Wal-Mart Asks Employees to Donate Food…to Other Hungry Employees

You have to give it to them here. The balls. The balls are large. A Walmart in Canton, Ohio is holding a Thanksgiving food drive among its employees…to benefit its employees. Because some of them can’t afford food for some mysterious reason. To phrase that another way, low-wage workers are being asked to donate food to other low-wage workers to offset the fact that they aren’t paid a living wage, and the entity doing the asking is the company that can’t even keep them in canned-fucking-green-bean-money in the first place. (Oh, and I bet I can guess where they’re encouraged to buy the food for the drive!) Hey Walmart, maybe instead employees could FEAST ON YOUR GIANT ROASTED BALLS.

Walmart makes billion-dollar profits off its employees’ willingness/need to work whatever hours are available for whatever wage is available, and when that cycle of poverty causes problems (like, say, not being able to feed your children), Walmart foists the burden of finding a solution on to other employees. A literal wall would have more human empathy and shame.

Via the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

“Please Donate Food Items Here, so Associates in Need Can Enjoy Thanksgiving Dinner,” read signs affixed to the tablecloths.

The food drive tables are tucked away in an employees-only area. They are another element in the backdrop of the public debate about salaries for cashiers, stock clerks and other low-wage positions at Walmart, as workers in Cincinnati and Dayton are scheduled to go on strike Monday.

I do not envy the Walmart PR guy who had to come up with a spin on this. But he forged ahead, the little dickens!

Kory Lundberg, a Walmart spokesman, said the food drive is proof that employees care about each other.

“It is for associates who have had some hardships come up,” he said. “Maybe their spouse lost a job.

“This is part of the company’s culture to rally around associates and take care of them when they face extreme hardships,” he said.

Lundberg said holding the food drive at the Canton Walmart was decided at the store level. However, the effort could be considered in line with what happens company-wide. The Associates in Critical Need Trust is funded by Walmart employee contributions that can be given through payroll deduction. He said employees can receive grants up to $1,500 to address hardships they may encounter, including homelessness, serious medical illnesses and major repairs to primary vehicles. Since 2001, grants totaling $80 million have been made.

Yes. I suppose it’s all very “nice” that Walmart is even bothering to think about the hungry families of employees to whom they don’t even try to provide a living wage, however, YOU ARE A MASSIVE MULTINATIONAL CORPORATION THAT LITERALLY TRAFFICS IN WAREHOUSES UPON WAREHOUSES OF CANNED GOODS. Oh, but you totally care about the well-being of your associates because you’ve solicited $80 million of charitable giving out of their own wages over the past 12 years? Please. Allow me to donate my dong to your eyeball.