Boycott- Wal-Mart
Boycott International
a program of
1world communication
1world communication has
decided to launch Boycott International in recognition of the power
of individuals in situations where governments have chosen to, or are
unable to, influence companies that exploit children and/or violate
basic human rights of their workers.
Global trade and lending
organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World
Bank, and the International Monetary Fund have made it harder for
organizations in any one country, or even governments to protect the
interests of their citizens from the greed of multinational
corporations. The assets of some of the largest corporations exceed
those of many nations. Only as a united global community can we stop
them from destroying the environment, violating the most basic human
rights of their workers, and exploiting children as a source of cheap labor.
The pages of Boycott
International (BI) will serve as a clearinghouse of information.
Occasionally BI will call for a boycott of a company not yet subject
to an actual one but, due to it’s gross violations of human
rights, we believe should not be patronized.
We have chosen Walmart as the
target of our primary call for a boycott because of the company’s
unfair labor practices around the world. Not only does this chain
mistreat many employees that work for them, it also sells goods made
by suppliers that grossly violate the rights of their workers around
the world. Despite protests and a law suit they have refused to
correct these problems.
The following articles will
give you some examples of how Walmart does business.
Walmart
The Walmart Stores, Inc also
owns and operates Sam's Club, and according to the financial business
summary provided by the U.S. Business Reporter "The Company
markets lines of merchandise under store brands including but not
limited to "Sam's American Choice", "One Source",
"Great Value", "Ol' Roy" and "Equate".
The Company also markets lines of merchandise under licensed brands;
some of which include "Faded Glory", "Kathie Lee",
"White Stag", "Puritan", "Better Homes &
Gardens", "Popular Mechanics", "Catalina",
"McKids", "Basic Equipment" and "House Beautiful"".
CEO: David Glass
Headquarters: 702 Southwest
8th Street
Bentonville, AK 72716
Telephone: 501-273-4000
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Bangladesh
Honduras
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It is always best to
individualize these letters and to put them on your organization's
letterhead--but please do write. We need to swamp Walmart with solid
letters so they feel the pressure of the decency of the American people.
We know it is a pain, but it
helps immensely for the National Labor Committee/People of Faith
Network to receive a copy of your letter. This way we can spread the word.
Model Letter:
[Date]
Mr. David Glass, President
& CEO
Walmart
702 SW 8th Street
Bentonville, AR 72716
fax: (501) 273-4894
Dear Mr. Glass:
My family and I do not want
to purchase products made by children or in sweatshops where teenaged
girls are forced to work 12-hour shifts under armed guard, or by
exploited workers paid just pennies an hour and whose families are
forced to live in misery. It is wrong that their children are raised
on coffee and sugar water because these families cannot afford to
even purchase milk.
I urge Walmart to be a true
industry leader in taking a stand for human rights by releasing to
the American people the names and addresses of the factories around
the world that make the products sold in Walmart's stores. This would
set a clear standard of accountability, demonstrating that Walmart
has nothing to hide from the American people. It would show the world
that Walmart does not, and will not, manufacture its goods in
factories hidden behind locked metal gates, barbed wire and armed guards.
For the American people to
shop with a conscience, it is our right to know in which countries
and factories, under what human rights conditions, and at what wages,
the products we purchase are made.
There is no reason that this
could not be done immediately. It is common for Walmart, Kmart, May
Co., J.C. Penney and other retailers' private label goods to be made
side by side in the same factories. In fact, just a handful of the
same manufacturers dominate production for all the retailers. Nor am
I aware of any exclusive contracts that Walmart has with specific
factories. It is also common sense--we are not speaking about
advanced spy satellites, but rather women's undergarments, t-shirts,
stuffed animals, sneakers and jeans. Surely Walmart can trust the
American people with a list of these factories.
I intend to share this
information in my community with local religious, labor, student and
other interested organizations, including the media. I am anxious to
hear from you, so that together with Walmart we can begin to finally
eradicate the scourge of child labor and sweatshop abuses. Thank you.
Sincerely,
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What If
Walmart, J.C. Penney and other U.S. Companies Were Actually Lowering
Standards in China?
(The Following Information on
Walmart was Obtained from the National
Labor Committe Web-site)
American companies actually
lowering working and living conditions and human rights standards in
a developing country as poor as China? It does not sound possible.
Yet that is exactly what is happening, as American companies shift
their production from larger publicly-owned factories in the north of
China, to booming foreign privately-owned sweatshops in the south.
Work is being removed from factories in northern provinces such as
Tianjin, and relocated hundreds of miles south to Jiangsu and
Zhejiang provinces near the port of Shanghai, and to Guangdong
province right above Hong Kong.
In the north, in the
publicly-owned factories, wages may average 50 cents an hour, while
in the foreign, privately-owned factories in the south, wages are as
low as 13 cents an hour. In the larger northern factories workers
must receive health and social security benefits, worker
compensation, pension insurance, child care, sick days and continuing
education. In the new privately-owned factories in the south the
workers receive little or no benefits. In the state-owned enterprises
in the north, excessive overtime is prohibited, while in the south
work shifts of 12 to 14 to 16 hours a day, seven days a week, are not
uncommon. In the north the overtime rate is paid, in the south it is
not. In the north part-time work is prohibited, as is subcontracting.
It is the opposite in the privately-owned factories in the south,
which are tied into a vast subcontracting network, and where the
majority of workers are hired on a contingency basis. When there is
work, you get paid, and when there is no work you do not get paid. In
the south, the housing for migrant workers is poorer, as is the food,
and there is less concern for health and safety protections. In the
north the factories are regulated, in the southern provinces along
the coast above Hong Kong they are unregulated. Depending on local
incentives, taxes in the south are also lower.
With little red tape or
regulations in the way, foreign factory managers in the south often
deny employees their legal work contracts, and nothing stands in the
way of widespread arbitrary firings. As the majority of workers are
young women from the countryside, with little formal education, often
unaware of their legal rights, and who have never heard of U.S.
Corporate Codes of Conduct, they are more easily intimated.
Where do you think the U.S.
companies are headed? They are going south. Walmart, for example, is
now in the process of pulling its last production orders out of
Tianjin in the north and relocating its work to the lower-wage,
unregulated factories in the south. Sears is doing the same.
The American companies will
probably respond in the abstract, that this is how the free market
operates, and that they have to seek out lower costs and greater
flexibility to be able to meet their customers changing demands. What
they will not explain, in the concrete, is how they are doing this in
China through slashing wages and benefits, undermining social safety
nets, subcontracting, excessive overtime and the systematic denial of
fundamental worker and human rights.
This means that today there
are far more garments entering the U.S. which were manufactured in
China under unregulated sweatshop conditions with sub-subsistence
wages and excessive forced overtime.
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Address
& Links to Organizations
Coalition for Justice in the
Maquiladoras, 3120 W. Ashby, San Antonio, TX 78228 Phone: (210) 732-8957
~ E-mail: cjm@igc.apc.org
Committee in Solidarity with
the People of El Salvador (CISPES), 19 W. 21st Street, #502 New York,
NY 10010, Phone: (212) 229-1290 ~ E-mail: cispesnatl@igc.apc.org
~ URL: http://www.cispes.org
Committee for Labor Rights
Phone: (541)344-5410 E-mail: clr@igc.apc.org
50 Years Is Enough, 1247 E
Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003 Phone: 202-IMF-BANK (202-463-2265) ~
Fax: 202-544-9359 ~ http://www.50years@igc.org
Global Exchange, 2017 Mission
Street, suite 303, San Francisco, CA 94110 Phone: (415)255-7296 ~
Fax: (415)255-7498 ~ E-mail: sweatshops@globalexchange.org
~ URL: www.globalexchange.org
International Federation of
Commercial, Clerical, Professional and Technical Employees Phone: +41
22 979-0311 ~ Fax: +41 22 796-5321 ~ E-mail: hqinfo@fiet.org
~ http://www.fiet.ch/commerce/wal_mart_campaign_index_page.htm
International Labor Rights
Fund, 733 15th Street, NW Suite 920, Washington, DC 20005 Phone:
(202)347-4100 ~ Fax: (202)347-4885 ~ E-mail: ilrf@erols.com
~ URL: http://www.laborrights.org/
Labor Defense Network (part
of the Latin America Emergency Response Network), Coordinator, Soren
Ambrose, 1247 "E" Street SE, Washington, DC 20003 ~ Phone:
(202) 544-9355 ~ E-mail: ern@igc.apc.org
National Interfaith Committee
for Worker Justice, 1607 W. Howard, Suite 218, Chicago, IL 60626,
Phone: 773-381-2832, E-mail: nicwj@igc.org,
~ URL: http://www.contilaw.com/flashes/flash1.html
National Labor Committee, 275
7th Avenue, New York, NY 10001 Phone: (212) 242-3002, E-mail: nlc@nlcnet.org
~ URL: http://www.nlcnet.org
PCUN: Northwest Union of
Farmworkers and Treeplanters, 300 Young Street, Woodburn, OR 97071
Phone: 503-982-0243 ~ E-mail: FarmworkerUnion@pcun.org
~ URL: www.pcun.org
Press for Change,
Coordinator, Jeff Ballinger, P.O. Box 230, Bayonne, NJ 07002 Phone: 201-768-8120
/ 202-638-1515
Support Committee for
Maquiladora Workers, Craftsmen Hall, 3909 Centre Street, #210, San
Diego, CA 92103 Phone: 619-542-0826 ~ E-mail: scmw@juno.com
UNITE (the Union of
Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees), Staffperson, Ginny
Coughlin, 232 W. 40th Street, 3rd floor, New York, NY 10018 Phone:
(212) 819-0959 ~ Fax: (212) 819-0885 ~ E-mail: gcough@uniteunion.org
~ URL: http://www.uniteunion.org/index.html
United Electrical, Radio, and
Machine Workers of America, 2400 Oliver Building, 535 Smithfield
Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222 Phone: (412) 471-8919 ~ E-mail: ueintl@igc.apc.org
United Farm Workers (UFW),
P.O. Box 62, La Paz, Keene, CA 93531 Phone: 408-763-4820 E-mail: UFWofarmer@aol.com
~ URL: http://www.ufw.org
United Students Against
Sweatshops (USAS), 1413 K St. NW, 9th Floor, Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 202-NO-SWEAT (202-667-9328) ~ Fax: 202-393-5886 ~ E-mail: usas.contact@umich.edu
~ URL: http://www.umich.edu/~sole/usas/
U.S./Guatemala Labor
Education Project (U.S./GLEP), Executive Director, Stephen Coats,
P.O. Box 268-290, Chicago, IL 60626 Phone: (312) 262-6502 ~ Fax:
(312) 262-6602 ~ E-mail: usglep@igc.apc.org
Witness for Peace, 110
Maryland Ave. NE, Suite 304, Washington, DC 20002-5622 Phone: (202)
544-0781 ~ E-mail: witness@w4peace.org
~ URL: http://www.w4peace.org/
Al Norman's home page www.sprawl-busters.com author
of Slamdunking Walmart (available by calling 877-dun-kwal) and
publisher of the monthly Sprawl-Busters Alert.
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