Retailer shifts labor costs to taxpayers and no one reacts

Retailer shifts labor costs to taxpayers and no one reacts
EDITOR:
Many U.S. cities and towns are finally working to keep Wal-Mart out of their areas as they are responsible for destroying inner-city, independent Mom and Pop businesses that have long been the back-bone of our economic success.
According to a report by the University of California at Berkeley Labor Center, inadequate wages and benefits have forced California workers to seek $86 million a year in state aid. Wal-Mart workers are relying on a variety of public aid programs, including food stamps. Medicare, and subsidized housing, which is, in effect, taxpayer funded. Which means, Wal-Mart is shifting part of their labor costs to the general, taxpaying public. Here is a company that makes billions of dollars a year and their workers, which they like to call "associates," are on social welfare. What a disgrace!
If these conditions prevail in other locales, imagine the strain on state and local governments that are already struggling with fiscal troubles. The article, which was printed in The Arizona Republic, Aug. 4, 2004, goes on to say that, "if other retailers cut their wages and benefits to the level of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the cost of California's public assistance programs would rise to $410 million annually." Is Wal-Mart setting the "new" national labor standard of low wages and poor benefit structure? Are we tax payers willing to bear the burden while the CEOs are lining their pockets with even more money? Are we really saving money by shopping there if our tax money is used to subsidize an associate's pay check?
My question is: What are all the labor union organizers doing to correct this injustice and disgrace? Someone should inform them that Wal-Mart is the largest employer in the country. Now there's a union membership for ya!
Wal-Mart's slogan should be "Our prices are the lowest because we pay are people less and let the tax payers pick up the rest".
DAVID P. GAIBIS SR.
New Castle, Pa.
Administration's mercury standards hurt Ohio coal
EDITOR:
The Bush Administration recently proposed mercury emission limits of 2.0, 5.8, and 9.2 pounds-of-mercury-per-trillion-Btus-of-energy for power plants burning bituminous coal, subbituminous coal, and lignite, respectively.
Bituminous coal is the type that Ohio miners mine, Ohio preparation-plant workers clean, Ohio truckers truck, and most Ohio power-plant operators burn. Subbituminous coal -- the type that is increasingly replacing bituminous coal -- primarily comes by train from Wyoming, where Vice President Dick Cheney was a senator. Lignites come from Texas, President George W. Bush‚s donor base.
Because of the dramatically easier standards proposed for Western coals, most plants burning these will not have to do anything to reduce their mercury emissions. However, because of the tighter Eastern-coal standards, nearly all bituminous coal plants will require mercury reductions. If a power plant switches from an Appalachian coal to a Western coal, it will be able to emit nearly three times as much mercury. And more good, high-paying Appalachian jobs will get shipped to Wyoming.
The current administration has proved to be no friend of Ohio. During the last three-and-a-half years, fully 20 percent of the net jobs lost in the U.S. have been Ohio jobs. When it comes to Ohio jobs, we should watch what Bush actually does, not what he says. His actions on mercury speak a mouthful.
SID NELSON Jr.
Hudson