In reading your recent article (Menards to expand storage at Beloit Site, February 9) I wonder if Menards intends to pay their employees a living wage.
Menards pays their employees extremely low wages — often ten dollars per hour or less. Ask them if your doubt me. Because Menards pays low wages its workers are often forced to rely on Medicaid, food stamps or other public assistance to meet their basic needs.
So Menards is receiving a public subsidy: Beloit taxpayers are forced to subsidize the employees because Menards fails to pay a living wage. Menards, whose revenue is approximately 7.9 billion dollars (Forbes, 2013), can afford to pay their employees’ a fair wage and take the burden off the taxpayer.
Menards should immediately adopt a fifteen dollar per hour minimum wage rate —which is being demanded by workers across the United States — to bring a needed raise to their employees and reduce taxpayer subsidies to Menards.
Local 153, Office and Professional Employees International Union is particularly concerned by the company’s anti-worker behavior and we have filed several Unfair Labor Practice Charges against Menards at Region 18 of the National Labor Relations Board. Beloit residents should demand Menards provide a sustainable living wage.
Seth Goldstein
Local 153, OPEIU