This holiday season, the sale-happy enabler of our avid consumerism is also the villain that keeps the underprivileged from participating. To clarify, the giant American corporation Walmart has been under some heavy fire about the treatment of their workers this fall.

While many were planning their Black Friday shopping routes and ticking off names of those whose Christmas presents were already purchased or sleeping off turkey overindulgence, many Walmart employees and their families were struggling to host a Thanksgiving dinner at all.

Yahoo’s 24/7 Wall Street report found Walmart to be — surprising to few — the worst paying company in the United States. This information, and the information that Walmart is generally not great to its employees, is so common that the severe conditions and low payment of its workers are no longer shocking. As a result, it is quite easy to disregard these sorts of annual reports and to think simply, “Well, that’s just Walmart.”

However, a recent development that occurred before Thanksgiving is putting entirely new and bright light on the issue. A Walmart store in Canton, Ohio, hosts an annual charity drive to get Thanksgiving food and other holiday goods. What is so shocking about the drive is that it isn’t for the area’s underprivileged, but for the employees themselves (though you could argue that those two groups are one and the same).

A Forbes article states that upon receiving the fruition of the drive, employees felt depressed or demoralized, as the cans of food represented both Walmart’s low pay rates as well as their lack of respect or consideration. Representatives and spokespersons for the company didn’t seem to find the drive as repugnant as employees and other individuals did.

Just after Thanksgiving came yet another development — employees and trade union members across the nation staged protests and rallies during Walmart’s Black Friday sales times. These protesters feel that it is unfair that Walmart’s workers must rely on charity drives and more often, government assistance to make a living, and who can disagree with that? According to the Guardian, similar protests were held last year during Black Friday, but it goes without saying that the problem has not been fixed.

For those who harbor little to no pity for the lower class of America, it must be said that these people are by no means looking for a handout, or refusing to work. These are people who have jobs, work hard, and simply are not paid enough for what they do. With low minimum wages, few opportunities for advancement, and limited full-time employment slots, these people have no choice but to rally and protest.

This is not to say that Black Friday is evil (though it could argued after viewing footage of the frenzied mobs) but that those corporations that take part in it and in all retail business have a responsibility to their workers, an obligation to provide a decent living and to respect them.

Additionally, it is obvious that Walmart can afford to pay its workers better. It cannot, perhaps, fund an enormous pay jump for everyone, but as a company that pulls in several billion dollars every year, it should not be at the top of the “worst paying corporations” list.

The Guardian also published a report drawn up by a U.S. House of Representatives committee showed that taxpayers are supplementing worker income at one superstore alone at a rate of more than $1 million per year through government assistance programs. With that in mind, even those who feel no pity for the low income employees can feel rage that Walmart is indirectly costing all taxpayers money.

Whether for reasons of compassion or thrift, it can generally be agreed that instead of holding charity food drives for employees, Walmart should simply pay its employees more. In a tight economy, worker and corporation both suffer, but in the end, it is the minimum wage worker without a meal for the holidays.