WalMart Applauds The Nation For Finally Paying Its Interns The Minimum Wage

The far left leaning magazine The Nation has been a long time WalMart opposing group (like so many liberals), and has been calling WalMart out saying they need to pay their employees more. Because people who ring things up at a register somehow deserve the same wage as someone filing legal briefs. WalMart states that it pays it’s employees $12-$13 an hour on average. An outside group, IBISWorld, claims that the average associate makes $8.81 an hour.

The Nation recently posted an open letter to company CEO Mike Duke and the Walmart board of directors demanding that Walmart start paying its workers a minimum wage $12 an hour. The letter also includes an online petition that readers can sign.

Walmart is clearly growing tired of being a punching bag and poster child for low wages. So on Wednesday morning, Steven Restivo, a senior director of communications at Walmart, sent out a snarky email directed at The Nation under the subject line: “people who live in glass houses…”

The Nation–“America’s leading progressive print and online magazine”–recently encouraged its readers to sign an open letter demanding that Walmart increase wages to $12/hour and this article called our company one of the “biggest abusers of low-wage labor.”

In an ironic twist, ProPublica recently reported that starting this fall, “interns at the Nation Institute will be paid minimum wage for the first time in the history of the 30-year-old program.” As ProPublica noted, The Nation has been paying its full-time interns a weekly stipend of $150 per week–less than the current federal minimum wage rate of $7.25 per hour.

Is anyone truly stunned to learn that a far left organization whining about income inequality are themselves cheapskates? I’m sure, like with most Liberal hypocrites, whether it be paying more taxes, living the carbon neutral life, paying their employees well, The Nation will have some sort of excuse as to why they weren’t even paying their interns the minimum wage.

Most obviously, there is a difference between full-time Walmart employees, who are trying to support a family on their wages, and The Nation’s interns, who are there mostly for experience and exposure. According to the Nation Institute: “The difference here is that what The Nation has challenged Walmart on is low wages for people in perpetuity as their full-time employment. These are wages that are meant to support families working at Walmart with no end in sight. Our internship is an educational, time-limited engagement that provides a unique training experience for participants. They are wholly different issues.”

And there’s the excuse. Because interns shouldn’t make money to support their families or something. But, WalMart employees also have access to health insurance that starts at $17 a pay period, a 401K plan, and a 10% discount on merchandise, among others. 75% of the management team started as hourly associates. And they like women

Women make up more than 57% of our U.S. workforce, 27% of our corporate officers, and comprise 20% of our Board of Directors — outperforming the U.S. retail industry and Fortune 500 average.

Can The Nation say that? They can say that, with the wage boost, they are only hiring 10 interns instead of 12, which validates the notion that if a company pays more than the position is worth something has to be cut, which is usually either the number of hours worked or number of jobs.

There’s also a basic premise: no one should be applying for a basic job making low wages as a means to support a family. Of course, in the Obamaeconomy, what is is there?

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

Share this!

Enjoy reading? Share it with your friends!