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.