Wal-Mart and Sweatshops

Many Americans believe the clothing purchased in U.S. Wal-Mart stores is manufactured in America. In fact, the majority of its private label clothing is manufactured in at least 48 countries around the world, but not in the U.S.

In his autobiography, Made in America: My Story founding Wal-Mart President, Sam Walton, proselytized "Buy American." USA Today, August 14, 2001, reported that, "Wal-Mart has more than 1,107 international operations." The newspaper also reports that, "Bangladesh workers earn as little as nine cents an hour making shirts for Wal-Mart.

Hypocritically, Wal-Mart ran a "Buy American" and "Buy Mexican" marketing campaigns simultaneously, all the while reinvesting its all-American dollars overseas.

Wal-Mart is the largest importer of Chinese goods.  10% of all Chinese imports are imported by Wal-Mart.  Wal-Mart even established its own global procurement division this year, abandoning the pretense to its traditional "buy American" campaign.  This team searches the globe for the cheapest raw materials, manufacturers and shipping routes.  They allow Wal-Mart to relocate factories from one country to the next in its endless quest to squeeze countries for lower wages and cheaper goods. (LA Times 12/03)

U.S. manufactures have been forced to cut good jobs and eliminate entire operations when Wal-Mart shifts to contractors with poverty-level wages. At Master Lock, 250 union workers lost their jobs when Wal-Mart dropped the company's products and switched to an offshore competitor. (4/00)

Wal-Mart has such a strong command over the retail market that it alone affects the wages of many workers and the fate of many factories around the world.  In a recent series the LA Times described how Wal-Mart's demands dictate lower wages, harder work, and longer hours, while eliminating jobs in factories from Honduras to China.  No longer is this humongous corporation putting only America's factories out of business, it has now turned to pitting factories in countries around the world against each other in an impossible race to the bottom.

Wal-Mart was removed from KLD & Co.’s Domini 400 Social Index because of what it called ‘sweatshop conditions’ at its overseas vendors’ factories. KLD, which provides social research for institutional investors, said Wal-Mart hasn’t done enough to ensure that its vendors meet ‘adequate labor and human rights standards,’ according to a statement distributed by PR Newswire. KLD also cited charges that the company hasn’t been forthright about its involvement with a Chinese handbag manufacturer alleged to have subjected workers to 90-hour weeks, exceptionally low wages, and prison-like conditions. The Domini 400 is a benchmark index for measuring the effect of social screening on financial performance. (1/03)

Some of the abuses in foreign factories that produce goods for Wal-Mart include:

* Forced overtime

* Locked bathrooms

* Starvation wages

* Pregnancy tests

* Denial of access to health care

* Workers fired and blacklisted if they try to defend their rights

The National Labor Committee reported in September 1999 that the Kathie Lee clothing label (made for Wal-Mart by Caribbean Apparel, Santa Ana, El Salvador) conducted sweatshop conditions of forced overtime. Workers hours were Monday to Friday from 6:50 a.m. to 6:10 p.m., and Saturday from 6:50 a.m. to 5:40 p.m. There are occasional shifts to 9:40 p.m. It is common for the cutting and packing departments to work 20-hour shifts from 6:50 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. Anyone unable or refusing to work the overtime hours will be suspended and fined, and upon repeat "offenses" they will be fired. This factory is in an American Free Trade Zone. (http://www.nlcnet.org/KATHLEE/elsalvinfo.html)

Wal-Mart regularly says it does not tolerate child labor or forced or prison labor, but when it comes to walking the walk the company refuses to reveal its Chinese contractors and will not allow independent, unannounced inspections of its contractors’ facilities.

Clothing sewn in China is usually done by young women, 17 to 25 year old (at 25 they are fired as ‘too old’) forced to work seven days a week, often past midnight for 12 to 28 cents an hour, with no benefits. Or that the women are housed in crowded, dirty dormitories, 15 to a room, and fed a thin rice gruel. The workers are kept under 24-hour-a-day surveillance and can be fired for even discussing factory conditions. The factories in China operate under a veil of secrecy, behind locked metal gates, with no factory names posted and no visitors allowed. China’s authorities do not allow independent human rights, religious or women’s groups to exist, and all attempts to form independent unions have been crushed. (http://www.nlcnet.org, 10/22/02)

US Sweatshop Conditions

In October 10, 2002, the National Organization for Women (NOW) reported that the Maine Department of Labor ordered Wal-Mart to pay the largest fine in state history for violating child labor laws. The Department of Labor discovered 1,436 child labor law infractions at 20 Wal-Mart chains in the state.