Does anyone remember when Kathy Lee was hung by her thumbs for Child Labor, which in fact was WALMART? So now here we are How many years later? and Walmart is still usine child labor and Bush gives him a pass....why isn't there an outcry this time? I know the deal has been posted before, but why is Lou Dobbs the only one reporting on this? When it was Kathy Lee, it was on every channel news and in every conversation I can remember back then, and she wasn't even the one conducting the business, Walmart was...
True to form, the Bush administration is making sure that its corporate friends are not too inconvenienced on those rare occasions when they are found to be breaking federal laws, especially if it only involves child labor issues.
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer agreed to pay $135,540 to settle federal charges that it violated child labor laws in Connecticut, Arkansas and New Hampshire. As part of the agreement, revealed yesterday after it was secretly signed in January, the Labor Department agreed "to give Wal-Mart 15 days' notice before the Labor Department investigates any other 'wage and hour' accusations, like failure to pay minimum wage or overtime."
The violations involved workers under age 18 operating dangerous machinery, including cardboard balers and chain saws. Consistent with its new P.R. role models -- the industries that brought us lung cancer, underage drinking and Bhopal -- Wal-Mart reached and agreements to pay the fine, although the company denied any wrongdoing.
The agreement left Congressman George Miller (D-CA) rather angry:
http://www.nathannewman.org/laborblog/archive/002183.sh... http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/12/national/12wage.html?... http://www.nathannewman.org/laborblog/archive/002189.sh... http://www.nathannewman.org/laborblog/archive/002185.sh... http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3113372#3113448Also, Montana, is finally doing something about this big companies that rip off employees:
The Montana state Senate is debating a bill to fight Wal-Mart's low wages. If passed, the law would impose a tax on gross retail receipts of any retailer doing more than $10 million per year in business. No tax would be owed, however, if they certified that all full-time workers were making at least $22,000 per year. (You can listen to this NPR segment on the issue).
A version of the bill was only narrowly defeated in 1993 and with the new Democratic majority in the Montana Senate, hopes for passage this year are stronger. State Senator Ken Toole, chief sponsor of the bill, laid out his argument for taxing the Wal-Marts of the world in this oped:
It’s bad enough that workers in these stores are struggling to make ends meet but that’s only part of the story. You and I pick up the tab when a box store doesn’t pay its workers a living wage. Congressman George Miller recently released a detailed study of the cost of Wal-Mart to communities in California. That study estimated that a Wal-Mart store with 200 employees cost federal taxpayers $420,000 per year or about $2,000 per employee in public services ranging from healthcare to housing. Box stores shift their labor costs onto the rest of us. So, why not ask these big box stores to put money into the community and help out local small business at the same time?
The “big box tax” being proposed in the Legislature will exempt any big box store that pays a living wage. If Wal-Mart and other big box stores don’t want to pay the tax, all they have to do is pay their workers a little more. They can afford it and we should demand it.
http://www.nathannewman.org/laborblog/archive/002174.sh... 
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