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Walmart: Labor Abuses Lurk Behind Black Friday Deals
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by Jordan Yerman | November 25, 2009 at 11:11 am
541 views | 60 Recommendations | 13 comments
Walmart is well-known for its low, low prices, but there's a reason Walmart Black Friday deals are so good: widespread cost-cutting all along the supply chain. China Labor Watch released its latest findings after investigating Walmart's factories, and the report is not pretty: widespread corruption and mistreatment of labor are the norm at Walmart supplier factories in China.
How cheap is too cheap? By forcing prices down, Walmart not only creates a culture of abuse at its own factories, but generates incentive for competitors to allow the same things to happen.
While Wal-Mart's Ethical Standards team has responded enthusiastically to help individual factories implement remediation plans, there is no evidence of systematic improvement.
While not saying that Walmart itself is complicit in the abuses taking place at outsourced factories, China Labor Watch says that Walmart is not diligent enough in following up on promises to clean up its act when it comes to dealing with overseas factories.
After failing two Wal-Mart audits, factories may bribe auditors on the third audit to avoid losing Wal-Mart orders. Auditors lacking experience will often fail to identify issues or realize when they are being tricked.
Living conditions at the factories are uniformly poor. At Dashing, bathrooms have no running water (workers must carry in buckets of water to flush the toilets).
In addition to these clear violations of the law, managers of these factories actively work to prevent Wal-Mart from discovering failures to meet Wal-Mart standards. At Wing Fat and Dashing, the factory falsifies information and asks workers to lie during factory audits. At Wing Fat, records are hidden and an entire area of the factory is blocked off.
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Recommendations (60)
stejeb
United Kingdom
Roy C
Vancouver, Washington, United States
Karen Hatter
All Locations, Everywhere, United States
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North Tonawanda, New York, United States
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New York, New York, United States
marianmo
Mission, Canada
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Narita, Chiba, Japan
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New York, New York, United States
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Freddy Beach, Where the deer r, Canada
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (13)
at 11:15 on November 25th, 2009
It's ongoing, unfortunately.
at 11:49 on November 25th, 2009
Walmart employees, working in retail stores in the United States, are experiencing problems as Walmart workers.
It seems some of the company's profit also comes from the possible abuse of its workers.
at 11:54 on November 25th, 2009
Wal-Mart is awful. They are an example of when you really need a union. Even in the ESL area, in Milan, "we", the Brits and the Americans, we had to organize a strike.
When labor is powerless, there is abuse. Period.
at 11:57 on November 25th, 2009
I think it's not very often all of us agree. Kudos to us all. Walmart is also blocking unions in Canada and if they don't succeed they pull out and move elsewhere.
at 12:05 on November 25th, 2009
You need Big Labor when Big Business is abusive, and anything big will ultimately be corrupted by its own power.
But, Hillary was on the board. Where is the NLRB, the National Labor Relations Board? All the major retailers have contributed to killing off American manufacturing.
This goes all the way back to Reagan.
We shouldn't need "card check" to get them unionized. Even without unions, their practices are abominable.
at 12:08 on November 25th, 2009
Walmart took over Asda in the UK, it has not been an improvement!
at 17:44 on November 25th, 2009
They took over Asda, I had no idea!
at 12:15 on November 25th, 2009
No, RNG, our greed creates it, not our "consumerism". We call your position "guilt-monging". Of course, it is all "our" fault, not the fault of the US Chamber of Commerce, Wall Street, the major parties, all the presidents.
No, it is the fault of people trying to save a buck as their living standards go to hell.
Big Business wanted access to the slave labor of China, and they got it, and the democrats didn't do a thing.
Hillary was on the board at Wal-Mart. Neither the repube prez nor the demonicat prez have shown the slightest interest in tariffs to protect the American worker.
I also organized that strike in Milan. I had the experience of being in strikes in the SEIU and in the ILWU, the commie longshoremen's union in San Fran.
at 13:16 on November 25th, 2009
Greed is for money. Consumerism is the desire for commercial goods. It is not "greed" in and of itself. Big Business is not "consumerism" in action. It is greed.
And, middle class families looking to make ends meet are not stricken with consumerism. That is the point, and we could have "consumerism" and still make all the stuff here in the US.
at 17:20 on November 25th, 2009
The customers at the local Wal-Mart don't step off the pages of Vanity Fair. They buy clothes that are not "consumer" oriented.
The average person is not, at this point, trying to keep up with the Joneses, but with the lifestyle of his own parents.
The Europeans don't have Wal-Mart without unions. Less consumerism? No. Less allowance for companies to outsource and to screw over labor.
at 18:40 on November 25th, 2009
Walmart is the very reflection of our society and its morals. Their success is based in the insanity of consumerism and a lack of or even the destruction of our solidarity in favour of individualism and this to a self destructive level.
at 20:29 on November 25th, 2009
Walmart needs to be investigated for its labor rights violations, but the public ferocious appetite for the cheapest items possible doesn't help either! It's easy to blame Walmart, but let's look at the public frenzy for sales on the annual Black Friday.
Amazon is currently challenging Walmart in sales.
at 20:57 on November 25th, 2009
Hear hear