Posted on 03/11/2005 6:02:26 AM PST by traderrob6
More political extortion from the left: When it's time to pick up supplies for her third-grade classroom, Jennifer Strand would prefer to steer clear of Wal-Mart. [snip]
Taking a bold political stand, the state teachers' union last week declared the fund off-limits to Wal-Mart purchases. [snip]
In a newsletter distributed to teachers, association President Charles Hasse cited Wal-Mart's "exploitative labor practices (that) have added to public assistance burdens in our state and across the nation." [snip]
These people are so myopic and naive, it's really hard to believe they were sharp enough to obtain a degree. Who do they think this is going to hurt anyway. In an ill concieved effort to hurt the company, they will, if anything, end up hurting the people they are trying to "protect". For the sake of our kids education, I hope none of them is teaching economics.
Teaching economic? They don't even know how to spell it!
The anti-Walmart sentiment is basically a union ploy.
What supplies are they talking about? When I was in school the kids had to bring their own crayons, pencils, tissues, etc. The teacher's supplies came from a teacher supply store or a big educational supply house. What supplies are they buying at Wal-Mart?
So much stuff comes from China but last I checked, Wal-Mart isn't in charge of the Chinese workers. I know the libs are all for China, so what is the heartburn?
This teacher should love buying from Chairmain Mao's General Store. It funds her friends the Chicoms.
This should be as amusing, and have as much of an impact (which was NONE) on Wal-Mart's bottom line as the flakey libs "Not One D@mn Dime Day" of January 20th, to "boycott" the Inagural and plunge our country into economic wrack and ruin.
I'm so scared...please, someone hold me. *Rolleyes*
-"exploitative labor practices (that) have added to public assistance burdens in our state and across the nation." [snip]-
Exchange "child" for "labor" and you've got the definition of modern public edoocashun.
If I can get this lady's contact information, I could sell her any supplies she wants. I'm sure I could be persuaded to overcharge her enough that I might even make $50,000. I wonder if that income would be sufficient to meet her "fair wage" requirement.
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/215514_walmart11.html
Wal-Mart off the school-supply list
Union won't repay teachers for items bought at discounter
Friday, March 11, 2005
By DEBORAH BACH
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
When it's time to pick up supplies for her third-grade classroom, Jennifer Strand would prefer to steer clear of Wal-Mart.
The teacher is convinced the retail giant isn't paying workers a fair wage, but in the northeastern Washington town of Colville -- population 5,000 -- the only other option is a small stationery section in the local grocery store.
So Strand became a reluctant Wal-Mart shopper -- venturing in from time to time to pick up supplies and emergency items for disadvantaged students, such as coats and shoes. She'd get reimbursed through the Washington Education Association's Children's Fund, a decade-old charity that provides up to $100 per student each year.
Not anymore.
Taking a bold political stand, the state teachers' union last week declared the fund off-limits to Wal-Mart purchases.
In a newsletter distributed to teachers, association President Charles Hasse cited Wal-Mart's "exploitative labor practices (that) have added to public assistance burdens in our state and across the nation."
Hasse said yesterday that the action followed repeated suggestions from teachers to either change the policy or distribute information about the company's labor practices.
Hasse said he's received more than 200 responses from teachers around the state, who were 20-1 in favor of eliminating Wal-Mart reimbursements. "It was interesting to see the intensity of feeling around this," he said.
Objections to the change stemmed primarily from concerns that teachers in rural areas would have no alternative to Wal-Mart.
In the absence of other shopping options, Hasse said, exemptions will be considered on a case-by-case basis. "We're not going to have some student go without a coat if that's the only place it could be purchased."
The Children's Fund provides about $50,000 a year to teachers around the state, according to Hasse.
Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Fogleman yesterday refuted the unfair labor practice accusations. He said 86 percent of Wal-Mart hourly employees have medical insurance, and more than half of them are covered by the company. The company's average wage for hourly "sales associates" is $10.14 in Washington state, Fogleman said, compared with the national average of $9.68.
He said the company spent $40 million last fiscal year on educational initiatives, including scholarships, teacher awards and a national literacy hot line that connects callers with resources in their communities.
"We understand the value of an education, and we strongly support it," he said.
The association's new policy also was slammed by the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a conservative research organization in Olympia that frequently has clashed with the association.
The foundation, which has received funding from Wal-Mart, issued a press release this week accusing the education association of "allowing a political battle to trump its charitable intentions."
Michael Reitz, a legal analyst at the foundation, said the association's stand is ironic.
"On the one hand, the WEA claims that teachers are not being paid enough, but then they're forcing teachers to go to more expensive retailers, because Wal-Mart can be the best place to go for bargain shopping," he said.
"If the mission of the Children's Fund is to help children, then it shouldn't matter where the teachers are purchasing goods."
Richard Gilham agrees.
A fourth-grade teacher at Olympic Elementary School in Chehalis, Gilham has bought CD players, batteries and other classroom items at Wal-Mart. For selection and price, he said, Wal-Mart is hard to beat.
"If I'm spending WEA's resources, I'm going to try to get the best buy I can for my dollar, and if Wal-Mart is that place, it's probably the best use of those funds," Gilham said.
Roger Kinney, a marketing and business teacher at Burlington-Edison High School in Skagit County, said he's angry with the association for "dishing around in areas that they don't belong."
Kinney believes the association's opposition is a show of solidarity for other unions that have so far eluded certification at any Wal-Mart store.
"I think the unions know that Wal-Mart is a huge market for them, and there's a lot of money to be tapped from that market," he said.
Arkansas-based Wal-Mart, the nation's biggest private-sector employer with 1.2 million workers, has been held up as the poster child of unethical labor practices. The company faces a grand jury investigation following raids in October 2003 that uncovered hundreds of illegal immigrants, employed by outside contractors, cleaning its stores.
Last June, a federal judge certified a class-action lawsuit, the largest workplace-bias lawsuit in U.S. history, alleging discrimination against female employees.
After meat cutters at a Texas store voted to form a union in 2000, the company shut down its meat-cutting operations nationwide, saying the move was unrelated to the vote. Last month, the company said it would close a store in Jonquiere, Quebec, that voted in August to unionize.
In an effort to stanch the public relations disaster, Wal-Mart in January held what company officials dubbed "Facts Day," launching with great fanfare a new Web site with information about the company and an advertising campaign extolling the benefits of working at Wal-Mart.
"We put our critics on notice that we were going to tell the truth, that we were going to set this misinformation campaign backward by bringing forth facts, the unfiltered truth about our company," Fogleman said.
Marlene Olveda remains unconvinced.
A Spanish teacher at Columbia River High School in Vancouver, Olveda lauded the association's move and said she refuses to shop at Wal-Mart, as do many of her colleagues.
"One of my students has an 80-year-old grandmother who works there and has no benefits," she said. "There are so many other places we could be spending our money other than Wal-Mart. Granted, they have lower prices, but it's because they're predatory."
Wouldn't it be funny if the local grocery store bought its stationery wholesale from Wal-Mart?
This teacher's awful free with other people's money. Is she planning to pay the difference in cost that the parents would incur if they shopped at the other place?
I always wondered why I was paying $6,000 a year in taxes (and that was 10 years ago, much more now!)
LOL and I love your tag line....wish I would have thought of that!
But it the anti walmart sentiment is growing.
Nonsense; you can order nearly anything on-line these days, probably at a better price tahn buying locally.
Typical leftist tripe!
I'm so tired of this. Here in the People's Republic of Massachusetts we get requests every other week from the school for donations of supplies. It's a silent tax.
And every time the these people want more money for education they claim "it's for the kids". Well if it's for the kids how come the kids never see any of it?
What should really disturb people is not that some of these "brilliant" teachers have diploma mill fake degrees, it should be that teacher training is so irrelevant that a teacher with a fake degree is ONLY caught when some accident exposed the school itself, not the individual teacher.
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