Making big boxes pay (literally) for their low-paid workers

Maggie says:
Looks like Montana is joining California in the ranks of states doing innovative policy work in response to big boxes and the public costs associated with them.

Next week, Montana legislators will debate a bill that targets retailers earning at least $20 million in sales who pay their workers very low wages. If the bill passes, these retailers would be responsible for paying the welfare costs that the state spends to meet the gap between their measly paychecks and a living wage.

"When you don't pay workers, they get public assistance," says State Sen. Ken Toole from Helena. "Guess who pays for that?"

He's exacty right. But not surprisingly, big boxes in Montana are freaking out. The special tax levy would apply to stores with part-time employees making up at least a quarter of the workforce and whose full-time workers earn less than $22,000 a year.

Wal-Mart spokesman Nate Hurst says that "It's not the government's job to pick winners or losers in a competitive marketplace."

But what he doesn't get - and never will in order to live with himself - is that in a system where profits are made on the inability of workers to pay their rent or their children's medical bills, his company's contributions to a system where there are "losers in a competitive marketplace" is perpetuating a heartbreaking way of life that no one deserves. Paying people little to nothing for what they do, denying them benefits that no one should be without, and firing them if they begin organizing for better conditions is not worth the 50 cents consumers might save by buying socks there.

So thank you, Sen. Ken Toole of Montana. But for real change to happen, we need to see not only innovative actions from state and local governments (which are crucial, don't get me wrong). We also need to see a massive shift in consumer choices that starts with consumer education and ends with consumers shopping with their conscience.