By Emir Olivares Alonso
The cost the community has to pay for Wal-Mart’s low prices is very high, since the company represents the most predatory form of capitalism, because it exploits its workers, suppliers, communities and towns where it sets up shop, in addition to the fact that it devastates the environment, says Ruben Garcia of Global Exchange.
In the context of the first Mexico-United States Binational Meeting Against Wal-Mart, the activist explained that the objective is to create bridges for collaboration between both countries in the fight against the transnational, to formulate a resistance plan for the next 12 months.
He explained that the binational meeting proposed that in Mexico three fundamental activities would be initiated in the fight against the U.S. company: 1) Create a “market day”, which would encourage people to purchase at places other than Wal-Mart, particularly in places out of the public market so as to “protect these historic instances” (I know this doesn’t make sense)…
2) Defend cultural tradition so that no more Wal-Mart stores are installed alongside sites of important Mexican tradition, such as the Teotihuacan pyramids, and so that it doesn’t happen that “one day we wake up and there’s a Capitalist Zocalo”, and 3) reiterate that Wal-Mart is a “current violator” of labor rights, since in its team of 150,000 workers in the country, 40,000 receive neither a salary nor benefits. Of these 40,000, 22,000 are underage (packers), and the remaining 18,000 are men that take care of vehicles in the parking lots, who only subsist on tips from clients, but they comply with the schedule established by the company.
For his part, Enrique Bonilla, head of the National Front Against Wal-Mart, declared that with every installation of a store from the Wal-Mart chain, 150 small business disappear, which results in about 1,500 people losing their jobs, a deficit that cannot be rectified since Wal-Mart only contracts 80 employees for each store.
Bonilla, who has completed various investigations on the Wal-Mart’s practices, explained that even on the opening day of any store in the Wal-Mart chain, the sales of small business decline by 50%. In addition to those who associate with the store to sell its products in rented places within the store, they pay between 50-60% of earnings to Wal-Mart while at the same time the transnational only pays 3% of its earnings to higher authorities for the space needed for the facilities.
Another problem with Wal-Mart is that in the stores on U.S. soil, mainly in the cities near the border with Mexico, guns are sold without restriction.
Trina Tocco, from the ILRF, emphasized that the abuses of the U.S. company are out of control, since it acquires its products at very low prices, which means that suppliers “exploit their workers even more”.
She added that around 70% of products sold at Wal-Mart come from China, so its earnings are based on the commercialization of electronics, toys and clothing. Also, she said that in half of the inspections that occur in Wal-Mart supply factories there are “violations of the company’s code of conduct”, but no actions taken to remedy the situation.
The U.S. activist demanded that the transnational pay the price for suppliers’ misconduct, in order to avoid exploitation of labor rights, in addition to giving preference to factories that are unionized.
Among others, union members, defenders of human and labor rights, environmentalists, and businessmen alike participated in the Binational meeting. “They’re very different people, from diverse professions, but all with the same problem: Wal-Mart”, concluded Ruben Garcia.