Letter: Points from an anti-Walmart person

Firstly, not one of us wants a vacant store. We want an environmentally responsible, financially sound, properly permitted business up and running.

We’d prefer that company be one that doesn’t just “fill the need” for low priced merchandise already available locally.

We’d prefer the corporation value their workers so these employees can further help our economy by earning enough to spend at other businesses. We’d prefer that their wages weren’t so low that tax dollars were needed for their assistance with programs like WICS.

We’d prefer the corporation be fair enough to realize the community in which they do business suffers when greed generates healthcare policies so inferior that taxpayers cover hospital bills their employee’s can’t.

We’re not against business. We are not against profit. We are not pushing “the unions’ agenda.” We are not against a company paying what they want as a wage if the wage is enough that taxpayers don’t need to subsidize those employees to survive. We are not against low-cost merchandise, but ask that all of us see the real costs — the cost of hard-working people who don’t have enough to spend, the cost of the under-insured bankrolled by taxpayers but neglected by the multibillion dollar company that spends multimillions spinning their message to twist ours.

In 2001, an American company sued China for unfair trade practices. China’s inhumane labor conditions helped produce big-screen TVs so low cost that manufacturing plants here were forced out of business. The International Trade Commission ruled against China and their codefendant: Walmart.

Thomas Savino
Burbank