Ashton Kutcher vs. Wal-Mart: Epic Twitter clash rages over poverty wages<\/a> by Josh Eidelson in Salon.<\/p>\nThe Text:<\/strong> Celebrity actor\/producer Ashton Kutcher and retail giant Wal-Mart had a spirited Twitter debate Tuesday over Wal-Mart workers\u2019 wages.<\/p>\nKutcher (@aplusk) kicked off the dust-up by tweeting about the news that an Ohio Wal-Mart took up an employee-to-employee food charity collection \u201cso Associates in Need can enjoy Thanksgiving dinner.\u201d He wrote, \u201cWalmart is your profit margin so important you can\u2019t Pay Your Employees enough to be above the poverty line?\u201d<\/p>\n
Fourteen minutes later, the company\u2019s @WalmartNewsroom account, echoing its replies to others on the topic, tweeted back at Kutcher, \u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate that an act of human kindness has been taken so out of context. We\u2019re proud of our associates in Canton.\u201d After 10 minutes, Kutcher shot back, \u201cyou should be proud of your associates but I\u2019m not sure if they should be proud of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Wal-Mart then offered Kutcher a video on \u201cOpportunity and Benefits at Walmart,\u201d saying, \u201cWe know you believe in opportunity like we do & we\u2019d love to talk to you more about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kutcher quickly countered, \u201cyou had 17 billion in profits last year. You\u2019re a 260 billion$ company. What are we missing?\u201d<\/p>\n
That set off a trio of tweets from Wal-Mart, starting with, \u201cWe think you\u2019re missing a few things,\u201d and then touting that \u201cThe majority of our workforce is full-time and makes more than $25,000\/year\u201d; that \u201cabout 75% of our store management teams started as hourly associates\u201d; and that \u201cevery year, we promote about 160,000 people\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Kutcher told Wal-Mart the company \u201cdoes a lot of great things but it needs to be a leader on this issue as well.\u201d In its final tweet to Kutcher \u2013 so far \u2014 Wal-Mart answered, \u201cWe know we can always get better as a company. This year we\u2019ve made providing more opportunities for our associates a top priority.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kutcher returned to the topic an hour later, linking a blog post on a study estimating the cost of Wal-Mart workers\u2019 use of public assistance, and saying \u201cWalmart should be the leaders not the low water mark.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Twitter exchange comes amid a series of single-day strikes by members of the union-backed non-union worker group OUR Walmart \u2013 the latest is taking place Wednesday in Dallas \u2013 in the lead-up to planned \u201cBlack Friday\u201d protests next week. The back-and-forth drew some scorn and skepticism toward Wal-Mart from a handful of Kutcher\u2019s 15 million Twitter followers (@WalmartNewsroom has 13,820; @Walmart has 416,670). But perhaps the most interesting aspect was Wal-Mart\u2019s assertion that the \u201cmajority of our workforce is full-time and makes more than 25,000\/ year,\u201d which contrasts with other claims.<\/p>\n
As I\u2019ve reported, OUR Walmart last month seized on Wal-Mart\u2019s U.S. CEO Bill Simon\u2019s September statement to Goldman Sachs that \u201cover 475,000\u201d U.S. employees earned over $25,000 last year; activists said that was evidence that the majority of Wal-Mart\u2019s 1.3 million direct U.S. employees did not. Asked about that argument, company spokesperson Kory Lundberg last month told Salon that Wal-Mart had \u201chundreds of thousands of associates that make more than $25,000 a year,\u201d and told the Huffington Post that Simon was referring to \u201cover 475,000\u201d out of a pool of about 1 million store workers, not out of the full 1.3 million in the U.S. workforce. Wal-Mart did not immediately respond to Wednesday inquiries regarding the size of the \u201cmajority\u201d @WalmartNewsroom mentioned, and whether it included temp workers, managers and\/or employees in other countries. While Wal-Mart has said its average U.S. hourly wage is $12.78, that number excludes part-time workers and includes managers; OUR Walmart has estimated the wage at below $9, and called on the company to establish a minimum wage of $25,000 a year. A report from the progressive think tank Demos argues Wal-Mart could do so just by redirecting the money it currently spends on repurchasing its own stock.<\/p>\n
Kutcher has recently been celebrated by the Heritage Foundation for saying that \u201cThere\u2019s an entitlement that\u2019s starting to emerge that I think is unhealthy for people and unhealthy for a country\u201d and \u201cI think the only thing that can be below you is to not have a job.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Article: Ashton Kutcher vs. Wal-Mart: Epic Twitter clash rages over poverty wages by Josh Eidelson in Salon. The Text: Celebrity actor\/producer Ashton Kutcher and retail giant Wal-Mart had a spirited Twitter debate Tuesday over Wal-Mart workers\u2019 wages. Kutcher (@aplusk) kicked off the dust-up by tweeting about the news that an Ohio Wal-Mart took up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/p>\n