1.25.05
Press Release: SEIU
It’s No Urban Legend: There’s a Hidden
Cost to Wal-Mart’s “Always Low Prices”
SEIU’s PurpleOcean.Org to Get Out the Real Facts
about Wal-Mart and Working Families in America
January 24, 2005. WASHINGTON, DC
– Powered by new technology and grassroots activism, PurpleOcean.org, the
world's first Internet-based union membership program, today launches a
nationwide campaign at 11 a.m. (EST) to spread the word about the real
facts — and cost — behind Wal-Mart’s “always low prices.”
By logging
on to
www.PurpleOcean.org/walmart,
Internet users will be able to learn the truth about Wal-Mart’s impact on
the American economy, working families and communities — how, for instance,
low wages and poor benefits force many Wal-Mart employees to rely on
tax-payer dollars for health care and how, despite its attempts to foster
a “made-in-the-USA” image, Wal-Mart relies heavily on Chinese workers and
factories to produce its goods.
Wal-Mart
recently launched its own multi-million-dollar advertising blitz to
silence critics of its race-to-the bottom business model, complaining that
many of the statements circulating about Wal-Mart pay and benefits were
nothing more than “urban legends.”
Through the
PurpleOcean.org “fact-checker,” consumers will be able draw their own
conclusions about Wal-Mart’s claims that it offers competitive wages that
are good for workers, the country, and the economy. (Fact: the average
pay for Wal-Mart sales clerks was $8.23 in 2001 and amounted to $800 below
the federal poverty line for a family of three.)
Using a
unique feature of the PurpleOcean.org Web site, users can then forward
this information to friends and family to actually track its progress and
watch its growth. The first 25 participants who get 200 people to register
for the Wal-Mart Fact Checker Project may be eligible to receive $1,000
towards their 2005 health care insurance premium. If they already have
employer-provided health care, they can elect to have this money go to
help a Wal-Mart employee pay for their health insurance.
An
affiliated body of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the
nation’s largest and fastest-growing union, PurpleOcean.org is the latest
advance of the American labor movement. Through PurpleOcean.org, people
concerned about the challenges facing working families can join with
millions of union workers and their families — ranging from librarians and
public service employees to security guards and janitors — to fight both
online and offline for corporate accountability and to win quality,
affordable health care for all.
# # #
With 1.7 million members, SEIU
is the largest and fastest growing union in the AFL-CIO and the nation’s
largest health care union, largest building service union, and second
largest public employee union. Purple Ocean.org is a membership
organization of SEIU.