This Sunday Lee Scott will officially retire as CEO of Wal-Mart and Mike Duke will take over. The transition, according to reports and Lee Scott's comments, won't be eventful or groundbreaking. That's partly because Scott will stay on as the Chairman of Wal-Mart's board and work with Duke for a few years. Still, it is a transition and we'll be watching closely to see how Mr. Duke runs Wal-Mart. This blog post from Reuters Shop Talk asks what you would add to Mr. Duke's To Do list. When we first heard about the change of CEOs back in November, this is what we had to say:
We invite Mr. Duke, as the new CEO of Wal-Mart, to live up to the company's responsibility to pay its workers a living wage, especially in this dire economy where working people are struggling and Wal-Mart is profiting. We invite Mr. Duke to improve Wal-Mart's employee benefits so that all of its associates can afford quality health care. Lastly, we invite Mr. Duke to make a real commitment to the American economy by keeping manufacturing jobs here in the United States, not pressuring its suppliers to go overseas.
What about you? What would you add to Mr. Duke's To Do list?
Here are a few articles about the transition of power:
Wake Up Wal-Mart has a new ad that will be up and running today in 7 states across the country. Check out the ad and the release we put out with it below the fold.
NEW WAKEUPWALMART.COM AD HIGHLIGHTS MCCAIN'S SOLUTION FOR THE ECONOMY: BILLIONS IN TAX BREAKS FOR WAL-MART
WAKEUPWALMART.COM ASKS CONSUMERS IF WAL-MART REALLY NEEDS MORE WASHINGTON GIVEAWAYS
Washington, DC - WakeUpWalMart.com, America's campaign to change Wal-Mart with 433,000 members nationally, today launches a hard-hitting 30-second TV ad-"Part of the Problem"- that highlights John McCain's solution for our failing economy: billions in giveaways for large corporations like Wal-Mart. It asks if McCain's `solution' isn't part of the problem. (Full script below.)
The ad comes just days after the economy took serious hits as financial institutions like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and American International Group failed amid the worst housing crisis in decades. Despite millions of Americans struggling with a dire economy, Wal-Mart has been making record profits. Indeed their Chief Financial Officer, Tom Schoewe, said that, "tough times are actually a good time for Wal-Mart." The retailer makes $21,000 in profit a minute, and made a record $12 billion in profits last year. Despite their record profits, and the failing Economy, John McCain's economic plan calls for a $1.5 billion tax cut for Wal-Mart, and millions more for their CEO.
The ad will begin airing nationwide today in 7 states: Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. It can be viewed at http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/...
TV AD SCRIPT
If a corporation makes twenty-one-thousand dollars in profit per minute...
If their Chief Financial Officer says "tough times are actually good" for their bottom line...
...do they really need more tax giveaways from Washington?
John McCain's proposed billions in new tax breaks for big corporations like Wal-Mart - one-point-five billion for Wal-Mart alone, millions more for their CEO.
More Bush-style corporate tax breaks - that's McCain's solution for America's economy.
This is the second entry in a series of posts looking at China as it relates to Wal-Mart in the aftermath of the Olympic games.
Today, we'll take a look at product safety.
Wal-Mart's business model is based on low prices. That means both how much they pay for a product, and how much they sell a product for. In the first post in this series, we looked at how this frenzied urge to reduce labor costs drove manufacturing to China. Today, we look at how Wal-Mart, based on the same desire for cheap goods, is responsible for a myriad of dangerous products.
When Wal-Mart goes looking for the cheapest products, or forces their vendors to do so, they don't consider things like safety, treatment of workers, or labor violations. They are looking for the lowest price, period. And as they pit factories against other factories to get the cheapest price, factories start to cut corners in order to keep their prices down and make an acceptable profit.
This has resulted in an astounding list of unsafe products reaching consumers, often with terrible consequence. Pet food sold at Wal-Mart, for instance, sickened or killed what could be thousands of pets. Wal-Mart had Aqua Dots on their top toys for Christmas list, but it turns out that when kids ate the little plastic pieces they went into a coma. Wal-Mart sold lead laced Christmas lights and Christmas trees and Key Chains. Wal-Mart was also selling salmonella tainted snack food that was made in China. This is just a small sample of the dangerous products sold at Wal-Mart. You can see a full list of recalled products here.
The problem got so bad that it was announced just a few days ago that the United States would be posting product safety inspectors in three Chinese cities.
This is great news in terms of products coming from China. In the future, products coming from that country will likely be less dangerous. Unfortunately, as mentioned in the last post of this series, China is swiftly becoming a more expensive option for manufacturing, and this will only serve to make it more expensive. That means major companies like Wal-Mart will simply move to other countries with lax guidelines and cheap labor. It means Wal-Mart will continue to put its consumers at risk by manufacturing and selling dangerous goods.
For the last few weeks, all eyes have been on China. They hosted a stunning Olympic games and won tons of gold medals to boot. It is understandable, then, that there would be a renewed focus on China in the media and in the minds of the American people. We thought we'd take a look at China too. Over the next few days, we'll look at China as it relates to Wal-Mart.
Today, we'll look at the role of China in manufacturing.
If you've followed our campaign you undoubtedly know that more than 70% of the goods Wal-Mart sells come from China. If Wal-Mart were a country, it would be China's 8th largest trading partner ahead of Canada, Russia and Australia. They are responsible for roughly a tenth of the US imports from China, and import almost twice as many products from China as any other company.
Wal-Mart has a long history of forcing it's suppliers to accept low prices for its goods. Suppliers typically accept these prices because of the number of products Wal-Mart can sell. But when they aren't making quite as much as they should be, they have to make up the difference somehow, and that means looking for cheap labor. Wal-Mart pits its vendors against one another to look for the cheapest labor, creating a race to the bottom. Recently, looking for cheap labor means going to China, and that is just what many Wal-Mart vendors have done.
But with China's rapidly modernizing economy, there has been quite a bit of speculation recently that China will no longer be the cheapest source of labor anymore. Today's Kansas City Star had an article about manufacturers looking elsewhere for cheap labor and speculating that Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and others were set to become major centers of manufacturing in the future.
As manufacturing shifts from China to other countries, Wal-Mart and its vendors are sure to follow. It is important to remember that it is not China that is the problem. Rather the problem stems from a system that takes advantage of workers to benefit large corporations like Wal-Mart. The labor in these countries is cheap because factories cut corners on safety, and are not regulated and can demand long hours of workers and pay them little.
In case you missed it, we just sent out an e-mail to our members asking them to write to the Federal Election Commission and demand an investigation into Wal-Mart's shady tactics. If you haven't heard, the Wall Street Journal broke a story on Friday about mandatory meetings Wal-Mart was having where they were telling their employees not to vote for Democrats. This is, hands down, a disgusting abuse of power, and it may just be illegal too! So take a minute or two to write to the FEC.
Below is the full message that went out to our members, if you didn't get it, you should sign up!
Mandatory political indoctrination, Democrat-bashing, voter intimidation. Yes, it's business as usual at Wal-Mart.
This summer, Wal-Mart has organized mandatory meetings across the country, all with one purpose: to intimidate rank-and-file employees into voting Republican. The company's workers have been forced to attend ideologically-charged, Wal-Mart-sponsored rants against Democrats, Barack Obama, and landmark legislation that would allow workers to vote for or against representation.
We have received several calls from workers, their stories are very similar and similarly unsettling. As one worker put it, "they were telling me how to vote." Another Wal-Mart worker, Beth from Alabama, was told by Wal-Mart management that if she "voted for John McCain, then everything would be okay."
We believe that ideological indoctrination and political scare tactics are completely inappropriate for the workplace. Yet again, Wal-Mart's management has crossed the line, possibly breaking the law in the process. In light of these developments, we are calling for an immediate FEC investigation into Wal-Mart's political bullying at work, but we need your help to make a real impact.
Outright political intimidation may seem too risqué for a global corporation. Not for Wal-Mart. Stories like the above are actually an emerging part of Bentonville's corporate culture.
Take 2006, when Wal-Mart organized a "voter education program" for employees. The company placed Terry Nelson at the helm: formerly George W. Bush's political director, and later fired for making racist ads about a Democratic politician. Unsurprisingly, Wal-Mart's "education" program amounted to a thin veneer over strident attacks against Democratic candidates nation wide.
Why has Wal-Mart made such an effort to control its workers' voting habits? For one, The company is terrified that Democratic gains will ensure passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. For Wal-Mart, an organized workforce could spell higher wages and better benefits--two things the company has fought tirelessly to avoid.
In the end, Wal-Mart's motives are a moot point. The company has crossed the line, again, and it's time to hold them accountable. You can help us end Wal-Mart's sleazy political schemes by taking a moment to write the FEC today.
jeromearmstrong Our Polarized and Money-Driven Congress: Created Over 25 Years By Republicans (and Quickly Imitated by Democrats http://bit.ly/ewXlXI #bblue
This is the second entry in a series of posts looking at China as it relates to Wal-Mart in the aftermath of the Olympic games.
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