WAL MART is our current target

Wal-mart is a Mega-corporation, the largest employer in the WORLD. "If it were an independent nation, it would be China's eighth-largest trading partner."

Wal Mart is great right?   I mean you can get everything a lot cheaper than any other store. So why boycott them?  

Actually there is a HIGH cost to buying things at Wal Mart and the cost comes in the form of human rights and local economy.Because there is a HIGH cost to human rights and a HIGH cost to the local economy (among other things). Wal Mart buys the majority of its products from companies who pay their workers pitifully low wages, offer them no benefits, and show no regard for human rights, as a result being major contributors in driving global poverty rates higher. While buying these cheaply manufactured products from near slave labor factories, Wal Mart can sell products at a low price, making an unfair competition for local businesses, even putting them out of business.

HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS: The National Labor Commission states that workers work 13-16 hours a day and recieve 13 cents an hour wage (minimum wage is 31 cents and that is below poverty level). Workers typically live in crowded squatter shacks or dorms and pay $1.95 a week for rent and $5.50 a week for poor quality food. There are no health benefits but workers are fired if they are too ill to work.

There are no health or safety enforcement. Workers have constant headaches and nausea from paint-dust hanging in the air: the indoor temperature tops 100 degrees. There is no protective clothing; and there's no training on the health hazards of handling the plastics, glue, paint thinners, and other solvents.

DOMESTIC LABOR ISSUES: The average Wal-mart employee in the U.S.A. falls under the poverty income level. Fulltime employment is only 28 hours a week resulting in a gross income of less than $11,000 a year. Health-care benefits are available only if workers have been employed more than two years: but with such prohibitive premiums that few can afford it-only 38% of employees are covered. Workers' compensation laws, child-labor laws(1,400 violations in Maine alone), surveillance of employees have all been cited as abusive labor practices. The company has had repeated convictions, fines, and the ire of judges form coast to coast. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has had to file more suits against Wal Mart for cases of disablility discrimination than any other corporation.

LOCAL ECONOMIES: Local economies suffer because of the tactics used by Wal mart. Because local businesses cannot thrive and compete with their lower prices the local merchants lose valuable sustaining business.The local merchants lose their customers and eventually their businesses as the store owners observe fair labor practices and fail to compete with Wal mart's exploitative practices.

LCWR Newsletter, 2004

To learn more about how Wal-Mart affects your community, go to:

http://www.walmartcostsyou.com

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