Scenes from Ohio: Education Reform at Wal-Mart
We had a great week organizing customers and employees of the Sandusky, OH Wal-Mart
around education reform. We heard the same thing we’ve been hearing all around the community: schools in towns like Sandusky are hurting badly, with recently announced layoffs the latest piece of evidence.
Of course, at Wal-Mart, we heard that message more loudly and clearly than anywhere else we’ve been. After all, this is a corporation that, while running up annual profits in the tens of billions, gives its new employees special forms to help them prove their poverty status for the purpose of public assistance.
I’m going to bet most Wal-Mart workers with whom we spoke are sending their kids to public schools.
That’s great. It still amazes me that Wal-Mart systematically uses our tax dollars to take care of its employees, and claims to be an example of the glories of the free market. And that doesn’t even account for the highway system we pay for, so it can ship its products, the sewage and utilities infrastructure we’ve built so their stores can have lights and flushing toilets, and so the surrounding communities can plug in the stuff they buy from Wal-Mart. Even where utilities have been privatized, those power lines and pipes are a legacy of OUR tax dollars and OUR ability to get things done as part of our democracy. When is Wal-Mart going to meet its obligations to its employees and community, for our role in making their business possible?
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