Wal-Mart is the world’s largest retailer – with 1489 mega-stores, 1397 Super Centers, 532 Sam's Clubs, and 56 neigborhood markets in the U.S alone as of 2003, and close to a tousand more abroad from Argentina to Germany. In fact, Wal-Mart is now the single largest private employer in the U.S. with 1.1 million "associates" and higher earnings than the gross national product (GNP) of 150 countries! In 2003 Wal-mart sold 19% of all groceries in the U.S. and recorded $9 billion in profits. Of the top fifteen richest people in the world, five are Wal-Mart heirs. The Walton family with its $90 billion is ranked among the richest in the world – along with Microsoft’s Bill Gates, and Saudi Royal Prince, Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud.
Wal-Mart Exploits Children in Overseas Sweatshops
Behind the slick veneer of success, though, there is incredible misery. Contrary to its “all-American” advertising hype, Wal-Mart sources over 80% of its products from overseas. When Congress and the White House approved “most favored nation” trading status for China, Wal-Mart expanded its activities there and now accounts for 10% of all U.S. imports from China. Wal-Mart’s 30,000+ Chinese sweatshops pay a mere 14 cents per hour when the minimum wage is supposed to be 40 cents. According to the National Labor Committee, Chinese teenagers are often "hired" by Wal-Mart contractors for an 84 hour work week and at night are packed into squalid dormitories under armed guard. In Bangladesh, teenage girls receive as little as 9 cents per hour – far below the official minimum wage of 33 cents/hour – sewing Wal-Mart clothes. Wal-Mart refuses to reveal its factory locations to independent human rights monitors since, in the words of spokewoman, Betsy Reithmeyer, “This is very competitive. If we find a very good factory, we want to keep it to ourselves.”
Wal-Mart Also Exploits Its Own Workers in the U.S.!
While, those sitting on Wal-Mart’s board of directors earn a whopping $1500/day for their “hard work,” the rest of the workforce languishes among America’s working poor. Just like China, Wal-Mart forbids its workers to organize a labor union. Instead, Wal-Mart’s 1.1 million “associates” are stuck in "dead-end" part-time positions, earning on average less than $14,000 per year (well below the federal poverty threshold for a family of three) and many end up qualifying for federal assistance programs. According to a May 2004 study by Good Jobs First based in Washington, DC, these public subsidies to Wal-Mart exceed $1 billion annually. A typical Wal-Mart store with 200 employees costs taxpayers $420,750 each year in the form of:
$9,750 for low income energy assistance
$36,000 for free and reduced public school lunches
$42,000 for housing assistance
$100,000 for service to at-risk students
$108,000 for health care subsidies
$125,000 for low income tax credits and deductions
Wal-Mart Destroys Farmland and Aggravates Sprawl
Sprawl destroys more than 2.2 million acres of parks, farmland, and open space each year. In southeastern WI, home to some of the best topsoil in the Midwest, an estimated ten square miles is lost to developers each year. A chief culprit behind sprawl is “big box” retailers like Wal-Mart, which have no qualms about bullying their way through local zoning boards and leveraging hefty handouts. A recent study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) found that taxpayer subsidies greatly encouraged sprawl in the Twin Cities metro area – with the additional expense of providing services to new stripmalls and superstores never being made up by new taxes. Meanwhile, family farmers and other rural folks that become unwilling Wal-Mart “neighbors” have to cope with inflated property values, increased road congestion, and real estate speculation.
Wal-Mart Destroys Small Town America
A study of small towns in Iowa by Prof. Ken Stone revealed a loss of over 7,300 businesses from 1983 to 1993 due to a radical shift in consumer spending to chainstores like Wal-Mart. Five years after a superstore opens, small towns within twenty miles experience a 19% decline in business. Rather than building in existing urban centers, Wal-Mart has pursued greener pastures. "Our key strategy," Walton wrote, "was simply to put good-sized discount stores into little one-horse towns which everybody else was ignoring... there was much, much more business out there in small town America than anybody, including me, had ever dreamed of." For every 100 Wal-Mart jobs created, it is estimated another 150 jobs are lost. Thanks to Wal-Mart’s cutthroat competition, small town business districts are now boarded up and largely deserted.
Let Wal-Mart Know How You Feel About Their Predatory Practices!
Mr. David Glass, President & CEO
Wal-Mart
702 SW 8th Street
Bentonville, AR 72716
phone: (501) 273-4000
fax: (501) 273-4894
email: letters@wal-mart.com
Useful Activist Resources:
http://edworkforce.house.gov/democrats/WALMARTREPORT.pdf
James Kuhn. “The Geography of Nowhere.”
Stacey Mitchell. “The Hometown Advantage.”
Al Norman. “Slam Dunking Wal-Mart - How You Can Stop Superstore Sprawl in Your Hometown.”
Bill Quinn. “How Wal-Mart Is Destroying The World - And What You Can Do About It.”
Good Jobs First http://www.goodjobsfirst.org
Institute for Self Reliance http://www.newrules.org #612-379-3815
National Labor Committee http://www.nlcnet.org #212-242-3002
Sprawl Busters http://www.sprawl-busters.com #413-772-6289
Trust for Public Land. http://www.tpl.org # 415-495-4014
This factsheet is produced as a public service by the:
Madison Infoshop, 1019 Williamson St., Madison WI 53703 #608-262-9036
- a fully unionized jobshop! (IWW I.U. 620)
http://www.madisoninfoshop.org
