Wal-Mart Watch Re-releases “A Handshake with Sam”
For Immediate Release
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Washington DC - In recognition of Wal-Mart’s 2008 Annual General Meeting, Wal-Mart Watch today re-released “A Handshake with Sam.” The document was originally announced in 2006 as a proposed agreement of shared principles concerning Wal-Mart’s moral responsibilities based on the highly regarded ideals of its founder Sam Walton.
Each of the seven common sense Handshake principles - such as respecting human dignity, providing employees with quality affordable health care, using market power to improve rather than depress wages and buying local first - are based on business and ethical principles supported by Sam Walton’s writings in his autobiography, “Made in America.”
“Two years later, despite a massive public relations effort to convince people otherwise, Wal-Mart’s current business practices still do not reflect Sam Walton’s principles,” said Wal-Mart Watch Executive Director David Nassar. “Wal-Mart still fails to pay all of its employees a family-sustaining wage; fails to ensure that all employees and their children have quality, affordable health insurance; fails to use its market power to improve supplier conditions and wages; fails to buy a significant amount of products locally; fails to pay its fair share to communities by continuing to rely on tax-payer funded programs, tax dodges and tax subsidies to inflate its bottom line, and it still faces the nation’s largest workplace gender discrimination lawsuit,” he added.
The 2008 Wal-Mart Shareholders’ Meeting offers an opportunity for the company to address these issues. Unfortunately, Wal-Mart will opt instead for an elaborate display of celebrity performances to entertain and effectively distract its shareholders and employees. The meeting occurs just weeks after Wal-Mart was essentially shut out of America’s third largest city - Chicago - because it refused to pay a higher wage.
To offset Wal-Mart’s lack of substantive discussion of its business practices at the upcoming meeting, Wal-Mart Watch asked its supporters for input regarding topics they would want Wal-Mart to consider. To date, hundreds of responses have been submitted and posted on the organization’s blog from concerned citizens - the majority of which requested first and foremost an honest discussion on Wal-Mart’s wages, benefits, and increasing trend of overseas sourcing.
“We still believe Wal-Mart can be a positive market force if the company returns to Sam Walton’s principles,” said Nassar.
Click here for a full downloadable version of “A Handshake With Sam”
Click here for Wal-Mart Watch’s complete coverage of Wal-Mart’s 2008 Annual General Meeting
