The Behemoth Retailer That Could
Today, the Financial Times reported that Wal-Mart is expanding its overseas expansion. Well color me surprised! Currently, international sales constitute 26% of the company’s net sales and this is while Wal-Mart is lowering its capital expenditures. In layman’s terms, this means that they’re slowing growth- or rather, they are being forced to by the market. So in order to sustain the company, Wal-Mart is looking to conquer new markets abroad. Thankfully, Asia and Eastern Europe are still up for grabs!
Wal-Mart readies for overseas expansion
Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, is embarking on a further round of international expansion on the back of a systematic overhaul of the way it runs its business, which is expected to deliver more than $100bn in sales this year.
The retailer is actively exploring a first move into Russia and neighbouring countries, while preparing to open its first wholesale warehouse stores in India next year in a joint venture with Bharti Enterprises.
Wal-Mart already has operations in 13 countries, which accounted for 26 per cent of its net sales last year.
Wal-Mart’s international square footage growth rate is now above that in the US, where it has now slowed the expansion of its profitable Supercenter format in the face of market saturation.
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Posted by Vasudha Desikan on Wednesday, June 18 | 7 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart’s 2008 Shareholder Resolutions: Human Rights Committee
This is the third in a series of posts on Wal-Mart’s 2008 shareholder resolutions. The full list of resolutions - and Wal-Mart’s statements regarding them - can be found in the company’s 2008 proxy here (PDF).
Resolution #7 on this year’s proxy proposes the establishment of a human rights committee at Wal-Mart. Below, the details of the proposition, why Wal-Mart’s shareholders would benefit and how the company has reacted to the proposal.
Wal-Mart’s Public Image Problem
Reports of human rights violations have dogged Wal-Mart for years - particularly in the company’s supplier factories, most of which are overseas. These violations have thoroughly damaged Wal-Mart’s reputation, with everyone from U.S Senators to Wal-Mart employees to factory workers themselves speaking out about the inhumane conditions in Wal-Mart’s supplier factories. Bama Athreya, director of the International Labor Rights Forum, testified before Congress on the issue of toy safety, explaining that “Wal-Mart bears a lion share of responsibility for pushing the toy industry to a place where worker health and safety are basically nonexistent.”
Wal-Mart also holds the ignominious title of being the only company investigated by Human Rights Watch for its domestic labor practices. The group’s 2007 report labeled Wal-Mart’s union-busting policies a violation of basic human rights, saying:
It pursues its anti-union agenda relentlessly, often from the day a new worker is hired, devoting considerable time and resources at all levels of the company to the anti-union drumbeat.
The constant stream of allegations have damaged Wal-Mart’s reputation and in turn, its profits. In 2007, a Bank of America analyst’ report found that Wal-Mart’s profits had suffered as a result of organized labor’s opposition to the company and its unethical labor practices. The report noted that the union’s campaign “has cost WMT [Wal-Mart] real estate sites in key locations, adversely impacted comp store sales to some degree, and has distracted m management from focusing on its retail strategy. Additionally, Lee Scott now spends a large amount of time improving WMT’s image domestically and abroad, and WMT has been forced to focus advertising dollars on defending their brand.”
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Posted by Research Team on Tuesday, May 13 | 3 comments | Permalink
The Wal-Mart Connection
Amidst the holiday shopping season and on the heels of massive toy recalls, products manufactured in China are a hot topic. In recent Congressional hearings, blame was cast on entities ranging from the CPSC to manufacturers to the Chinese government. Oddly, retailers and specifically Wal-Mart were rarely mentioned.
With Wal-Mart as the nation’s largest toy seller and China’s seventh largest trading partner, it is disturbing that the behemoth retailer takes no responsibility for the negative impact of its cost pressures on manufacturers. For years manufacturers have shifted jobs overseas, where labor is cheaper and safety regulations are lax. The result is no secret: Wal-Mart’s cost pressure on manufacturers and the Chinese factories which supply them is manifesting itself in the form of both unsafe working conditions and unsafe products.
As the Mattel toy recall drama unfolded this summer, our Hong Kong-based organization, Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM), released a report regarding appalling worker conditions at five toy factories in China. Kam Long toys, one of the surveyed factories and a direct supplier to Wal-Mart, was found an unsafe and inhumane workplace for thousands of Chinese toy factory workers.
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Posted by Jenny Chan on Tuesday, December 04 | 38 comments | Permalink
Chong Won Factory Workers Criticize Wal-Mart For Failing to Renew Order
From Financial Times:
Workers in the Philippines who were sacked for going on strike have criticised Wal-Mart for its decision not to renew orders from their factory, in a case that is testing the retailer’s efforts to use its buying power to improve the ethical standards of its global supply chain.
The world’s largest retailer allowed its contract with the Chong Won factory outside Manila to expire last month and has said it will not renew it unless management meets a series of conditions. The conditions require the reinstatement of 117 sacked workers and the opening of discussions towards establishing a collective bargaining agreement with their union.
The 117 workers were sacked after going on strike in September in an attempt to force the management to reach a collective bargaining agreement.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, June 07 | 0 comments | Permalink
Global Labor Orgs Demand Justice for Chong Won Factory Workers
From the Maquila Solidarity Network:
Six months after receiving reports from the Philippine Workers’ Assistance Center (WAC) of violent attacks by Export Processing Zone police on striking workers, as well the unjust firings of two union leaders and 117 strikers, Wal-Mart has still not taken sufficient action to rectify the situation.
In addition to carrying out its own investigation, Wal-Mart has since received reports from two other investigations verifying that the workers’ rights have been violated. The first report, based on an independent investigation by the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), was submitted to Wal-Mart in December 2006. A second report, from the US monitoring organization Verité, was submitted to Wal-Mart in the beginning of March.
While Wal-Mart is telling its supplier to immediately reinstate the 117 unjustly-fired union members, it is not demanding that the company negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with the independent union. Management’s refusal to enter into negotiations with the union is the main reason behind the strike.
To participate in the LabourStart campaign and declare your support for the workers, please visit their website here >>
Click here to visit the Maquila Solidarity Network’s homepage.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, March 29 | 0 comments | Permalink
Manila Strikers Seek Support From Wal-Mart
From the Financial Times:
Hermenigilda Comia, a 46-year-old mother of three who sews sleeves to T-shirts in a factory outside Manila, has never been to a Wal-Mart store but she talks about the world’s biggest retailer as if it were her next-door neighbour.
Ms Comia and more than 200 of her colleagues at Chong Won Fashion, which makes T-shirts for the US retailer, went on strike last September to press the company’s Korean owner to negotiate a labour agreement with the union.
The dispute has caused the sort of unflatteringglobal attention that multinationals using developing world suppliers have grown used to in recent years. The Worker Rights Consortium, a group backed by leading US universities, this month accused Wal-Mart of failing to respond to anti-unionviolence at Chong Wonand the intimidation of workers.
But Chong Won workers such as Ms Comia take a different view of Wal-Mart. Famous as it and founder Sam Walton may be for their anti-union views, the workers say Wal-Mart may be doing more to solve the dispute than anyone else.
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Posted by Russ Fagaly on Monday, March 12 | 5 comments | Permalink
Wal Mart’s Supplier In Cavite To Go On Strike, Calls For Boycott
From Workers Assistance Center:
A labor union of a company who is producing garment products for Wal Mart, the biggest retail store in the US, is posing to hold a strike following their employers’ refusal to begin negotiations for worker’s benefits and welfare.
The Chong Won Fashion, Inc., a Korean-owned garment factory, has since refused and opposing to begin negotiations with the union for their collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The company supplies garment products for US-based retail store Wal Mart.
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Posted by Vasudha Desikan on Monday, March 05 | 0 comments | Permalink
Workers Charged PEZA Director General, Three Others For Rights Violation
From Workers Assistance Center:
Union secretary Merly Grafe of Kaisahan ng mga Manggagawa sa Phils. Jeon (KMPJ) and union president Resurreccion Ravelo of Nagkakaisang Manggagawa sa Chong Won Fashion (NMCW) had their complaints received by CHR-National Capital Region investigator Carlo Altiche.
The union leaders demanded to have the illegal and arbitrary acts allegedly committed by Director General De Lima, PEZA Industrial Relations Division Chief Atty. Mary Jane Arada, PEZA Police Chief Jose Sarasua, and Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief Inspector Audie Lirio Madrideo, head of the Rosario Municipal Police Station, investigated by the Commission.
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Posted by Vasudha Desikan on Monday, March 05 | 0 comments | Permalink
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