WAL MART HAS NEVER, unless i miss my guess, had much of a presence in washington D.C., other than the usual corporate purchasing of politicians and political power. No retail stores to speak of. This seems strange, because where could one find a larger low wage labor force and millions of bargain hungry poor customers than in a huge city full of poor people like washington D.C.?
Recently, however, they planned to open three new stores in the district. However, the city council of the nation's capitol passed an ordinance that if wal mart stores open for business in the district, it must pay what the council calls "a living wage", which they interpret to be twelve and a half per hour, minimum.
Wal Mart refuses to be so coerced, and has filed cvomplaints and lawsuits, threatening to cancel altogether their three store construction plan.
Officially, wal mart says the living wage requirement is "discrimminatory", whatever that means. We all know that isn't what wal mart means. What wal mart means is that the minimum wage requirement is expensive, for wal mart, and deprives the corporation of the valuable opportunity of exploiting its own employees, like it does everywhere else.
Who knows how it will all end. Wal mart usually finds a way to insinuate itself wherever it wishes, and certainly the poor people of our nation's capital could use a good dose of wal martian love.
maybe a compromise can be reached, wherein wal martis not required to pay a living wage, but, at least, a momentarily survivable one.
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