Re: "Call Wal-Mart" unwise approach?

Thu, 19 Nov 1998 12:53:01 -0800 (PST)
Dennis R Redmond (dredmond@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU)

On Thu, 19 Nov 1998, Richard Ragland wrote:

> Why is this group picking on Wal-Mart anyway? What about all the
> other department stores in the US?

Walmart is in a class by itself. They employ 835,000 people, had sales of
$118 billion last year and pre-tax profits of somewhere in the
neighborhood of five to six billion smackeroos (stats gleaned from
Walmart's epistle to cyber-tinsel at www.wal-mart.com). And unlike
most other department stores, sales and profits continue to grow at 20%
rates.

Who pays the price for this? Workers do, of course
(see http://www.walmartsucks.com/index3.html for the glories of the
Southeast Asian labor market). Which is why all these morality campaigns,
while nice things in themselves, also need to be part of a thriving labor
movement, both here and abroad
(e.g. http://www.corpwatch.org/corner/worldnews/other/other19.html).

-- Dennis