Wal-Mart Movie Draws Crowd
Jefferson Daily Union
November 18, 2005

-- By the time the lights dimmed Thursday evening, 75 people had gathered in the Jefferson Public Library to view "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price," and a few more came in as the movie began.

"We were thinking as we were setting things up tonight that if we got 15 people, it would be a good group," said Alex Brower, a Jefferson High School senior who with 2005 Jefferson High School graduate Casey Dahl coordinated Thursday's community screening.

"Then when people started to arrive at 5:30 p.m., we were like, 'Whoa,'" he added.

The local audience drew mostly Jefferson residents, but people also came from across the county, including Watertown and Whitewater. The solid turnout was expected in light of the three-year fight over a Wal-Mart proposing to build a Supercenter on Jefferson's south side.

The Jefferson coordinators said they also were pleasantly surprised to be joined by a couple of high-profile guests as well, who addressed the audience after the 90-minute movie.

These included Brent Denzin of Madison, a member of Midwest Environmental Advocates, who has helped the local Coalition for a Better Jefferson and grassroots groups in other Wisconsin communities who have opposed Wal-Mart; Tom Boese of Menomonee Falls, a field producer for Brave New Films, which put out the "High Cost" movie; and Tim Sheehan, a regional field organizer with the national group Wal-Mart Watch.

"Cathy Zimmerman and I were at Wal-Mart Watch's legislative event in Madison this week, and that's how that came about," Patti Lorbecki said after Thursday's event.

Lorbecki and her husband, Dave, own Dave's Piggly Wiggly, a local grocery store that has taken the lead in the Coalition for a Better Jefferson's anti-Wal-Mart campaign the past three years.

"The big concern in Madison was insurance," Lorbecki said, "how much Wal-Mart employees' reliance on the state to provide their healthcare is costing the taxpayers in state after state."

This was one of the topics the film brought up, talking with many current and former employees who noted that while Wal-Mart does offer insurance to all of its "associates," many find it impossible to pay what it costs to insure their families while earning an average of around $13,000 per year for "full-time" work.

It's worth noting that Wal-Mart considers its employees "full-time" if they work 28 hours per week.

Thus, large numbers of Wal-Mart employees instead turn to state insurance and other state and federal welfare programs.

"Women, Infants and Children (WIC) is an excellent program. It saved my life," six-year Wal-Mart employee Diane DeVoy said in the movie, but she added that it is demeaning and a hassle for an employed person to have to turn to public assistance to care for his or her family.

In Wisconsin, for example, 1,252 Wal-Mart employees rely on the state's BadgerCare, which picks up the tab for the healthcare of 809 Wal-Mart employees and 443 dependents at the cost of $2.7 million per year for Wisconsin taxpayers.

After brief presentations by the guest speakers and local representatives, attendees could pick up additional information on Wal-Mart and its effect on the local and global community, get free T-shirts from Wal-Mart Watch, or sign up to assist the Coalition for a Better Jefferson, if they wished.

The movie generated a lot of discussion among attendees too, many, but not all of whom expressed concerns about the tactics the megacorporation uses as it pursues bottom-line prices. (The full story appears in the Nov. 19 Daily Union.)