Darla Lee on Wal-Mart’s Wages
Darla worked in stock at a Wal-Mart store in Greensboro, NC. She says of the wages she received there:
“The wages that you receive over at Wal-Mart are so below market average. 50% of the people who work there, including myself, are at poverty level.”
Interviewer: “And you said you didn’t receive a pay increase, but a pay decrease?”
“Right I did”
“CBS had this news program on one of their evening shows. They said that on average, the average Wal-Mart worker makes $10 an hour. That’s including the store manager, both of the co-managers and maybe ten of the assistant managers. That’s not including the average little peon: the cashier, the door-greeter, the in-stock, the sales associate, the people who work in the back. That’s none of them. You go to work there for 8 years maybe in order to get to $10.”
“People were surprised about the fact of how low my wages were for Wal-Mart. It shocked them. They went: “You mean to tell me that you’re working over at Wal-Mart, you’ve been there pretty close to a year and you’re only making like $8.50 an hour?” And I went: “Yeah” and they were like: “My god.”
“But as I said, in the end, all they cared about was their own profits, the sales, the bottom line. That’s all they cared about.”
