Wal-Mart's Shocking Impact on the Lives of Hundreds of Millions of People

[marmar]

via AlterNet:




The American Prospect / By David Moberg

Wal-Mart's Shocking Impact on the Lives of Hundreds of Millions of People
Wal-Mart's actions shape our landscape, work, income distribution, consumption patterns, politics and culture, and the organization of industries, from California to China.

April 28, 2011 |


Wal-Mart casts a global shadow across the lives of hundreds of millions of people, whether or not they ever enter a Supercenter. With $405 billion in sales in the last fiscal year, Wal-Mart is so big, and so obsessively focused on cost-cutting, that its actions shape our landscape, work, income distribution, consumption patterns, transport and communication, politics and culture, and the organization of industries from retail to manufacturing, from California to China.

Yet other paths are possible, and the company would not be so influential had the world not changed to enable its metastasized growth. Had unions been stronger, especially in the South, and more devoted to organizing the growing service sector, Wal-Mart might not have become such an obstacle to labor renewal. If antitrust enforcement had not been narrowed, Wal-Mart could never have grown as big as it did. There would be no such mega-stores if state governments had not repealed Depression-era fair-trade laws. And Wal-Mart’s push of American consumer -- product manufacturing to China depended on a previously established political and technological foundation of pro-corporate globalization.

But it would be a mistake to say that Wal-Mart is merely following the new logic of retail competition, for Wal-Mart reinforces all dimensions of this emerging business climate. As Jennifer Stapleton, assistant director of the United Food and Commercial Workers’ project Making Change at Walmart, puts it, “They set the rules.”

Consider Ana Sanchez, a 45-year-old immigrant to Southern California from Mexico. Wal-Mart does not employ her but is in some sense her boss. Sanchez worked two years at a temp agency that staffed a large California warehouse. She was trying to put her three children through college in Oaxaca, Mexico, on pay that started at $6.75 an hour, then rose to $8, with no benefits. She retrieved cartons, put labels on products, then shrink-wrapped plastic around pallets to ship. Mainly, she shipped children’s clothing made in China to Wal-Mart. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/economy/150781/wal-mart%27s_shocking_impact_on_the_lives_of_hundreds_of_millions_of_people/

[HolyCity2012]

1. WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price

WAL-MART: THE HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE is a feature length documentary that uncovers a retail giant's assault on families and American values.

The film dives into the deeply personal stories and everyday lives of families and communities struggling to fight a goliath. A working mother is forced to turn to public assistance to provide healthcare for her two small children. A Missouri family loses its business after Wal-Mart is given over $2 million to open its doors down the road. A mayor struggles to equip his first responders after Wal-Mart pulls out and relocates just outside the city limits. A community in California unites, takes on the giant, and wins!

Producer/Director Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films take you on an extraordinary journey that will change the way you think, feel -- and shop.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x538146

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[robcon]

2. I think Wal-Mart's impact is overwhelmingly positive.

The low prices, and competitive environment that they have created, has been a huge boost for working families.

[marmar]

3. Sarcasm?

....... I hope. :scared:

[nebenaube]

4. Inference impaired? You can't exptrapolate from emperical evidence? n/t

[sinkingfeeling]

5. Really? Come to Bentonville, Arkansas and I'll show you around and explain it to you. Although, you

should be able to see it with your own eyes.

[bertman]

7. Some people don't care about anything but cheaper. I refuse to darken the door of WalMart

but someone I know very well shops there . . . let's just say she shops for price regardless of the social consequences. Just like MILLIONS of Amerikans.

REC.

[marmar]

8. I've never spent a dime in one......

....... the only time I've walked into a Wal-Mart was to take a whizz. (I was driving from Monterey to San Francisco and it was right off the highway).

[robinlynne]

9. It's not just retail and not just Walmart. It is in every industry across the board.