I will tell the Walton family — who are worth more than $170 billion — to end their greed, pay their workers a living wage, and put hourly Walmart workers on the company’s board. And I need to have your support before I go.
Add your name to say you stand with Walmart workers before my address in Arkansas.
In a couple weeks, I will attend Walmart’s annual shareholder meeting in Arkansas.
At this meeting, I will directly address the Walton family — the richest family in America — and other Walmart shareholders about their wealth, their greed, their mistreatment of workers, and their exploitation of American taxpayers.
The Walton family, which owns Walmart, is worth more than $170 billion. Yet many Walmart workers are making wages so low that many of them are forced to rely on food stamps, Medicaid and public housing to survive — paid for by U.S. taxpayers. That should not be happening at a company owned by the wealthiest family in America.
Walmart workers are sick and tired of this. So a group of them invited me to speak on their behalf at the Walmart shareholders meeting, where I will present the workers’ common-sense proposal to give hourly employees of Walmart a seat on the company’s board of directors. The people who make the company successful deserve to have a seat at the table.
I am honored to be asked to speak for these workers. But this a moment that is about much more than Bernie Sanders.
When I tell the richest family in America about a solution to their endless greed, I want to have as many supporters as possible giving their voice in solidarity with Walmart workers. That is why I am asking you today:
These workers are not asking for much. All they want is a living wage so that they can pay the bills, put food on the table, send their kids to college and save for retirement. They want a union. They want to have a seat on corporate boards. And they want to end corporate greed that is destroying the social fabric of America.
If hourly workers at Walmart were well represented on its board, I doubt you would see the CEO of Walmart making over a thousand times more than the average worker. I also doubt you would see Walmart spending $20 billion on stock buybacks when it could be using that money to pay its workers a middle class wage with good benefits.
Walmart is not a poor company. It is not going broke. Last year, it made nearly $10 billion in profits.
Rob Walton, the eldest son of Walmart’s founder, spent an estimated $226 million on an antique car collection that includes 12 Ferraris, six Porsches, two Maseratis, and a 1963 Corvette Grand Sport Roadster.
His sister Alice, another heir to the Walmart fortune, had no problem amassing a private art collection worth an estimated $500 million, buying a $44 million painting, purchasing a $25 million two-floor condo on New York’s Park Avenue with 52 windows overlooking Central Park, or acquiring a $22 million 4,400-acre ranch in Texas.
When I am in Arkansas speaking on behalf of Walmart workers, I will be in the room, speaking directly to Waltons like Rob and Alice and the rest of the richest family in America.
And I will be telling them: Get off of corporate welfare, pay your workers a living wage of at least $15 an hour and include hourly employees on Walmart’s board of directors.
I don’t want the Waltons to just think they’re hearing from Bernie Sanders. When I speak to the Waltons, I want them to hear the voices of Walmart workers — and I want them to hear from thousands of people like you who agree that it is time to end the reckless greed of their family, their corporation, and that of other greedy corporations in the country.
So please, Nathaniel.
It’s not a radical idea to say that if you’re a profitable corporation like Walmart, you must pay all of your workers a living wage with good benefits before you go out and reward wealthy executives.
The fight of these Walmart employees is the fight of all of us. Thank you for standing with us.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
Paid for by Bernie 2020
PO BOX 391, Burlington, VT 05402
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