>> Bernie Sanders confronted Wall-Street executives
at their shareholder meeting in Arkansas,
and he had some pretty big demands.
Take a look.
>> Walmart pays many of its employees starvation
wages.
>> Sanders, invited by a Walmart employee
to make the case to have hourly workers on
the company's board.
During his remarks he also demanded Walmart
pay its workers a base wage of $15 an hour,
and called out the company's CEO Doug McMillan
for his $24 million salary.
>> They're also outraged by the grotesque
level of income and wealth inequality in America.
>> The company defended its treatment of its
employees by pointing to Walmart's tuition
assistance and management training programs.
And in a surprise, Macmillan called for the
federal minimum wage to go up
>> $7.25 cents is too low.
It's time for Congress to put a thoughtful
plan in place to increase the minimum wage.
>> Now the reason why Bernie was able to be
there is because he was invited by a woman
named Kat Davis.
She's an hourly employee at Walmart.
And just to give you a sense of how frustrated
some of the employees are for this massive
incredibly profitable corporation, let's hear
from one of them.
>> Dreama Lovett works as a Walmart associate
in Jacksonville Florida, and welcomes Sanders
presence at the meeting.
>> He's for the working people and he speaks
for the working people.
>> Lovett believes and employee on the board
would go a long way to helping Walmart leadership
understand what it really means to live on
Walmart's minimum wage.
>> Could you live off $11 and something an
hour?
It's hard, it's hard especially in our economy.
It's up and we're booming.
>> The proposal to add an employee to Walmart's
Board was rejected by shareholders.
>> People cannot make it on $11 an hour.
>> And the company also did not make a substantive
move toward raising employee's salaries.
And after his remarks, Sanders was skeptical
Walmart leadership was listening.
>> Do you feel that the Walmart CEO got your
message today?
>> No, I don't.
>> He's just so matter-of-fact.
But I love what he did here, because he's
sticking to his message.
For him, the big message is we need a better
economic situation for the vast majority of
Americans who've been completely screwed over
by the way the system is set up today.
I love the fact, and by love I'm being sarcastic
by the way, the fact that the idea of having
an employee serve on the board is like the
most controversial idea ever, right?
My god, we can't have the employees know about
the discussions that are happening with the
board.
No we should have employees, who make the
company, serve on the board period.
>> And I just want to shout out, the organization
that made this entire event happen and is
organizing and is amazing, United for Respect.
They are changing the game when it comes to,
not just rights for workers, but rethinking
democracy in the workplace, and they're gonna
be going on beyond Walmart to say, absolutely,
workers deserve a seat at the table.
Absolutely you should take their considerations
and their livelihoods into consideration when
you're making decisions for this company that
we help run.
And so, just shout out to their amazing work
that they've been doing.
>> When employees say, give us a voice, just
like constituents, and we've talked about
how politicians treat constituents all the
time.
How dare they, do you know who I am?
Yeah, your job is to make sure that other
folks can live.
Hey, they're working for you, they making
you your billions.
>> Yeah.
>> And, I don't want you to think about the
11 dollars an hour.
>> Right.
>> Cause I want you think about the 15 dollars
an hour.
That's still, I'm sorry, in my opinion that's
still not enough.
>> I agree.
>> So, you're living on 15 dollars an hour,
and then there's these things called taxes
that you still pay on every paycheck.
So think about what you bring home, and then
what you have to do with healthcare costs,
and then, what, again we go back to some of
the debates, and what people wanna do with
legislation.
Republicans said it will be tax cuts, and
a tax plan.
The first thing they wanted to do was give
more billionaires more money.
That was their priority.
But when we were revamping the tax code, was
it having anything to do with folks making
this much money?
There's not much you can really do with their
taxes unless you have them pay nothing.
There's nothing you can really do with that
side of it, so you have to give them something
to live off of, but nobody cares.
As soon as you say it, they go, how dare you?
You know these are children that are trying
to work their way up?
These aren't all 16-year-olds getting their
first job.
>> Luckily, there are people who care.
There are members of the democratic electorate
who certainly care, which is why this is one
of the biggest issues that's being discussed
over and over again.
But more importantly, one of the reasons why
we're discussing this topic and it's at the
very top of the priorities for Democratic
candidates is because in the last election,
Bernie Sanders just incessantly brought up
this issue.
And look, in a time when it feels like we're
bombarded with politicians who are much more
interested in getting paid to give speeches
to these corporate CEOs, it's nice to see
a politician who shows up to their shareholder
meeting and is like, hey, yeah, I got a question
for you?
When are you gonna pay your workers and when
are you gonna have some of these workers on
the board?
>> Absolutely.
>> You know, actually representing the people
who are helping produce the profits that that
CEO is able to take home.
>> Especially a corporation that is notorious
in union busting and does not allow its workers
to unionize and gives them that little intro
video when a new worker comes on board.
Like, hi here at Walmart we don't need unions
cuz Big Daddy Walton loves us hard.
Like, no.
So if you're not gonna let your workers unionize,
then put one on your board.
Why not?
>> Right.
