Political blogs: Workers are Leading a Fight Against Income Equality

Workers are Leading a Fight Against Income Equality by Joe Hansen

In Joe Hansen’s editorial blog, Workers are leading the Fight against Income Inequality, in the Huffington Post; Hansen highlights the deeply embedded inequality in today’s work force. The article caught my attention because there have been several heated debates about raising the minimum wage to cover workers’ basic necessities in life. Worker have been coming together to challenge big corporations on the way they do business. Due to the pressure from the fast food industry workers, Obama has been trying to pass the federal minimum wage but has been constantly blocked by Congress. Hansen focuses his attention on Walmart. Due to their tight supply chain management, they are able to squeeze every penny out of each product they sell. With a 17 billion dollar profit from last year, they could afford to give their workers a better pay but refuse to do so.

Joe Hansen is the International President of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW). The UFCW consist of more than 1.3 million people. The majority of those workers belong to the market industry, such as Walmart, Target, and other supermarket stores. The UFCW’s goal is to protect the rights of workers. They challenge big corporations to provide decent living wages, retirement security, safe working conditions, and the right of men and women to live the American Dream. Hansen primarily focuses his attention on Walmart in a majority of his blogs because Walmart consists of 1.4 million workers.

Hansen argues that Walmart should be able to raise the minimum wage for their workers. Last year alone, they profit 17 billion dollars in sales. Their family’s net worth is approximately 144.7 billion dollars. Because Walmart refuses to raise the minimum wage, the big corporation is widening the gap between the rich and the poor. Although the workers have a job, they still rely on federal aid from the taxpayers for food stamps, Medicaid, and housing.

I agree with Hansen, I believe that the minimum wage should be raised in order to help several families from relying on the government for financial help. The reason why many Walmart workers are struggling even though they are working is because Walmart is only allowing the majority of their workers to work part time of 20 or less hours. When workers work part time, they do not receive the full benefits of working full time. Therefore, many workers must get assistance from the government. I work in a tax credit community and see this situation all the time. Several of our residents work at Walmart and majority of them need assistance from the government with food stamps, section 8, or Medicaid. If Walmart would stop being so greedy and redistribute the wealth, the government would not have to use their tax dollars to help those that does not really need help if they could work full time and maybe we will not have a recession with a large federal deficit.