(NAME-MCE) Detroit High Schools Teach How To Work at Walmart - Equalize This - GOOD

Fri Mar 5 04:38:59 CST 2010

http://www.good.is/post/detroit-high-schools-teach-how-to-work-at-walmart/ 

Four Detroit public high schools have decided classroom time should be used
to train 60 students to work at Walmart. A new partnership gives
participants 11 weeks of job-readiness training during the day and a Walmart
job after school. Students earn 10 credits toward graduation.

Advocates say with Detroit's unofficial unemployment rate nearing 50%
<http://www.detnews.com/article/20091216/METRO01/912160374/Nearly-half-of-De
troit-s-workers-are-unemployed> , jobs at Walmart are a golden opportunity.
Sean Vann, principal of the
<http://www.detroit.k12.mi.us/schools/school/617>  Frederick Douglass
Academy for Young Men, has 30 students in the program. He told the Detroit
Free Press
<http://www.freep.com/article/20100211/NEWS01/100211049/1002/BUSINESS/-Walma
rt-offers-job-training-via-DPS>  he's enthusiastic because along with
earning money, since the schools are in the suburbs, the students will be
around people from different cultures.

Donna Stern, a representative of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action,
Integration  <http://www.bamn.com/> & Immigrant Rights And Fight for
Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) is outraged. "They're going to train
students to be subservient workers. This is not why parents send them to
school."

Unclear is whether Walmart will pay the minimum wage of $7.25 or the $4.25
per hour  <http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/posters/minwagebw.pdf> the
Department of Labor allows for the first 90 days of employment of a minor.
Paying the latter wage could be perceived as a money saver for Walmart,
already viewed by many as the epitome of capitalism-gone-wild and dead-end
employment.

Photo <http://www.flickr.com/photos/iknownowforsure/400900397/>  (cc
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/> ) by Flickr user
iknownowforsure <http://www.flickr.com/photos/iknownowforsure/> 

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