|
| |
|
Walmart & economic justice |
Spinning Wal-Mart
Retailer, union activists wage high-stakes PR battle
[11-27-06]Some progressive groups have been working
for months to make the public aware of problems with Wal-Mart – low wages,
lack of health and other benefits, and much more.
A report from the Cox News Service, published in the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, traces the giant company’s creation and
support of a supposedly "grass-roots" organization,
Working Families for Wal-Mart, which
has been singing its praises, in spite of a number of little
public-relations disasters along the way.
Labor and other groups, including
Wal-Mart Watch, have been
supporting a number of efforts to get more critical information into the
public awareness.
This article traces both sides – their funding, the ways
they are working, and some of their successes and failures.
If you’ve been following this issue, this might be a
helpful survey; if you’re just getting engaged with it, here’s a good
introduction to the players.
And if you have comments on the article,
or on the issue,
please send a note,
to be shared here.
The full article >>
One of our own earlier
discussions of Wal-Mart >> |
| COALITION
TARGETS WALMART IN NATIONWIDE CAMPAIGN
from Gene TeSelle, Witherspoon
Society Issues Analyst
[10-10-05]
Wal-Mart Watch is a new advocacy
coalition, with over 350 partner organizations, committed to reforming the
mega-corporation's destructive business practices. Founder Sam Walton once
said, "High expectations are the key to everything." In keeping with that
principle, the coalition is declaring November 13-19 "Higher Expectations
Week," with house parties and actions outside Wal-Mart stores across the
nation (for information, go to
www.walmartwatch.com/november).
The corporation
received praise for its quick response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, using
its distribution system to provide more than $25 million in support. But
critics say that Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott and the Walton family still have a
lot of work to do.
Wal-Mart's annual sales
are greater than Microsoft, Cisco, Home Depot, K-Mart, Sears, Target, and
J.C. Penney's combined. Each year it tightens its stranglehold over entire
industries. It doesn't negotiate, it dictates, with disastrous consequences
for workers all over the world, local businesses, and its own employees.
Here are some
particulars.
 |
Wal-Mart fails to
provide health insurance to more than half its employees, leaving them
dependent on taxpayer-funded health care programs. Wal-Mart workers are at
the top of Medicare rolls in at least 16 states, costing taxpayers
billions every year.
Read the report >>
|
|
|
Wal-Mart plans to
nearly double its retail outlets by 2010 and stops at nothing to crush
local opposition to its massive growth. For every new Supercenter, at
least two local supermarkets and countless small businesses will close.
What will be the cost to your town?
Read the report
>>
|
|
|
Wal-Mart has a long
record of worker abuse, ranging from forced overtime to illegal child
labor to relentless union-busting. Wal-Mart is the subject of the largest
class action discrimination lawsuit in history, including over 1.5 million
current and former female employees who were paid and promoted at
significantly lower rates than male co-workers. For this and other
information,
read the special report >> |
|
| |
| |
|
If you like what you find here,
we hope you'll help us keep this website going ... and growing!
Please consider making a special contribution --
large or small -- to help us continue and improve this service.
Click
here to send a gift online, using your credit card, through
PayPal.
Or send your check, made out to
"Witherspoon Society" and marked "web site," to our Witherspoon
Bookkeeper:
Susan Robertson
9650 Clover Circle
Eden Prairie, MN 55347 |
| |
|
An index of
our reports
from
BECOMING NEIGHBORS:
An Invitation
to Global Discipleship
A Witherspoon conference
on global mission and justice
September 16 - 19, 2007
Louisville, Kentucky |
| |
|
Check out our report from the
Conference
on
Terror, Torture,
and Security |
| |
|
