Sirens and Lights

A story about Trader Joe’s, stolen from Sujal’s blog, which he stole from another friend’s blog. As Sujal pointed out, the most interesting quote is the following:

Coulombe also wanted to make sure his employees were paid fairly, instituting a policy in the 1960s that full-time employees had to make at least the median household income for their communities—an average of $7,000 a year at the time, $48,000 today. Store captains, almost all of whom are promoted from within, can make six figures annually. Trader Joe’s also allows part-timers to earn health-care benefits, a feature that makes the store a haven for artists, musicians, and other creative types who wouldn’t normally seek supermarket jobs.

In line with my perpetual [informed, I'd like to think] idealism, I thought it worthwhile to point out this policy. As much as I believe in universal healthcare and consider it the main solution to the country’s current horrendous state for all of the economic reasons, there is always a place for straight-up social responsibility, unmandated and out of the simple sense of doing the right thing.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 11:37 am and is filed under Peru. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.