 27, 2006

WakeUpWalMart.com Statement In Response to Ambassador Andrew Young Joining Wal-Mart Front Group

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 27, 2006

WAKE UP WAL-MART.COM STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO AMBASSADOR ANDREW YOUNG JOINING WAL-MART FRONT GROUP

The following is a statement by Paul Blank, campaign director for WakeUpWalMart.com:

“”Wal-Mart’s front group is another well-funded ploy by Wal-Mart to try and cover up its record of driving down wages, not providing affordable health care, shifting costs onto taxpayers and shipping U.S. jobs overseas.

Our campaign is fighting for justice, equality, dignity, and economic opportunity for all of Wal-Mart’s 1.3 million workers and for all working Americans. We are fighting for a better America and it starts by changing the largest employer in America, Wal-Mart. The reality is Wal-Mart makes obscene profits, exceeding $11 billion, while their workers make poverty-level wages and have no health care. Fighting to make Wal-Mart a responsible and moral corporation and reversing the race-to-the-bottom business model is the next great struggle for social and economic justice in America.

As chairman of the board of the Drum Major Institute, Ambassador Young’s organization got it correct when it said in 2005, ‘…Wal-Mart became known in our consciousness as more than a big box store with small prices, but as the employer of 2 million people whose average income is less than the poverty line, and whose refusal to provide health care pushes the tab onto the taxpayers who fund Medicaid.’

We call on Ambassador Andrew Young to use his new position to help us change Wal-Mart for the better, rather than defend its abysmal record of child labor violations and poor health care. As a consultant to Wal-Mart, Ambassador Young is now in a unique position to reach out to Wal-Mart and CEO Lee Scott and urge them to change. We hope he will work with WakeUpWalMart.com and help our efforts to create a better Wal-Mart and build a better America.””