The Wal-Mart chain of supermarkets in the United States is under fire for reportedly locking in overnight workers at many of its stores, sometimes to the detriment of their own safety.
The New York Times reported a number of cases in which employees were allegedly prevented from leaving a store when they were injured, unwell or, as in one case in Florida, when a hurricane struck the area. Michael Rodriguez, who works at a Wal-Mart store in Texas and waited an hour for colleagues to free him from beneath fallen machinery as they searched for a key, said: "It isn't right. You could have been bleeding to death and they'll have you locked in." Wal-Mart officials said a lock-in policy operated in some stores and had done for up to 15 years. But they said the stores were either in high crime areas or at risk of "shrinkage", a euphemism for theft by employees. (Source: The Independent [UK]) Trinity Grammar in Sydney has received an increase in federal funding of 220 per cent over a four year period. Government schools have received an increase of about 20 per cent over the same four-year period. (Source: ABC News website) Prime Minister John Howard has said that public school attendance is falling because public schools are too "politically correct", rather than because of lack of funding. Mr Howard added that some public schools were "hostile or apathetic to Australian heritage and values". Non-government schools, with 30 percent of secondary school students, will receive $4.7 billion in federal funding in 2004, beating universities which will receive $4.5 billion. Rob Durbridge from the Austrailan Education Union said that many elite private schools had had increases of over 200 per cent in federal government funding in the last few years. (Source: Herald Sun, ABC News website) All the News that Fits weekly anarchist news service visit us on the web - www.apolitical.info email us ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) to subscribe to our email list. -- Visit the proposed Leftlink web site at http://www.leftlink.net/ -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Sub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
