Bernie Sanders rolls out "Stop WALMART Act & # 39; which will block share purchases until the reseller raises salary
After his Stop BEZOS Act proved to help stimulate Amazon to raise salaries for its workers, late Bernie Sanders launched a similar effort Thursday aimed at Walmart.
Stop the WALMART Law – introduced by both Vermont-independent and rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat – would block large employers from buying back stocks, unless they pay all employees 15 dollars per hour. Companies must also ensure that their CEO is compensated with no more than 150 times the average salary of all employees, as well as allow their employees to earn up to seven days of paid sick leave.
Full Name of Legislation is Stopwarning for any Large Monopoly Amassing Income from Taxpayer's Law. It defines large employers like those with more than 500 workers.
"The time has long been delayed for the Walton family to pay their workers a living salary," Sanders said in a statement, referring to the family that owns about half of the retail giant. "If big, profitable companies like Amazon
AMZN, + 1.28%
and Disney
DIS, -0.01%
can pay all their employees a minimum salary of at least $ 15 an hour, so Walmart can
WMT, -1.96%
. "
Share Purchases are largely regarded as one of the key market drivers of the stock market in recent years. Sanders and Khanna have claimed that Walmart should spend money on wage increases, rather than buybacks as" enriching its managers and shareholders. "
The legislation has little chance of receiving support from the Republican-controlled Senate, but in January, after the last week's mid-term elections, the democrats could regain control of that chamber.
Sanders and Khanna rolled out the Stop BEZOS Act early September. The law was aimed at taxing companies for the federal benefits they received.
One month later, Amazon.com Inc.CEO Jeff Bezos paid the minimum wage for all e-commerce US workers at $ 15 an hour. Sanders praised the movement and said that it would be "a shot heard around the world."
