Washington teachers’ union urges Wal-Mart boycott

SEATTLE – When Michelle Wolfe is out stocking up on erasers, pencil sharpeners and 20-cent bottles of Elmer’s glue, she hopes she’s not spotted by anyone she knows.

Why? Because the Spokane schoolteacher buys her classroom supplies at Wal-Mart.

On Wednesday, Washington’s 77,000-strong teachers’ union called on members and parents to avoid the world’s largest retailer when shopping for school supplies. It was one of more than 30 similar press conferences in 20 states held Wednesday by teachers, union members and lawmakers critical of Wal-Mart.

“As educators, we recognize that we have a responsibility that goes beyond instruction in the classroom,” said Charles Hasse, president of the Washington Education Association.

Standing in a century-old former schoolhouse in Seattle’s University District, Hasse and others decried the company’s employment practices, saying that Wal-Mart pays paltry wages and has a high percentage of workers without health insurance.

“The fact is that when it comes to Wal-Mart, it’s always high costs, always,” Hasse said.

State Rep. Joe McDermott said he wants people to “vote with their dollars” to encourage the company to change its practices.

“They pay poverty-level wages,” said McDermott, D-Seattle.

The company called Wednesday’s announcements a union “smear campaign,” which ignores the substantial good that Wal-Mart does for schools and students.

“Through low prices – like 25-cent crayons – and substantial support for local education, students are our priority, not politics,” the company said in a statement. “Isn’t it time the teachers’ unions do the same?”

Locally, the Spokane Education Association hasn’t taken a stance on Wal-Mart, said SEA President Maureen Ramos.

“It’s a personal choice,” she said, but one she supports. “Everywhere I go and whomever I talk to, I encourage people not to shop at Wal-Mart.”

The company’s critics are “playing with the numbers,” said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Melissa O’Brien. She said the retailer contributes $45 million a year to schools and students. It awards scholarships, gives schools cash in honor of local teachers of the year, and tries to keep prices low so teachers and working families can afford school supplies, she said.

More than 950,000 workers and family members are covered by Wal-Mart’s health insurance, she said, which costs just $40 a month for an individual and $155 for families. Part of the reason that more workers don’t opt for the coverage, O’Brien said, is that they’re students, retirees or second-income providers who are already covered.

As for wages, she said, hourly workers at Wal-Mart average $9.68. And 76 percent of management staff started out as hourly workers.

“So there’s great opportunities for our work force today,” she said.

Spokane-area teachers spend an average of $600 a year out of their own pockets for school supplies, Ramos said. That’s on top of the $225 school-supply payment included in the current elementary teacher contract.

For teachers like Wolfe, shopping for those school supplies is a dilemma. She said she spends up to $1,500 of her own money each year. For a lesson on clarity in writing, for example, she has students list instructions for frosting a cookie. She’ll follow each list, then present the cookie – perfect or a mess, depending on the writing – to the student. The paper plates, knives, frosting, sprinkles and other supplies all come from her pocketbook.

Wolfe said she grew up in a pro-union household, and it’s a point of shame that she shops at the retailer, which has repeatedly resisted attempts to organize workers.

But those 20-cent bottles of glue at Wal-Mart, she said, cost $1.24 at her local grocery store.

“I’m kind of trapped to buy at the cheapest price … ,” she said. “You have to stretch the dollars as far as you can.

“If someone else comes along and is cheaper than Wal-Mart,” she said, “I’ll be there.”