Wal-Mart: Seeing evil for what it is

I start my morning most days by reading everything that has been written in the last 24 hours about Wal-Mart. Needless to say it's often not the most upbeat way to start the day. This week it's been bribery scandals in Mexico, empty shelves here in the States, and of course their lawsuit against UFCW for helping workers to stand up for themselves. The articles change, but the core thread the runs through all of them is that here in our country exists an entity, a multi-billion dollar company that is so vast it has literally saturated the US rural market and additionally become such a huge part of the supply chain that it actually dictates what standards of pay and condititions will be set internationally. That is almost unfathomable power. And to quote Uncle Ben from Spider Man "With great power comes great responsibility."

Here lies the problem. Wal-Mart does not take responsibility, not for it's workers stateside, and certainly not for it's workers internationally. My grandma and I have often argued over the fact that she shops at Wal-Mart. She says as a senior citizen on a medicare budget, she simply cannot afford to shop elsewhere. This makes me sad, partly because Wal-Mart's brand is so strong that my own grandma, a highly educated woman will not do the research to discover that prices are comparable at other stores, but also because in shopping there she has become complicit in maintaining a class of working poor. Wal-Mart markets itself an advocate for the working class...a place where the fiscally challenge can find everyday low prices, but at what costs.

Here are somethings I have learned from my daily Wal-Mart briefings:

• The average wage of a Wal-Mart worker is $8.81 an hour. (compare to Costo which pays $11 starting)
• The majortiy of employees are part time.
• Scheduling is done by favoritsm and is not transparent making it difficult for people to arrange childcare or attend school.
• Wal-Mart has lost of settled lawsuits totalling in the billions from employees who have been discriminated against on the basis of their race and gender. (Side note: Just yesterday I met a man who was a manager a local Wal-Mart for 2 years and was asked to fire a black female employee who has been exemplary in every way, and even sold $200,000 worth of jewelry the week prior. When he refused, he was pulled into an office and berated. The employee he refused to fire was attacked with racist epitaths. They both quit.)
• Wal-Mart has also been sued (and lost) by customers who have been racially profiled...there was a case in one Alabama store where Mexican American customers were being asked to produce docements to prove that they were legal residents before being allowed to shop at Walmart.
• The majority of Wal-Mart employees are not eligible for healthcare due to their part time status and those that are can't afford it due to astronomical premiums.
• Wal-Mart employees make up the greatest population of people draining our social resources within the state of Washington. That's right, they are paid so poorly that they qualify for federal assistance. This is actually a national issue, not just local.
• Workers internationally are paid even less and do not have OSHA regulated working conditions as evidenced in the Tazrene fire that killed 112 Bangladeshi workers whose families have still not received one dime of remuneration...not to mention those who survived.

I could go on at length, but the picture is pretty clear. So now what? We have the David and Goliath battles. There are employees and organizations not affiliated with Wal-Mart who are coming together to try to raise awareness about these issues, but change is hard fought and not easily obtained. Every few days I read something positive about Wal-Mart. They are bringing grocery stores to food deserts, hiring Veterans, buying products from women owned businesses, but I can't erase the rest of it. Because while these things are happening, Wal-Mart has invested more money in frivilous lawsuits and meaningless PR than in listening to it's employees. While Costco and Trader Joes are advocates for a higher minimum wage, Wal-Mart has done everything it can to lobby against it.

And what it all comes to down to for me is compassion. Behind every organization or corporation, no matter how large, are simply people. Wal-Mart was started by one man, Sam Walton, who had a vision of helping people save a dollar. And it is being continued by his family and the board of trustees. So just this once, I want to put aside the adversarial tone and implore that we get beyond greed and defensiveness to the basics of human necesities. We all need food, water, and shelter...and in this wealthy country, we have the capacity to provide this for every single person. Moreover the majority of us aren't asking for these necesities to be free. We are willing and able to work. But another basic right that often goes unstated is respect. The members of OUR Walmart, more than asking for just economic compensation for the work that they do which makes the Waltons their daily billions, are also asking that they be treated like human beings. And the evil I see, the sadness of my morning reading is that they have not been met with compassion. They have not been met with basic humanity. They have been severly mistreated then told that if they don't like it they should just get over it because that is the cost of low prices.

I guess, for me, it's just too expensive to shop at Wal-Mart.