Stockholm, Sweden. Second Scandinavian Pension Fund Drops Wal-Mart Stock
On June 21, 2006, Sprawl-Busters reported that the Norwegian Government Petroleum Fund had voted to drop Wal-Mart stock from its portfolio because the company runs its business in an “ethically unacceptable manner.” Today, two and a half months later, a second Scandinavian pension fund has divested itself of Wal-Mart stock because of the retailer’s policies towards its own employers.
The Swedish Second National Pension Fund, known as AP 2, announced that it has sold its shares in Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart Mexico, worth about $41 million. Wal-Mart of course had no comment to make when an investor drops them cold, but a company spokesman said: “we strive to adhere to the highest standards in the treatment of each and every one of our own associates. These matters are among our highest priorities as a company.”
AP 2 told the media that “since 2003 (it had) written letters, voted at shareholder meetings and taken part in an investor group to influence the company (Wal-Mart), but there has been no change in the company’s view of labor rights.” The divestiture by AP 2 represents its entire holdings in Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart De Mexico. One spokesman for AP 2 told the Dow Jones Newswires that the decision was based on alleged abuses of workers’ rights at Wal-Mart’s various businesses. “Since there are so many accusations from so many parties, in so many countries, it’s impossible to say that there have been no systemic abuses,” the fund spokesman told Dow Jones.
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Posted by Al Norman on Friday, September 08 | 0 comments | Permalink
London, U.K. Wal-Mart Workers Threaten Strike In England
A Wal-Mart administrator was recently quoted as saying that the only Wal-Mart workers who think about unions are unhappy associates. There must be lots of unhappy associates wearing Asda vests in England. That’s the name of the British company Wal-Mart took over in their retail American invasion.
The Financial Times reported this week that Wal-Mart, obsessively anti-union, is facing nothing less than a union strike in Great Britain. According to the newspaper, Wal-Mart is in a tangle with one of the country’s largest unions over the issue of bargaining rights.
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Posted by Al Norman on Wednesday, June 28 | 0 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart Sends Tennessee Jobs To South Korea
From today’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette:
Winning a contract means a small vendor like [TV Guardian CEO Mike] Seals may see his product on Wal-Mart shelves across the globe. But it can be a painful victory since making a product that meets Wal-Mart’s price requirements can mean losing U.S. jobs to workers overseas. Small vendors can make useful industry contacts selling to the giant retailer, but they must remain nimble enough to give customers, and Wal-Mart, a winning product…
“At the end of the meeting, the Wal-Mart buyer said he wanted to start selling TV Guardians in 500 stores,” Seals recalled. “He wanted to sell it for $49. We had to figure out how to manufacture huge quantities inexpensively.”
TV Guardian’s factory was at that time in Tennessee. Seals had to move manufacturing to South Korea to meet Wal-Mart’s low retail price…
[Seals] was consoled by the fact that South Korea, unlike China, is a democracy with factories that pay workers a living wage.
Click here to read the full story in the Democrat-Gazette.
Click here (PDF) for more on how Wal-Mart pressures manufacturers to ship American jobs overseas.
Posted by Nu Wexler on Sunday, January 15 | 42 comments | Permalink
Whistleblower Reveals Labor Violations in Central American Factories
A former Wal-Mart executive has revealed details about rampant labor violations at supplier factories to the New York Times:
A former Wal-Mart executive responsible for inspecting apparel factories in Central America has sued the company, accusing it of firing him for being too aggressive about finding workplace violations, like locked exits and mandatory 24-hour shifts. [...]
Several of his monitoring reports noted that factories in Honduras padlocked exits, lacked drinking water, did not have toilet paper and did not pay overtime to some employees. He said some factories were so hot that people passed out and that several gave pregnancy tests to newly hired women, dismissing those found to be pregnant. Such tests and firings would violate Wal-Mart’s rules.
The former executive, James “Jim Bill” Lynn, also cooperated with the National Labor Committee in their effort to expose sweatshops around the world. According to a report on their website, Lynn expressed his concerns to senior executives who ignored his complaints and ultimately sought his removal:
In April 2002, Mike Duke-,now President of Wal-Mart Stores U.S.A. and 2nd in command after CEO Lee Scott-,visited Costa Rica to plan for the coming year. Two executive vice presidents joined him. (At that time, Mike Duke was Vice President for Legal, Real Estate and Global Procurement.) Toward the end of a day-long meeting, Jim Bill was called upon to discuss the factory certification program. Duke asked Jim Bill: “What grade would you give us” on these certifications?, and Jim Bill replied, “A ‘C-’ or a ‘D+’” At which point everyone started looking at him with expressions of, as Jim Bill describes, “what are you doing. You are making us look bad.” [...]
On May 7, 2002, shortly after Duke’s visit, Jim Bill was fired, supposedly for fraternizing with another Wal-Mart employee i.e. having an affair with a woman employee. Jim Bill denies this and so does the woman, despite the fact that she was taken to an undisclosed location and grilled by Wal-Mart staff, sometimes banging their fists on the table, with security guards posted outside the door. The gist was: she wouldn’t be allowed to leave until she said what they wanted to hear. Still, both Jim Bill and the woman denied the allegations as untrue.
Click here to read more about Lynn and other allegations of sweatshop abuse.
Posted by Philip de Vellis on Saturday, July 02 | 4 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart Admits Labor Violations are “Common”
Wal-Mart responded today to a recent report on NBC Dateline, which uncovered shocking working conditions in Wal-Mart supplier factories in Bangladesh. Wal-Mart’s director of international corporate affairs, Bill Wertz said, “the labor violations depicted on “Dateline NBC’’ are common.”
Wertz’s comments appeared in an article in Women’s Wear Daily:
Wal-Mart goes to great lengths to monitor factories around the world and eradicate labor abuses, he said. “We are continually trying to eliminate these kinds of violations, but, unfortunately, we’re unable to succeed 100 percent of the time,” he said.
While Wal-Mart claims that undercovering these type of labor violations is difficult, Dateline’s small crew had no problem documenting extensive abuse, as we see in this excerpt from the program’s website:
We see lights on, people still at work at factory after factory, including the one that happens to be the first factory we visited as Hansen Fashions. A few days earlier they told us they don’t overwork their employees. Yet on the night we check, quitting time is three hours later than they said, 10 p.m., and the workers are being frisked to make sure they haven’t stolen anything.
If you think 10 p.m. is late, try 1 a.m. That’s when video was taken with our hidden cameras inside a factory that makes clothes that end up at KMart and Wal-Mart. The workers, who are racing to meet a production deadline, have been on the job since 8 a.m. the previous morning and they won’t get out until 3 a.m.
Wertz, the Wal-Mart executive, continued his non-apology to Women’s Wear Daily:
He said Wal-Mart negotiates prices fairly — responding to an accusation on the program that the world’s largest retailer would not pay a penny more for an item, as requested by a factory owner — and said the comment lacked credibility.
“We negotiate prices with suppliers and we’re tough,” Wertz said. “I don’t apologize for that.”
Posted by Media Team on Tuesday, June 21 | 14 comments | Permalink
State Investigators Discover More Child Labor Violations by Wal-Mart
Connecticut state investigators have uncovered more cases of child labor violations at Wal-Mart, according to an article in today’s New York Times:
A state investigation found 11 violations of child labor laws at three Wal-Mart stores in Connecticut, including instances of teenagers illegally operating heavy machinery and working late into the evening, state officials said on Friday.
The violations were discovered during an investigation ordered by Gov. M. Jodi Rell in February, shortly after federal labor officials found similar violations of child labor laws at 24 Wal-Mart stores nationally - including 20 stores in Connecticut - between 1999 and 2001.
Click here to read the full article.
UPDATE: Wal-Mart’s legal troubles have multiplied over the weekend. Another whistleblower case has been filed against Wal-mart, according to a report on Northwest Arkansas TV.
James W. Lynn, of Searcy, filed the suit Friday in Benton County Circuit Court. Lynn worked as the retailer’s global services manager in Costa Rica from 1993 until he was fired in 2002. [...]
Lynn claims that while on a trip to Honduras he learned Moon Chung, Wal-Mart’s Honduras general manager, pressured employees to falsify factory certifications to show they passed certification without meeting Wal-Mart standards.
He also noticed in Honduras violations of local wage and hour laws and Wal-Mart’s overtime policy, lack of restrooms and drinking water, poor ventilation, padlocked fire exits and mandatory pregnancy testing for women.
Posted by Media Team on Sunday, June 19 | 35 comments | Permalink
NBC Dateline Details Shocking Conditions in Wal-Mart Supplier Sweatshops
NBC Dateline aired an undercover investigation last night on the shocking conditions in supplier factories in Bangladesh. These sweatshops produce goods for a number of companies, but according to Dateline, “The top customer is Wal-Mart.”
An in-depth report and video can be found on the Dateline website. Here are some excerpts from the Dateline report:
Americans love a deal, and these days, thanks to the fast-paced global marketplace and big discount retailers, products are better and cheaper than ever. But what price do people in faraway places pay so Americans can get their bargains in stores like Wal-Mart?
The horrifying reality behind these bargains was told through Masuma, a young Bangladeshi woman employed as a sewing machine operator in a supplier factory that produces goods for several U.S. companies, including Wal-Mart:
Masuma: “I have to sit in front of the machine the whole time. I can’t move. I can’t even go to the bathroom without my supervisor’s permission. After sitting for so long, I feel pain throughout my body.”
Conditions like these might seem unacceptable to Americans, but they’re common in a poor place like Bangladesh. Extreme heat for instance. Factories like Masuma’s aren’t air conditioned, and even in a well-ventilated factory, we found temperatures can easily exceed 90 degrees.
Masuma says she has a quota: 80 stripes an hour. That means more than one stripe every minute, and they have to be perfectly straight. If she doesn’t meet the quota, she says, she has to work extra for no pay. The factory director said his employees work a maximum of 10 hours a day and get out by 7 p.m. But Masuma told us her typical day ends later than that.
Masuma: “Usually I work until at least 8 pm, but often they will keep us and make us work until 10 p.m.”
And she says she frequently has to work Fridays, the Muslim holy day, which by law is supposed to be a day off. On average, she says she works more than 70 hours a week. At least 10 hours more than allowed by the local law. It’s not hard to confirm that many factories exceed that limit.
According to the garment makers, working conditions could be vastly improved by adding a few pennies to the manufacturing costs, but retailers like Wal-Mart are steadfast in their determination to cut costs regardless of the human consequences:
When we were undercover [at] Hansen Fashions, an executive told us that he wanted to pay higher wages, but he claims Wal-Mart wouldn’t agree to pay even a penny more per garment.
Executive: “A few years back, I told Wal-Mart, “Give me one cents more a piece, one cent. I will use that money for these poor people.’ He says, ‘No, give us two cents less.’”
It is well worth the time to review all the materials on the Dateline website, especiallyread about Masuma’s reaction when Dateline brings her to a Wal-Mart in the U.S.
This investigation wouldn’t have been possible without assistance from the National Labor Committee. The NLC is launching a vigorous campaign to improve working conditions in Wal-Mart supplier factories. Visit their website to take action.
Posted by Media Team on Saturday, June 18 | 35 comments | Permalink
Dateline Investigation on Supplier Sweatshops in Bangladesh on NBC Tonight
From our friends at the National Labor Committee:
On Friday night, June 17, 8:00 p.m. (ET) NBC Dateline will air an in-depth, undercover investigation of sweatshop production in Bangladesh for major U.S. retailers like Wal-Mart. The National Labor Committee worked with NBC Dateline on this investigation.
Young women in Bangladesh are forced to work 14 hours a day, often seven days a week for wages as low as 13 cents an hour, leaving them trapped in inhuman living conditions. The workers are paid just 10 cents for every Wal-Mart shirt they sew.
If Wal-Mart and the other giant retailers would pay just 37 cents an hour, these women could climb out of misery and at least into poverty--which is their goal.
The National Labor Committee is launching a campaign calling upon Wal-Mart to pay 20 cents more per garment.
WE NEED YOUR HELP TO SPREAD THE WORD--BUILD THE CAMPAIGN--STAY INVOLVED
* Alert everyone you know--and ask them to do the same--that the NBC-Dateline undercover investigation of sweatshop production in Bangladesh for Wal-Mart will air Friday, June 17 at 8:00 p.m.
* BUILD THE CAMPAIGN: It is time to challenge Wal-Mart’s model of greed. We are calling upon Wal-Mart to pay just 20 cents more per garment, which would allow millions of women across the developing world who are sewing their garments to climb out of misery and at least into poverty.
Visit the National Labor Committee’s website www.nlcnet.org to read more and participate in the campaign.
Posted by Philip de Vellis on Friday, June 17 | 13 comments | Permalink
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