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What Do Wal-Marts Low Prices Mean for Women Globally?

All we know is that it goes to Wal-Mart, but we dont know where that is.-Worker on a Banana Plantation in Guatemala

All consumers want lower prices, especially at a time when wages are falling and prices are risingfor housing, food, and transportation. However, its becoming increasingly clear that lower pricesat Wal-Mart come with far too high of a cost.

In just forty years Wal-Mart has grown from a fledgling store in Rogers, Arkansas to become thelargest company in the worldi. Wal-Marts slogan reads Always Low Prices, and there is nodoubt that they deliver on this promise. Unfortunately, these low prices have huge implicationsfor working people around the world. Wal-Mart has recognized they can benefit enormously by

paying poor, primarily women, workers around the world $.20 /hr to sew the sleeves on a shirtrather than $9.00/hr to have a worker in the United States produce that same result. While Wal-Mart is not alone in this business practiceit has become standard practice for retail companiesto search around the world to find the lowest cost goods to sell in their storestheir size andferocity at pushing this practice is unprecedented. Brand names and retail stores make the mostprofit when they buy clothing, electronics, and other products in countries with extremely lowwages. This practice is known as the race to the bottom and has been criticized by workersrights and anti-poverty groups for years. Unlike many companies, Wal-Mart is not only takingadvantage of the low minimum wage and the lax enforcement of labor laws in many countries,but they are encouraging suppliers to lower production costs, in effect making wages even lowerfor workers and worsening dangerous working conditions.

Wal-Marts Impact on Women Workers around the World

As Wal-Mart strives to decrease prices for customers in the United States, women workersproducing for Wal-Mart are negatively impacted around the world. Products sold in Wal-Martstores are made by millions of predominantly young women in factories that pay poverty levelwages, have forced overtime, routinely cheat workers on pay, continuously increase quotaswithout pay and create dangerous working environments.ii

The story of women workers at a banana packing plant in Guatemalan is just one example of thenegative impact Wal-Mart can have on workers. Women workers at packing plants on bananaplantations are required by the company to pack a certain amount of bananas into boxes everydayin order to keep their jobs. These requirements are known as production goals. Workers often

receive bonuses when they exceed the goals and reprimandsincluding potential dismissalwhen they do not. This banana plantation recently received a contract to supply bananas to Wal-Mart, who required that bananas not only be cleaned weighed, and packed into boxes (thetraditional duty of banana packers) but that the bananas also be bagged and priced at the packingplant since wages on the banana plantation are much lower than those of store employees in theU.S. who had customarily done these jobs. While Wal-Mart demanded these extra steps, theywere not willing to pay more per pound of banana, so in turn the banana company refused to paymore to workers for the additional production steps. The women workers at the plant had tocomplete these extra steps yet their productions goals were not lowered, making it impossible for

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them to reach their goals. In fact, many women have lost their bonuses (which they count on toincrease their salaries to a living wage) and are afraid they will lose their jobs because of theincreased production load. Additionally, the increase in work has led to more injuries for theworkers and has forced many older women out of the packing plants since they are unable to keepup with their increased goals.iii Unions in many banana plantations are challenging theseincreased production goals, but global pressures like those from Wal-Mart are a powerful force.

Because of the sheer size of Wal-Mart, it not only has the ability to impact workers in theagricultural sector but in all sectors, including electronics, consumer goods, and especially in theclothing industry. San Pedro Sula, Honduras is home to several garment factories that produce forWal-Mart. In order to keep up with Wal-Marts increasing demands, these companies have had toreduce costs and deliver more production, which takes place on the backs of workers. Currently,these companies produce the same amount of clothing as previous years but with twenty percentfewer workers. For the remaining workers, this translates to earning less and producing more.Women who work in these factories sew sleeves onto shirts at the rate of 1,200 garments a daytwo shirts a minute, one sleeve every 15 seconds, for only $35 a week.iv

Workers in Honduras and Guatemala are not alone, nor are the impacts of Wal-Mart limited toincreased stress and a loss of pay. The desire for low cost goods leads suppliers to create orignore dangerous conditions for workers, including unventilated workrooms, unsafe workshops,verbal abuse, sexual harassment and abuse, firings for pregnancy, arbitrary dismissals and forcedovertimev. These conditions lead to high incidences of repetitive stress injuries, bladder andkidney infections, as well as cancer and respiratory illnesses among workers. In addition to poorworking conditions at Wal-Mart producing factories, as a result of their low wages, workers livein conditions of abject poverty and are often unable to provide food and shelter for their families.

Women who become pregnant are especially at risk for poor treatment and negative healthimpacts. The horrendous conditions in the workplace as well as those of poverty can lead tomiscarriages and complications with pregnancy. Furthermore, women are forced to work far intotheir pregnancies and are not awarded adequate maternity leave. In a Guatemalan maquila factorythat produces for Wal-Mart, women were illegally forced by their bosses to take pregnancy testsprior to and during employment.vi

The poor treatment of women by Wal-Mart is not limited to poor, developing countries. In theUnited States, Wal-Mart is facing the largest private civil rights class action lawsuit ever for sexdiscrimination: Dukes v. Wal-Mart, in which seven California womencurrent and former Wal-Mart employeesare charging the company with systematic sex discrimination in promotions,assignments, training and pay. Women make up seventy-two percent of Wal-Mart's sales workforce but only thirty-three percent of its managers. A study conducted for theDukes plaintiffs byeconomist Marc Bendick found such discrepancies to be far less pronounced among Wal-Mart'scompetitors, which could boast of more than fifty percent female management. vii Additionally,Wal-Mart provides inadequate and extremely costly health care, forcing many women workersand their families to go without. Wal-Marts practice of forcing many employees to work part-time makes them ineligible for the over-priced company healthcare.

Wal-Mart Is One of the Most Anti-union Companies in the World

The retail giant has a long history of harassing and firing workers who talk about organizingunions in their stores. In the spring of 2005, workers began organizing at a Wal-Mart store inJonquiere, Quebec, Canada. Before the union could gain any strength, Wal-Mart sprung intoaction and promptly closed the store, citing that it was not making money and that the unionsdemands were completely unreasonable. Shutting down the store sent a clear message to all Wal-

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Mart employees that if they begin to organize, their fate would be similar. In ten separate cases,the National Labor Relations Board has ruled that Wal-Mart repeatedly broke the law byinterrogating workers, confiscating union literature, and firing union supporters. At the first signof organizing in a store, Wal-Mart dispatches a team of union busters from its headquarters inBentonville, Arkansas, sometimes setting up surveillance cameras to monitor workers.viii

Around the world, Wal-Mart suppliers meet union organizing drives by women with brutal force.On July 18th and 19th of 2001, union members at the Choi Shin and CIMA Textiles factories inGuatemala were attacked at work by organized mobs of anti-union workers and supervisors whodemanded that they resign from their jobs and the union. The factories, owned by the Koreancompany Choi & Shin, produced clothes for Liz Claiborne and Wal-Mart. While the LizClaiborne Company stepped in to support the union, Wal-Mart remained quiet.ix Workers aroundthe world who attempt to form unions to demand better wages and safe conditions are oftentargeted with illegal dismissal, blacklisting, and physical violence, even death.

The Power of Wal-Mart

As Wal-Mart pays ever lower prices for goods around the world, it significantly impacts the livesof workers that produce goods to be sold in their stores. Yet the power of Wal-Mart has evengreater implications for all workers worldwide. Wal-Mart is a pricing leader, meaning that oncethey set an incredibly low price, all other retailers are then expected to offer the same price andmust cut costs to do so. Therefore, the practices and policies of Wal-Mart set the retail standardand even more workers are ultimately affected. The success of Wal-Mart is unprecedented andhas made Wal-Mart the example that many other companies are trying to emulate. The model ofWal-Mart is profit at all costs, including the human costs of workers rights and lives, both athome and abroad. We must stand together in the face of this enormous challenge, or the damageto workers and womens rights everywhere could be irreparable.

What can you do to challenge the Profit before People philosophy of Wal-Mart?

Educate friends and family about the impact of Wal-Mart and their Low Prices.Encourage them to support local businesses and businesses that pay a living wage andsupport workers rights, especially the right to form a union.

Find out more information and join local campaigns that are fighting to unionize Wal-Mart and educate others about these campaigns around the country.

Join national campaigns to fight Wal-Mart. Go to Wake Up Wal-Mart athttp://www.wakeupwalmart.com/ or Wal-Mart Watch at http://walmartwatch.com/

Join STITCHs Action Email Alert. Go to the STITCH website athttp://www.stitchonline.org or email stitch@stitchonline.org. We will let you know aboutactions you can take to support women workers fight for economic justice against Wal-Mart and other unfair employers.

i Fishman, Charles. The You Dont Know. Fast Company Issue 77, December 2003, page 68.ii Wal-Mart and Women, AFL-CIO Campaign fact sheet.iii Speech by Maria Carmen Molina, leader from SITRABI Banana Union, Izabal, Guatemala.iv Cleeland, Nancy, Iritani, Evelyn, and Marshall, Tyler. Scouring the Globe to Give Shoppers a $8.63 Polo Shirt. LA Times,

November 24, 2003v Ayer, Marie, Mattson, Cory, and Gerson, Daniela Mijal. The Maquila in Guatemala: Facts and Trends. STITCH fact sheet,updated 2004.vi Wal-Mart and Women, AFL-CIO Campaign fact sheet.vii Featherstone, Liza. Wal-Mart Values. The Nation, December 16, 2002.viii Olsen, Karen. Up Against Wal-Mart. Mother Jones, March/April 2003.ix Maquila Solidarity Network Website, http://www.maquilasolidarity.org