Four Detroit public high schools have decided classroom time should be used to train 60 students to work at Walmart. A new partnership gives participants 11 weeks of job-readiness training during the day and a Walmart job after school. Students earn 10 credits toward graduation…Advocates say with Detroit's
unofficial unemployment rate nearing 50%
, jobs at Walmart are a golden opportunity. Sean Vann, principal of the
Frederick Douglass Academy for Young Men
, has 30 students in the program. He told the
Detroit Free Press
he's enthusiastic because along with earning money, since the schools are in the suburbs, the students will be around people from different cultures.Donna Stern, a representative of the
Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration & Immigrant Rights And Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary
(BAMN) is outraged. "They're going to train students to be subservient workers. This is not why parents send them to school."Unclear is whether Walmart will pay the minimum wage of $7.25 or the
$4.25 per hour
the Department of Labor allows for the first 90 days of employment of a minor. Paying the latter wage could be perceived as a money saver for Walmart, already viewed by many as the epitome of capitalism-gone-wild and dead-end employment.
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