 So McDonald's recently announced that they would no longer be lobbying the government to not raise the minimum wage Amazon recently announced thanks to Bernie that they would be raising their workers wages to $15 per hour and Disney did the same thing and Bernie Sanders has been going after these large greedy corporations one by one putting pressure on them and guess what? It's working and as you all know his latest target has been Walmart and he's calling them out for the way that they are exploiting their workers and what he did was He decided to crash their latest shareholders meeting Here's what happened he blasted their greed as well as the starvation wages that they are Paying their employees and he did this to their faces and it was absolutely amazing. Let's watch next We'll consider the proposal mentioned in the other matters section of the proxy statement. It was submitted by Ms. Carolyn Davis Senator Bernie Sanders will present this proposal on behalf of Ms. Davis senator Sanders. You have three minutes Thank You madam chair and let me thank all my employee cat Davis They introducing this resolution and it states and I quote Resolved shareholders of Walmart urged the board to adopt the policy of promoting significant representation of employee Perspectives among corporate decision-makers by requiring that the initial list of candidates from which new nominees are chosen By the nominating and governance committee include hourly associates The policy should provide that any third party consultant Ask the furnish and initial list will be requested to include such candidates end of quote end of resolution Madam chair the issue that we are dealing with today is pretty simple Walmart is the largest private employer in America and is owned by the Walton family the wealthiest family in the United States worth approximately 175 billion dollars and yet Despite the incredible wealth of its owner Walmart pays many of its employees starvation wages Wages that are so low that many of these employees are forced to rely on government programs Like food stamps Medicaid and public housing in order to survive Frankly, the American people are sick and tired of Subsidizing the greed are some of the largest and most profitable Corporations in this country They are also outraged by the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality in America as Demonstrated by the CEO of Walmart making a thousand times more than the average Walmart employee Last year Walmart made nearly ten billion dollars in profit It paid its CEO over twenty million dollars in compensation And it has authorized twenty billion dollars in stock buybacks, which will benefit its wealthiest stockholders surely with all of that Walmart can afford to pay its employees a living wage of at least fifteen dollars an hour and that is not a radical idea because many of Walmart's major competitors like Amazon Costco and Target Have already moved in that direction Further Walmart should give a voice to its workers by allowing them seats on the board of directors The concerns of workers nacho stockholders should be part of board decisions Today with the passage of this resolution Walmart can strike a blow against corporate greed and a grotesque level of income and wealth inequality That exists in our country Please do the right thing Please pass this resolution. Thank you very much Thank You senator Sanders for your presentation and for your viewpoint while we don't support this particular proposal The importance of listening to and investing in our associates was reflected in Doug's remarks and you'll hear more about it later in the meeting That was absolutely Fantastic because the way that he called out their greed like my thought was This is really awkward Because the things that he said there, I mean he's right You have their CEO who's at that meeting making a thousand times more than their employees But yet they have to live these starvation wages That doesn't sound fair to me and when they made 10 billion in profit last year They didn't use that money to help out their employees. What do they do? They spent what was it 20 million in stock buybacks So they are a greedy Corporation the CEO should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. They shouldn't need someone like Bernie Sanders To tell them this to infiltrate their own shareholder meeting and tell them this but these people have no shame They're so openly greedy that they don't care about the optics They don't care how it looks and Bernie Sanders also said that what it should do is give its workers a voice allow them to be on the board of directors and That will allow their workers to voice their concerns so that way Walmart CEOs and executives aren't just listening you know to what shareholders say they're listening to their employees and You've got to give Bernie credit he just he doesn't stop He's constantly advocating for workers and you can't just say he's doing this because he's running for president He never stopped doing this. He's always been doing this. He joins Striking workers. He's been advocating for unions and he just cares and think about all of these changes with Amazon and Disney They're happening in spite of Congress's refusal to act They're happening because Bernie Sanders is naming and shaming them and guess what? Remember how awkward I told you I thought it probably felt well It's clear that Bernie Sanders did have an influence on Walmart CEO because according to an Nathaniel mayorstone of CNN Walmart CEO Doug McMillan Thinks the federal minimum wage is too low now the head of the country's largest private employer is calling on Congress to raise it Beyond 7 25 an hour the federal minimum wage is lagging behind Doug McMillan said had Walmart's annual shareholder meeting in Bentonville, Arkansas on Wednesday McMillan said it's time for Congress to put a thoughtful plan in place to increase wages It was the first time he has pushed Congress to raise pay nationwide According to the company. So in other words what he was saying is Bernie, please get off our backs I agree with you. I concede just You know turn your attention to Taco Bell or something Now what he said there was So tone deaf even though he's trying to concede to Bernie Sanders in a way It was still tone deaf because he's saying well, you know, he actually boasted about how Walmart pays some people in certain markets $11 per hour in order to recruit and retain talent But one that's not enough and two if you think that Congress Should raise the federal minimum wage You do realize that as the CEO of Walmart, you can just do that unilaterally, right? You don't have to tell Congress. Hey force me to raise wages You can just raise the wages yourself like you know that right these companies are so full of shit They're so full of shit and they will do whatever to save face But people see through it the workers at Walmart know that they're being taken advantage of because if you're working and You still have to get Medicaid and food stamps the wages of that company are being Subsidized by the taxpayer. It's corporate welfare. So overall, I really don't have much to add to this Bernie Sanders This was great to see him at this shareholder meeting and to just see that stone-faced Response after he said all of that That was that was glorious You could support the humanist report at patreon.com Slashed humanist report, but trust me. I'd have way more supporters at patreon if that was my podcast sad