I can’t believe Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price has been out for so long and I’ve only just now caught even a small portion of it. It wasn’t as if I loved Wal-Mart for anything more than the convenience of being able to stop in, grab what we need and get out quickly – but after seeing what I’ve just seen, I will be opting for a little inconvenience instead of trading at Wal-Mart ever again.

Consider this day, the day I begin my personal boycott of Wal-Mart and all they stand for.

Take time to read just a handful of key points that are addressed in this documentary and consider actually buying, watching or downloading the film to see for yourself. Put faces and names with these points and keep them in mind the next time you wish to make a stop by Wal-Mart in sheer convenience.

From The Film  ”Wal-Mart; The High Cost of Low Price”

·   In 2003 Wal-Mart posted 240 billion dollars in sales, but cost tax payers a total of $1,557,000,000 to support its’ under-paid employees with welfare and medicaid.

·   Wal-Mart imported 18 billion dollars in goods from China alone in 2004.

·   Lee Scott, Wal-Mart CEO, earned $27,207,799 in 2005, while the average Wal-Mart hourly employee was paid $13,861

·   The cost for a Wal-Mart factory worker to assemble an average toy car is 18 cents, while the retail cost at Wal-Mart for that item is $14.95. [Assuming additional shipping charges, raw materials and stocking for a total cost of $1, the profits to Wal-Mart on a piece of plastic is at least 1400 %.]

·   Tax abatement/taxpayer subsidies for Wal-Mart amount to hundreds of millions of dollars per year, at all levels of government. Wal-Mart encourages its’ employees to go on government assistance programs [to compensate for its' lack of adequate pay and benefits]. A UC Berkeley study concluded that in California alone, Wal-Mart costs state tax payers 86 million dollars a year, and up to 25 million dollars to county taxpayers. [This drain to taxpayers to supplement underpaid and under-insured employees, went to such expenses as; Medicaid, welfare, food stamps, health care, income tax credits and housing subsidies, because workers cannot survive on their hourly pay]

·   Wal-Mart is currently fighting employee lawsuits in at least 31 states for hundreds of millions of dollars, due to lost pay/non-payment of overtime. It has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to settle class action lawsuits, “cheating people out of overtime on 40+ hours a week” in various states throughout the nation.

·   Racial and sexual discrimination exist as a systemic practice through this organization, as documented by many lawsuits and public cases. Unfair or unlawful hiring practices have also come to light, such as the hiring of illegal immigrants for less than minimum wage pay, as after-hours cleaning persons.

·   Overseas hiring practices in places such as China, Bangladesh and Honduras, have been exposed in many investigations consistently revealing illegal, inhumane and immoral practices on the part of Wal-Mart factory management.

·   In Bangladesh, 189,000 women are on the known payrolls, working a documented 7 days a week, with 14 hour days, making 13-17 cents an hour. Many were shown asleep and exhausted at their sewing machines and other manufacturing stations.

·   In China, workers make less than $3 a day for 15 hour days, working 7 days a week. Workers were routinely told by management to lie to inspectors about their working conditions, pay, living conditions and hours worked per week. Many were even given false pay stubs to show to these inspectors, and those who did not “lie well” for the company were harassed or fired. Worker paychecks had automatic deductions taken out of their weekly earnings to pay for crude, dormitory-style housing. They were forced to pay these deductions whether or not they lived at the company dormitories, so of course, most are forced to live there, and this does not include the cost of utilities such as electricity. Living conditions of the employees are less than minimal and unthinkable under US standards – with bunk beds, no place to wash or even hang laundry, little to no storage, few to no windows in tiny buildings that have no security, forced to wash their clothes on the floor in small plastic tubs. Many workers are made to work with little to no ventilation and other minimal facilities, in super-cramped factory areas surrounded by as many as hundreds of other workers in long rows, working as fast as they can under the eyes of abusive management. One worker was quoted as saying to Americans, “These profits you make and the wonderful life you have, are the sweat and tears and overtime-working of the Chinese people”.

·   In Honduras, an interviewed manager and loyal, career employee of Wal-Mart, speaks of being fired after bringing to light revelations of widespread worker abuse in every single factory he visited there. He said he was fired for performing his job, and that no actions were taken by Wal-Mart to correct the human rights abuses they regularly forced upon their indigenous workers, once those facts were reported.

·   The estimated value of the Wal-Mart jet fleet is $125,350,000. Such jets are routinely used by top executives to visit those store locations, the movie explained, within which any hint of forming an employee union is mentioned. Employees who attempt to form unions or improve conditions are “profiled” by managers, harassed, fired and held under surveillance.

·   The top 5 members of the Walton family, the original proprietors of the now world-wide Wal-Mart chain, are worth an estimated 102 billion dollars. Ten billion of that would promote adequate wages and health care for all U.S. Wal Mart employees. The Walton family has given an estimated 1% of their wealth to charity, but made 3.2 million in political contributions in 2004 alone. The Walton family received a federal tax cut of $91,500 for every hour of the 2004 tax year.

·   There is a Wal-Mart employee program called, “The Critical Need Fund” into which employees may donate a portion of their pay in order to assist fellow employees in times of crisis, such as in the case of hurricane or tornado victims. Into this fund, employees paid a sum of 5 million dollars in 2004 alone, whereas the Walton family donated only $6000.

·   A facility exists for the Walton family to escape to, in the event of a collapse of society or an apocalyptic-style, world war scenario. It is composed of vast wooded grounds, hi-tech equipment and an extensive underground system of tunnels and rooms. Included in this facility are a helicopter pad, satellite up-link dishes, and a highly fortified chain-link fence with barbed wire, surrounding the entire complex.

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Tagged as: careers, employment, job search, jobs, low prices, Wal-Mart, Walton