NYT: Opponents of Wal-Mart to Coordinate Efforts

[DeepModem Mom]

Opponents of Wal-Mart to Coordinate Efforts
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Published: April 3, 2005


Led by Wal-Mart's longtime opponents in organized labor, a new coalition of about 50 groups - including environmentalists, community organizations, state lawmakers and academics - is planning the first coordinated assault intended to press the company to change the way it does business.

In the next few months, those critics will speak with one voice in print advertising, videos and books attacking the company, they say. They also plan to put forward an association of disenchanted Wal-Mart employees, current and former, to complain about what they call poverty-level wages and stingy benefits.

The critics have already begun lobbying in 26 states for legislation intended to embarrass Wal-Mart by disclosing how many thousands of its employees do not receive company health insurance and turn to taxpayer-financed Medicaid....

***

Wal-Mart, the nation's largest company, is in turn mounting a huge counteroffensive. Last week, it took out an advertisement across two pages in The New York Review of Books in which it defended its business practices and accused its union detractors of being selfish. It is spending millions of dollars on television advertisements in which blacks, Hispanics and women say that Wal-Mart is an excellent place to work. It has invited 100 journalists to its Arkansas headquarters to hear its case this Tuesday....

***

(Lee Scott, the company's chief executive) cited studies estimating that Wal-Mart saves American consumers $100 billion a year and saves the average family $600 a year, giving "them a raise every time they shop with us." Saying that Wal-Mart's wages average around $10 an hour, nearly twice the federal minimum wage, he added that the company offered "good jobs at fair wages and benefits with unparalleled opportunities for growth."...


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/business/03walmart.html

[UpInArms]

1. squal-mart and the trade deficit

http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/view_art.asp?Prod_ID=933

Wal-Mart's Trade Deficit

Wal-Mart global sales, 2002: $245 billion

Wal-Mart sales of U.S.-made goods in foreign stores, 2002: $500 million

Wal-Mart foreign sales of U.S.-made goods as share of total Wal-Mart global sales: 0.002 percent

Wal-Mart imports from China alone, 2002: $12 billion

...more...

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20050301/china.html

excerpt:

10. No company has embraced China's potential more vigorously than Wal-Mart. And no company has been a bigger catalyst in pushing manufacturers to China. Estimates of how much of Wal-Mart's merchandise comes from abroad today range from 50% to 85%. Chinese factories are, by far, the most important and fastest-growing sources for the company. In 2003, Wal-Mart purchased $15 billion worth of goods from Chinese suppliers. A whopping portion of between 10% and 13% of everything China has sent to the U.S. winds up on Wal-Mart's shelves. Writing in The Washington Post, Peter Goodman and Phillip Pan reported in February 2004 that "more than 80% of the 6,000 factories in Wal-Mart's worldwide database of suppliers are in China." The company has 560 people on the ground in the country to negotiate and make purchases.

Wal-Mart is often demonized for its part in shipping U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas. It is difficult, however, to separate the role of Wal-Mart's thousands of suppliers in the migration of manufacturing out of the U.S. from the larger global trends realigning how and where the world makes things. If Wal-Mart has a unique part in the trend, it is in how expertly the company has managed that trend and, in so doing, accelerated it. China's low-cost manufacturing machine feeds Wal-Mart's critical mass by allowing companies to build assembly lines that are so huge that they achieve ever-greater economies of scale and drive prices downward all the more.

Wal-Mart's Chinese suppliers can achieve startling, market-shaking price cuts. By selling portable DVD players with seven-inch LCD screens from China for less than $160, for instance, Wal-Mart recently helped cut the price of these trendy devices in half. Even with superlow prices, Chinese factories can sell in such giant quantities that they willingly oblige. To get ready for its big Thanksgiving sale in 2002, Wal-Mart picked Sichuan Changhong Electric, one of the world's largest makers of televisions, to supply sets under the Apex Digital brand. Changhong makes 15 million TVs a year, most of them for export. Eight of 10 shipped overseas go to the U.S. In 2002, its sets at Wal-Mart sold for far less than comparable models from other makers, sometimes undercutting the competition by $100 or more. The models the company delivered for the sale helped the event net $1.4 billion.

...more...

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Thanks for posting this info, UpInArms! nt

[UpInArms]

3. I haven't stepped foot in squal-mart for

over 5 years -

as soon as I realized who and what they were (hate to admit how slow I was), I absolutely refused to ever spend another penny in their "market"

[cap]

4. yup whatever happened to

made in america?

[tsuki]

5. It was a lie, and they got caught.

[cap]

18. i know ... i was being sarcastic :)

[4dsc]

6. Christians shouldn't shop Walmart..

Along with anybody who has any set of morals.

Perhaps they should start a "Christians don't shop at WalMart" campaign.. Then let every know that over 50% of trade with China is through WAL MART!! Can you say prison labor??

[cally]

7. The Zogby survey asked

whether I participated in any boycotts and then asked why. I think Walmart is worried and starting to poll to figure out how many boycott their store.

[Toucano]

8. $10/ hour average wage?

Yeah, right.

I admit I got a D in statistics, but it doesn't take an ace to know that if I have eight employees at $7/hr and two employees at $22/hr, the average wage is $10/hr. In this simple scenario, 80% are below that average.

[gizmo1979]

9. This is where everyone buys their argument

About saving us money.Their prices are low but their cost has been very high!They started this whole race to the bottom that has led to millions of jobs being lost oversea's.They continue to rule with an iron fist pushing everyone in there way to the gutter.They don't pay benefits,at least not decent benefits,so in order to compete other companys have to do the same.Indeed their cost has been very high!

[DeepModem Mom]

13. "Their cost is very high" -- you may have given this effort...

a slogan. Well said, gizmo!

[gizmo1979]

17. Thankyou.

It would be by accident,hope it works.

[Kindigger]

10. Hope so

"In the next few months, those critics will speak with one voice in print advertising, videos and books attacking the company, they say. They also plan to put forward an association of disenchanted Wal-Mart employees, current and former, to complain about what they call poverty-level wages and stingy benefits."

As a former, very short term employee....
We used to have a place to complain. I think it was called wallhell.com. Walmart's lawyers got it shut down.

[anarchy1999]

11. Well now, here is a movement to get behind. When Wal-Mart

is threatened by a real "union" movement there may be change ahead.

Can we add Starbucks, Wendy's, Burger King and all the rest?

On edit:

So sorry, I forgot McDonalds, our favorite of favorites.

While we are at it though what about Subway?

[Daphne08]

12. Wal-Mart is yet another example of capitalism run amok

I stopped shopping there years ago.

[Eloriel]

14. FABULOUS, just fabulous

And so badly needed. That's what the Left needs to do in every regard: team up. We are VERY powerful, or would be if we teamed up. But we stay splintered and scatter our efforts too much. That was okay when the "enemies" weren't themselves so damned near all-powerful, but when you've got a behemoth like Wal-Mart, or a government controlled entirely by one party, you've got to aim better and focus more.

I LOVE this.

[Mabel Dodge]

15. Poor, poor, pitiful WaaaMart

Poor Waaa-Mart everyone is ganging up on them. I hope the boycott continues to grow.

[Voltaire99]

16. Excellent. High time! (n/t)