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 Send Wal-Mart Back to School
To Learn the Golden Rules
Wednesday, August 8th, 4:45pm - 6:45pm
7001 Bridgeport Way, Lakewood
Join us for family-friendly leafleting!
- The Lakewood City Council might soon consider another Wal-Mart proposal to expand the store into a SuperCenter. The City Council previously approved Wal-Mart’s plan to build the huge Lakewood Wal-Mart store but was forced to scale back to a non-food store by organizing and legal efforts led by the local group City Limits-BWA. We expect Wal-Mart to try to maximize the store footprint by super-sizing the Supercenter footprint.
- As we approach ‘back-to-school’ day sales, we will join with the grocery workers’ union UFCW Local 367, teachers, students, parents, and community and labor allies to teach Wal-Mart the Golden Rules: to share, to not be mean, to be tolerant and not discriminate. For more background, see the section below titled “How are the Wal-Mart Waltons trying to privatize public school?”
- This store visit comes after our “Shop In” action last February to inform Wal-Mart Executives that we expect them to become socially responsible if they plan to expand in our community. For more background, see the section below titled “What happened at the Lakewood store last February?”
Most of us now know how Wal-Mart erodes our local tax base that pays for public schools from the movie The High Cost of Low Prices. In a recent exposé Chuck Collins and Felice Yeskel (co-authors of Economic Apartheid in America) reveal how Walton family members are converting Wal-Mart profits into a fund devoted to anti-democratic school privatization efforts. This “charitable” fund could grow to $1 billion a year.
 A large Wal-Mart sweatshop worker and community leader contingent entered the store, shopped, learned about Wal-Mart products made under sweatshop conditions, and met with Wal-Mart management.
The contingent shopped for products on a special list but were horrified to learn about the conditions under which they were made. We then filed through the store with our huge Wal-Mart carts to the manager’s office. The sweatshop workers shared their personal stories with the store manager who committed to “take the messages up the corporate line.” The Wal-Mart worker fired after filing a sexual harassment complaint also got the manager to commit not to permit sexual harassment in his store, but only after asking the question 3 different times in different ways. We then picketed and leafleted shoppers in front of the store doors for 20 minutes.
 The Wal-Mart Sweatshop Workers were a cut-flower worker from Colombia, a retail worker from Florida fired after making a sexual harassment complaint, and a garment union organizer from India. All three have experienced first hand the unacceptable conditions on farms and in factories because of the purchasing practices of big box retailers such as Wal-Mart. This group is part of a speaking tour organized by the International Labor Rights Fund. Walking with the Wal-Mart sweatshop workers, were religious leaders from St. Leo’s Church and First United Methodist Church, the head of the Pierce County Labor Council, and leaders from Bridgeport Way Association and South Sound Clean Clothes and Jobs with Justice, local community groups organizing to hold Wal-Mart and other sweatshop companies accountable to socially responsible standards
Workers abroad who labor in Wal-Mart’s suppliers’ factories routinely experience:
- Forced Labor:
In violation of law, workers are routinely forced to work overtime, often 16-18 hours a day.
- Minimum Wage Violations:
Many workers are paid up to 30% below their country’s legal minimum wage.
- Maternity Leave Violations:
Most female workers are denied their legal maternity leave and their benefits.
- Overtime Pay Violations:
Workers are rarely, if ever, paid overtime. Although they often work more than twice the legal number of hours in a week, they are not paid more than their regular wages.
- Health Care Violations:
The health clinics that many countries require their factories to have often do not exist and workers are NOT provided with basic safety equipment, such as dust masks.
- Right to Form Independent Unions Denied:
More than 80% of Wal-Mart’s merchandise suppliers are in China, where workers do not have the right of freedom of association.
- Bathroom Breaks Violations:
In many of the factories, workers need a ticket and permissionto use the bathroom. Their breaks are timed.
(Source: ILRF research, including interviews with workers, conducted in China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nicaragua, and Swaziland in 2004-2005)
The South Sound is the most Wal-Mart saturated region in our state. Wal-Mart executives have ringed our urban areas with stores, battling community groups from Fircrest to Lakewood, from Gig Harbor to Federal Way, from Lacey to Tumwater to Yelm, from South Hill to Bonney Lake. Wal-Mart executives hoped to site a Supercenter store in Lakewood but the community fought back through the Bridgeport Way Association (BWA). The group battled in the courts for 5 years to prevent Wal-Mart from wrecking our local quality of life and kept the store smaller, primarily non-food, and forced Wal-Mart to respect important community and environmental standards.
While we have so far driven back Wal-Mart’s planned Fircrest Supercenter against stiff opposition, Lakewood City Council did approve building the Lakewood store. This 148,764-square-foot Wal-Mart Store opened its doors on January 22. Communities such as Gig Harbor and Lacey have stopped Wal-Mart stores.
Wal-Mart claims it is creating many new jobs but refuses to support a neutral study to evaluate how these poverty-wage jobs compare with the many new jobs that it will destroy. It is now well-documented in our state how much our tax-dollars subsidize Wal-Mart’s anemic healthcare plans. According to Wal-Mart managers’ own reports, the company now provides healthcare to fewer workers than last year and is under 54% of their workforce.
By Wal-Mart’s own website, “the average wage at Wal-Mart for full-time hourly associates in Washington is approximately $10.61 per hour.” This “average” compensation package is sad compared to the family-wage jobs at union retail stores that Wal-Mart displaces while making bigger profits. When Wal-Mart executives make record profits through denying many workers “full-time” work, affordable healthcare, and a viable retirement package, no wonder Wal-Mart’s executives are the greediest welfare recipients in the nation. For more details, see the Wake Up Wal-Mart Website.
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