Above: Warehouse workers in Illinois on strike against Walmart.
Walmart Corporation has been in the news recently, but probably not for reasons the retail giant would prefer.
First, the company’s stores and distribution centers were hit with historic work stoppages, as Walmart employees walked off the job in unprecedented numbers in October and November of last year. Then on Black Friday, workers and allies in 46 states staged demonstrations and walkouts at over 100 locations around the United States. The workers took action in spite of threats from Walmart supervisors, and an attempt by the company to attain an injunction from the National Labor Relations Board that sought to prevent workers from exercising their legal rights to engage in protected, concerted activity.
Local JwJ activists at the Walmart store in Bloomington.
Walmart workers in the US were reacting to what analysts have termed the “Walmart Effect”. What is the “Walmart Effect” and why do so many oppose the Walmart model? Experts have charted how Walmart’s size and scale of operation give the company enormous power in the marketplace. While this allows the retailer to provide merchandise to consumers at low prices, the overall price to our communities is high, and perhaps unsustainable. Let’s just take three areas where the Walmart effect is felt most acutely: low wages, the destruction of local businesses and tax bases, and the corporation’s ability to dictate price and conditions to suppliers.
As industrial employment has declined, more working people are forced to work in the service sector, often without union protections. Walmart is the leading employer in the private sector, and the company’s insistence on opposing unions, and its corporate practices, have led to low-wage, low-benefit employment. Walmart employees earn much less, on average, than workers in manufacturing. Published studies have shown that the entry of Walmart into a regional market drives down prevailing wages in the entire service sector, while other studies have shown that upwards of 30% of full-time Walmart workers receive public assistance. A recent Ohio study showed that while Walmart posted over 400 million dollars in profit, Ohio taxpayers were subsidizing the company to the tune of 65 million dollars in assistance to Walmart employees. Indeed, if Americans oppose “welfare”, as we are led to believe, then a vast majority should advocate for closing down Walmart, one of the biggest recipients of public subsidy in the nation!
Walmart stores have also been shown to drive out local businesses, contributing to the decline of downtowns and to the decay clearly on display in many communities. As service sector jobs dominate a local economy, plunging tax rates cause decline in public services and cuts to school systems. As well, Walmart warehouses often outsource employment to temporary agencies, reducing the company’s tax burden while these warehouse employees, like those in Walmart stores, go without benefits or a voice in the work process. As in other processes, Walmart has been an industry leader in supply chain “logistics”, and many big box retailers have followed their lead in using temporary labor, squeezing productivity from the workforce, and oppressing the basic rights of warehouse workers to defend themselves.
Perhaps most importantly, Walmart’s size and influence allows it to dictate price and conditions to suppliers, eliminating competition in the global marketplace, driving down wages in many parts of the global economy, while creating conditions that are both unsafe for workers and unsustainable for the ecology. These effects have combined to create the very conditions for Walmart workers, and those in their supply chain, that drove them to take action as the holiday season of 2012 approached.
Walmart looked bad, but seemed to weather the storm of strikes, work stoppages, and public demonstrations. Then things went from bad to worst. On November 26, a horrific fire at a clothing factory in Bangladesh killed 112 workers. Images of carnage and reports of locked doors and unsafe conditions were reminiscent of the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist fire of 1911 in New York City, an event largely viewed as a catalyst to changing U.S safety standards. Walmart at first denied their products were produced in the factory, but evidence has surfaced that the company’s Faded Glory line of clothing was, in fact, produced at the location.
Walmart has denied knowledge of the fact that their clothing was produced at the factory in question, and has fallen back on the old alibi that they cannot keep track of where their products originate in the complex chain of supply. They make this claim in spite of the fact that Walmart is a global leader in supply chain logistics, on-time inventory, and human resource management. The company knows every product it stocks, its location, and the productivity of every employee to the minute. Yet it claims it cannot track its suppliers.
Walmart is not the only big box retailer to engage in unfair labor practices, or to contract with irresponsible suppliers. But the company is the nation’s largest private employer, and is an acknowledged industry leader in retail, using its size and scale of operation to set industry standards and extract favorable conditions from suppliers. Subsequent investigations have revealed that Walmart representatives actively worked to stop new safety rules that may have prevented the Tazreen fire and saved lives. As consumers, we have the power to hold companies like Walmart accountable through our choices.
Our local Jobs with Justice Chapter, in coordination with groups around the U.S. and the world, have staged several demonstrations at the Walmart store in Bloomington. We have done this not to tell people where to shop, as we recognize that stagnant wages often force working families to seek the lowest price for their daily needs. We demonstrated at the store to bring to the attention of our fellow community members Walmart’s role in creating poor conditions for workers here and abroad, and the role of the retail giant in damaging our local communities.
JwJ activists and members of Bloomington’s faith community at a vigil for Bangladeshi workers.
No one should tell anyone else where to shop, and in the U.S system of free enterprise, businesses are free to contract within existing legal frameworks. However, consumers do have power. If a citizen feels they have no responsibility for unfair, unsafe, or even deadly conditions that exist in businesses that they purchase from, that is their choice. If, however, your morals and values dictate that your resources should contribute to better conditions for workers, and you choose to shop at Walmart, tell the company how you feel. Demand that they treat their workers with respect. And demand that the products you purchase are produced under humane conditions. If you believe that workers everywhere deserve respect, join our campaign to support Walmart workers and those working in the global supply chain.
If not you, who? If not now, when?
