Why I will continue to not shop at Walmart

[magid]

Last night I saw Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, screened at Porter Square Books. I learned a lot.

• Wal-Mart doesn't pay a living wage, despite being one of the biggest companies and making serious profits. Corporate policies and practices encourages unpaid overtime, offers mostly unaffordable health care, and actively encourages employees to use WIC, Medicaid, and other government programs to make ends meet. People working in Wal-Mart factories in third world countries have even more deplorable conditions (working >12 hours/day 7 days/week). I find this reprehensible.
  
• Wal-Mart spends big to bust any hint of union-forming.
  
• Wal-Mart discriminates among its employees (against women and people of color).
  
• Wal-Mart does not care about its customers. Studies showed that many crimes happened in their parking lots, and they still focused the vast majority of their energies to avoiding petty theft inside. People have died for their negligence.
  
• Wal-Mart drives other businesses (that are much more likely to pay living wages) out of business. The movie does not address how it is still people's choice where they shop; I found that a hole that should have been addressed.
  
• Wal-Mart cares not about the environment, leaving fertilizers and pesticides stored in flats outside. The bags are not always in pristine condition, so when it rains, there can be dangerous runoff into local water supplies. The way one local water supply person dealt with this, after getting no response from corporate, was to get the news media involved, after which the local Wal-Marts changed their practices. Nothing from corporate, and they've been fined for irresponsible practices.
  
• Sam's Club is a Wal-Mart business.
  
• Wal-Mart is not a good corporate neighbor, taking governmental subsidies and not giving back. Nor do the owners believe in giving to charity.
  
• I think the makers of the movie shouldn't've added in emotionally charged music, or used some of the other effects they did; the facts are scary enough on their own, without the sensationalism they added. Those effects made me less trusting of the reliablity of the movie.
  
• There's a new group in Cambridge for small, locally-owned businesses.
  
• The coffee shop part of the bookstore is apparently a wholly separate business.
  
• The guy who got up to talk first before the movie needs pointers about public speaking. The grammar issues annoyed me, but I could overlook them if he'd introduced himself, and not assumed that everyone in the audience knew the two people he spoke of by first name only.

Comments

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Ayup. I already wouldn't shop at Wal-Mart, and seeing the movie only reinforced that for me.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Yup.

I don't have a membership to Costco, but if I got a membership to one of those places, it would be Costco; I've read about them paying a living wage and such.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Though my not shopping at Wal-Mart and not shopping at Costco look the same from the outside, so this is probably moot.

[jaq.livejournal.com]

I'd heard hints about Wal-Mart before, but nothing specific - it sounds like this would be an interesting movie to watch. (In the UK ASDA (http://www.asda.co.uk/) is wholly owned by Wal-Mart as of a year or two ago, but I've no idea how much the business practices extend here)

[jaq.livejournal.com]

(but ASDA is only second biggest supermarket here, quite a way behind Tesco (http://www.tesco.com/))

[magid.livejournal.com]

The movie mentioned Wal-Mart buying a company in Germany where the unions were already established. Workers there have 6 weeks of vacation* and so on, and didn't understand why Wal-Mart didn't give that to the rest of their employees as well.

* I was entertained to hear the person interviewed say how people would break the time into 2 or 3 vacations, or maybe more, sounding rather incredulous, that someone would take a vacation of less than 2 weeks duration at a time. I wish...

[mud-puppy.livejournal.com]

I gotta get me to see that movie! And yup, WalMart is the *Evil Empire*. I think they're even worse than Microsoft!

[jaq.livejournal.com]

From what I've heard, Microsoft treats their employees pretty well.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Some other practices leave a bit to be desired, though.

So they're not the *Evil Empire*, just the *Bad Empire*?

[magid.livejournal.com]

Some data in the movie: the Wal-owners give about 1% to charity, while Bill Gates gives 58%. It gave me a weird fuzzies-about-Microsoft moment.

[arfur]

Yes, but that could just say more about how Bill Gates has better tax accountants or better PR consultants...than any personality traits of the Waltons.

[magid.livejournal.com]

True enough. Though I have heard of Gates giving money in other contexts (ie, not just this movie), at least. They barely give to a fund set up for Wal-Mart employees to help other Wal-mart employees in trouble ($6,000 is not a real donation from someone worth billions).

[mud-puppy.livejournal.com]

True! And Bill Gates' foundation actually supports a lot of good stuff too. But, I still say they're an evil empire, mostly cuz I don't I don't like Windoz :)

[(Anonymous)]

From what I understand, the "customers choose where to shop" is more true for us city folk than it is for rural Americans whose Wal-Marts have clobbered their entire downtowns.

I suppose that if a Wal-Mart appeared and everybody in town agreed not to go it, it would go away before that monopoly could set in. But that's like playing this weird Prisoner's Dilemma-like game, and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that it usually doesn't work, not when the big box is there selling the things you need for half as much as anywhere else nearby...

[prog.livejournal.com]

[Sorry, I keep forgetting that my laptop is set to not automatically log me into LJ. Feel free to delete this comment & parent.]

[prog.livejournal.com]

From what I understand, the "customers choose where to shop" is more true for us city folk than it is for rural Americans whose Wal-Marts have clobbered their entire downtowns.

I suppose that if a Wal-Mart appeared and everybody in town agreed not to go it, it would go away before that monopoly could set in. But that's like playing this weird Prisoner's Dilemma-like game, and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that it usually doesn't work, not when the big box is there selling the things you need for half as much as anywhere else nearby...

[magid.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know it's unrealistic to expect a town to boycott Wal-Mart to ensure local businesses survive. I wish it weren't, since the examples shown in the movie vividly showed what was left after (not much, either in businesses or community or people helped towards their economic dream).

[danger-chick.livejournal.com]

I live rurally. We don't have a Sam's or a Walmart's, but most people drive to a nearby city (45 minutes) to go to either or Target. The nearest Costco is 1.5 hours away. We have some shops here, but not many. And the ones we have are way expensive. I have to admit that I do shop at Sam's, because it's the only option for wholesale shopping. Plus, gas is expensive out here and it's at least $.20/gallon cheaper.

[fetteredwolf.livejournal.com]

I've never been to Walmart, but not because I knew all this. Well, I knew about how bad they are to their employees. But not all the other stuff.

I like Target. I do try to shop locally for a lot of things (local hardware store, and pet store for example, till the local pet store went out of business- despite our cat food costing about $5 more than Petco there.) but I am a poor grad student...

[magid.livejournal.com]

I don't always avoid larger/non-local businesses; it depends on the situation. I'm lucky in being able to choose a lot of the time, and have enough money that a couple of bucks here or there won't be a problem. (I also try to avoid buying non-consumables unless I'm really sure I want them; I have enough stuff as it is.)

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

Wal-Mart also will not stock emergency contraception.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Grrrr. The movie didn't emphasize the Wal-owners particular Xtian faith, which is presumably what leads to this.

(The part I forgot to mention in the main post: the Wal-owners have a massive underground security bunker in case of (emergency? apocalypse? 2nd coming?), in a barbed-wire fenced-off area.)

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

I think it's same to make that assumption. Well, that and they want to appeal to the stereotypic rural anti-choicers who undoubtedly make up the bulk of their customers.

Underground bunker: Oh, lovely. So they're completely insane, too.