Five Reasons Walmart's New 'Commitment' to American Manufacturing is Nonsense

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Corporate-Greed/Five-Reasons-Walmart-s-New-Commitment-to-American-Manufacturing-is-Nonsense

08/15/2014Kenneth Quinnell

Walmart is hosting a manufacturing summit in Denver this week as part of its new program to supposedly invest in products made in America for its stores across the country. The retailer is claiming its new plan will invest $250 billion over the next decade and create 1 million jobs. We're not buying it.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka addressed Walmart's summit and announcement:

But workers will not benefit from a Walmart-ification of our manufacturing sector. Jobs in the Walmart model won’t restore America’s middle class or build shared prosperity given the company’s obsession with low labor costs and undermining American labor standards. And the company’s ‘commitment’ to American manufacturing is meaningless unless it actually increases the proportion of its products that are American-made.

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Here are five reasons why Walmart's plan is nonsense:

1. The whole thing is misleading. When you dig deeper, you find that all Walmart is doing is counting the company's natural growth as "new" investment. If the company maintains its current percentages of U.S.-sourced goods and continues to grow at the same rate as it has the last three years, $262 billion will be spent on U.S.-made goods anyway without Walmart making any changes or doing anything new. Doing a little less than what you’ve been doing and calling it "progress" isn't exactly admirable.

2. As Scott Paul of the Alliance for American Manufacturing notes, Walmart's altruism doesn't quite stand up to scrutiny:

…in some cases—the economics now favor "reshoring" of work back to the U.S., due to an emerging domestic energy cost advantage, rising wages in Asia, and wage stagnation in the U.S. (which Walmart might know something about). And don't forget to consider the challenges that come from outsourcing: supply chain disruption, quality and inventory control issues, intellectual property theft, and high shipping costs.

FULL story at link.

[PoutrageFatigue]

1. And Mike Rowe needs to look further than the number of zeroes...

... on a paycheck before he lends his voice to such bullshit....

[BrotherIvan]

2. When Americans DEMAND US Made products, they will come back

If people were as willing to pay for Made in the USA labels as they were for greewashing and advertising, it would be no problem. But they don't and they won't, so it's not comin' back.

[MohRokTah]

3. K&R eom

[deafskeptic]

4. I remember

seeing a stand at Wal-Mart that said the products were made in the USA I took a picture of the stand and then took out the toothpaste in the stand. It was made in Mexico. I took a picture of that too and send it to one of my FB groups. We got a good laugh out of it.

[Boreal]

5. BOYCOTT WALLY WORLD

I never shop at that shithole and never will.

[hatrack]

6. Why do they evern bother? WalMart says it, ergo it is bullshit.