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%, jobs at Walmart are a golden opportunity. Sean Vann, principal of the Frederick Douglass Academy for Young Men, has 30 students in the program. He told the Detroit Free Press 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 & 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 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.
-Good.is
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on Feb 27th, 2010 at 10:05 am
I see both sides of the issue here. There is tangible reality of getting SOMETHING going regarding employment in a city where jobs are TOUGH. Then there is the hope of building a better situation there, which takes a much larger effort.
The best solution lies somewhere in between I’m sure.