Evan Carp’s April 27 Wespeak lauding Wal-Mart as a “wonderful, prosperous beacon of capitalism” is grossly misguided. He begins his article in defense of Wal-Mart’s heinously exploitative labor policies by arguing that Wal-Mart workers are there voluntarily, and that it is better that these people work at Wal-Mart than be unemployed. However, he does not take in to account the fact that many people working for Wal-Mart do not have any other choice. In areas of high unemployment, it may be nearly impossible to find even the most menial job, and it is not always an option to pack up and move to a different location. Wal-Mart uses ethically and legally questionable methods to exploit those in these desperate situations.
In her book “Nickel and Dimed”, Barbara Ehrenreich cites an example of corporate intimidation tactics when she writes of her experience at a Wal-Mart employee orientation and training session. Here, workers are shown videos that strongly discourage workers from unionizing. These videos claim that union organizers are only after workers’ hard-earned cash and imply that employees involved in union organization activities may even lose their jobs.
Many of these workers have neither the resources nor the time to research the intricacies of current labor laws regarding union organization and it is truly deplorable for Wal-Mart to take advantage of this fact using misleading and manipulative tactics.
I would also like to point out an article from the November 5, 2003 edition of the New York Times entitled “Illegally in U.S., and Never a Day Off at Wal-Mart.” This article describes a branch of Wal-Mart which advertised in many low-income, predominantly Eastern European countries, promising custodial job opportunities in one of America’s most successful corporations.
Those who responded to the offer were paid under the table, below minimum wage, were not given days off, no were they paid overtime. When the INS learned about the immigrants’ presence, the workers were promptly arrested and threatened with deportation. In the meantime, Wal-Mart made a killing because they saved a fortune on maintenance costs.
Surely Mr. Carp would agree that our economy, while based in capitalism, is subject to certain governmental regulations, and therefore is not a free market in the purest sense of the term. An employer that hires workers who are not legally eligible to work in the United States and then violates overtime, Social Security, and workers’ compensation laws is clearly not obeying the laws of American c-a-p-i-t-a-l-i-s-m that Mr. Carp so kindly spells out for us “freedom-loathing leftists”.
Finally, Mr. Card makes a broad and inaccurate generalization in accusing everyone on the left side of the political spectrum of being “in complete opposition to the principles of economics.” He also claims that USLAC members declare that they are the only ones who can “dictate the terms of ‘fairness’ in business.” I am quite sure that it is economists (who may not have ever even heard of USLAC) who use sound principles of economics including interest, unemployment and inflation rates to calculate what is known as a living wage. It is these principles of living wage economics on which many of USLAC’s arguments against Wal-Mart are based.
I could rant about Wal-Mart for pages, but in the interest of saving space I’ll end here. In no way am I arguing for the eradication of all American corporations, as Mr. Carp would suggest. I would just like to point out that USLAC’s “war” on Wal-Mart is entirely justified based on their manipulative and sometimes illegal tactics.
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