| Walmart DON'T DISCOUNT TRUE WAL-MART SUCCESS STORY Mary Conroy The writer retains the copyright for this article.
Nov. 6, 2002 Capital Times & Wisconsin State Journal ALL Page 8D (Copyright (c) Madison Newspapers, Inc. 2002)
Reading Jim Hightower's work is always a treat. Don't get me wrong - it's not fun, but it is very thought provoking. A recent Hightower column in the Union Labor News made me think long and hard about big discounters, especially Wal-Mart.
Did you know, for instance, that Wal-Mart is now the world's biggest corporation? Bigger than Exxon-Mobil? Did you know that five of the 10 richest people in the world are Waltons? (And not the "Night, John-Boy" variety.) In fact, S. Robson Walton has socked away more than $65 billion in personal wealth, leaving Bill Gates at a distant second.
So? They worked hard, and now they're rich. Isn't that the American dream?
Not when you ask how they earned the money. The Waltons have succeeded by paying employees slave wages and suppliers the bare minimum of prices.
Although Wal-Mart employees comply with the company cheer every morning, they don't have much to cheer about. The average Wal-Mart worker earns $15,000 a year. But many of them earn far less, because Wal-Mart calls 28 hours a full work week. The lucky ones on the 28- hour schedule make less than $11,000 a year.
So? Plenty of employees in America work for lower wages to get good health benefits. Ah, there's the rub. At Wal-Mart, you get health benefits after two years on the job. Even then, the health insurance premiums are so high, only 38 percent of Wal-Mart employees are covered by insurance.
With so many employees, surely some of them are unionized, aren't they? Well, no. In Jacksonville, Texas, 11 Wal-Mart meat-cutters joined the United Food and Commercial Workers union in February 2000. In response, 11 days later, Wal-Mart said it would close its meat-cutting departments in all stores.
And one of the meat-cutters in Jacksonville was fired for theft, according to the Texan Observer. A manager allowed the meat-cutter to buy some overripe bananas for 50 cents. The meat-cutter ate one before he paid for the box. He was fired for theft of the banana.
The corporation's cruelty to human beings doesn't stop in America. Charlie Kernaghan of the National Labor Committee says that around the world, plants that make products for Wal-Mart are the worst. In fact, Kernaghan says, Wal-Mart's policies are "actually lowering standards in China, slashing wages and benefits, imposing long mandatory-overtime shifts, while tolerating the arbitrary firing of workers who even dare to discuss factory conditions."
To keep curious people from investigating its suppliers around the world, Wal-Mart refuses to cite factory names or addresses. That way, no independent investigators can visit the plants.
Still, Kernaghan's NLC spoke with workers from toy factories (71 percent of all toys sold in the U.S. come from China).
The committee's report, "Toys of Misery," included these findings:
Production workers earned 13 cents an hour, although China's minimum (not living) wage is 31 cents per hour.
Employees spend 13- to 16-hour days making toys, seven days a week, except for 20-hour days in high season.
Employees suffer from unhealthy workplaces. Among their problems are headaches and nausea from paint-dust in the air; no protective clothing; repetitive stress disorders; an inside temperature above 100 degrees.
Workers must pay extraordinary sums for their own health treatment, and are fired if they're too sick to work.
How can we fight this giant? First, we can buy groceries from union grocers, so their employees get decent wages and benefits.
Second, if we shop at Wal-Mart or Sam's Club, we can minimize our purchases. More important, we can wear union buttons and T-shirts, and tell the management we respect retailers who provide a living wage for their employees.
Third, we can intervene when our city considers plans for a new Wal-Mart, Sam's Club or Super Wal-Mart. We can tell our mayors and city councils that we only welcome businesses that engage in fair trade and provide living wages.
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