Reply #39: Wal-Mart Urged to Improve Pay, Benefits

[citizen snips]

Community activists from Los Angeles and other big cities issued a joint call Monday on Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to improve its wages and health care benefits before moving into urban areas, decrying what they called "poverty-wage jobs."

The advocacy group Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy released a statement and a letter to Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott that it said was signed by more than 100 religious, political, civil rights and business leaders from 10 urban areas across the country.

The group also urged elected officials in cities where Wal-Mart wants to expand to press the world's largest retailer for "good jobs that provide quality health insurance and living wages, and that allow employees to work free from discrimination and intimidation."

Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart, which is trying to expand into more urban areas after growing in rural and suburban markets, defended its record as an employer, as a company committed to diversity and as an economic contributor to the neighborhoods where it has stores.

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http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070108/wal_mart_activists.html?.v=1