When Walmart–which just happens to be the largest single employer in the United States–announced a few months ago that it would be raising the wages of some workers, it was indeed big, and unexpected news.

The increase will mean the minimum hourly wage paid to newemployees will be $9 an hour, with an increase to $10 an hour in April of 2016. Walmart has estimated that the salary increases will cost the company over a billion dollars a year.

But now we discover exactly how Walmart plans to pay for the increased pay for its workers: A spokesperson told Bloomberg that the company has instructed managers to cut hours only when staff has been “overscheduled.”

Translation: Managers will now be cutting the hours of employees so they can continue to operate at the present profit margins the company is accustomed to. So they give money with one hand and take it away with the other. That’s a nice bait and switch, wouldn’t you say?

What exactly does it mean to cut hours when employees have been “overscheduled?” Well, one anonymous Walmart employee from Houston said that means more than 200 hours per week have already been cut from her store by asking people to leave their shifts early or extending unpaid lunch breaks by up to two hours.

So yet again we see Walmart managing to lie their way to good public relations so they can continue to give their employees the shaft. Is it any wonder so many people refuse to shop at their stores on principle?

I have nothing against a company making a profit. That is, after all, what they are in business for. But when a behemoth like Walmart again and again screws its workers and then attempts to put a happy face on their nefarious actions, they have crossed the line between profit and predation.

This article was originally published by the same author at LiberalAmerica.org.