10,000 protest wal-mart in LA

from PressTV:

In what was billed as the largest mass protest in history against the retail giant, an estimated 10,000 union members and community leaders rallied on Saturday against the building of a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market in Los Angeles’ historic Chinatown.



It’s one of three Neighborhood Markets slated for Southern California, carrying with them the threat of low wages, harm to small businesses in the area and, in the eyes of the protest organizers, poverty.



"We are here to say no to low-wage jobs," shouted Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. "Wal-Mart is how the 1% hurts the 99%, and we won't stand for it in L.A.," she said, to resounding cheers. "Until you stop selling poverty, we don't want you in L.A."



"We believe small business will be hurt. Some will close down and there will be layoffs," King Cheung, a member of the Chinatown Committee for Equitable Development, told the crowd. "We just can't support a Wal-Mart who has no heart and no morals. We don't want you in Chinatown. We don't want you in Los Angeles."



Wal-Mart, although reeling from allegations of corruption in its Mexican subsidiary, reported a profit of $3.74 billion for the three months that ended April 30, up about 10% from a year earlier. LA Times






FACTS & FIGURES





According to an article in the Huffington Post, the average Wal-Mart worker makes $8.81 per hour, while the CEO makes $8990.00 per hour.



Wal-Mart is the largest corporation in the world and proof positive of how big business is destructive to democracy. While Americans are shopping at Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart is buying Congress. Last year, Wal-Mart paid over $4.3 million in campaign contributions to protect its interests. beaconequity.com



The Walton family, which controls Wal-Mart, is the wealthiest family in the United States with an estimated net worth of $92 billion, according to Forbes' latest ranking. That's more wealth than the bottom 40% of Americans combined. occupywallst.org

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