Please pass on this December call-in information to people you think will
be interested. Pardon any cross-postings! - Dale
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HELP END SWEATSHOPS AND CHILD LABOR - PROMOTE A LIVING WAGE
Contact Wal-Mart December 18, and ask them to release a list of all their
supplying factories (including addresses) worldwide so that we can know
what products we can buy in conscience. These are national call-in days
for the People's Right to Know Campaign - the 1998 Holiday Season of
Conscience to End Child Labor and Sweatshop Abuse.
If you already called or e-mailed Wal-Mart about this issue, you can do it
again. Repeat contacts are helpful, and Wal-Mart still hasn't agreed to
release the information. One more call-in day is scheduled for Friday,
January 29.
The tone of your call should be polite. If the person to whom you speak
says that Wal-Mart will not release this information to protect its
competitive position (a standard Wal-Mart response), you might reply that
you don't feel you can rely on Wal-Mart to respect workers' human rights
unless independent monitors can have this information to verify factory
conditions.
Contact: 1-800-WAL-MART (1-800-925-6278) or (501) 273-4000
E-mail: letters@wal-mart.com
Fax: (501) 273-4894 (fax may be disconnected on call-in days!)
If you prefer to write a letter:
Mr. David D. Glass, CEO, Wal-Mart Stores,
702 S.W. Eighth Street, Bentonville, Arkansas 72716
Background information on this campaign -
What this campaign is NOT:
* It is NOT a boycott
* It is NOT an effort to have Wal-Mart "buy American"
What this campaign IS:
* An effort to make Wal-Mart ACCOUNTABLE to us - the consumers of
their products - and to make Wal-Mart's own code of conduct
independently verifiable
* An effort to promote a LIVING WAGE for workers in the Third World
AND in the US - an effort to stop US and overseas workers from
being pitted against each other by raising the wages and
conditions of the most oppressed workers around the world
* An effort to create a space in which WORKERS CAN EMPOWER
THEMSELVES - "Employment yes, but ... with dignity!"
WHY THIS CAMPAIGN? The goal of the People's Right to Know Campaign is to
press Wal-Mart to release the list of all its suppliers worldwide, so that
human rights and religious groups can begin to check working conditions at
these factories. This would give consumers a way to discern which products
were made in factories where workers' human rights were respected.
Wal-Mart has a record of contracting with factories that use child labor
(for example, 13-year-olds in Honduras and 10- to 12-year olds in
Bangladesh), and with factories where workers are abused verbally,
physically, and sexually at jobs paying subliving wages for very long work
hours, where labor unions are repressed. The existence of such working
conditions globally also threatens a living wage for people in the US who
"compete for jobs" with these oppressed workers. Wal-Mart contracts with
suppliers in at least 49 countries.
Many other US companies besides Wal-Mart have relied on sweatshops or child
labor, but the People's Right to Know Campaign focuses on Wal-Mart because
it is the world's largest retailer. If Wal-Mart releases information on
its suppliers, it will be easier to get these other companies to follow.
Such information is essential to establish a system of independent
monitoring of factory conditions - a key to stopping abuses and promoting
better working conditions abroad and in the US.
The People's Right to Know Campaign is spearheaded by the National Labor
Committee (NLC), the same organization that successfully pressed Kathie Lee
Gifford to act against the child labor used to make her clothing line. The
NLC, originally founded in 1981 to support workers threatened by violence
in El Salvador, is backed by many labor unions, religious groups, and human
rights organizations.
For information and campaign materials, contact the National Labor
Committee, 275 7th Avenue, 15th floor, New York, NY 10001. Phone (212)
242-3002, fax (212) 242-3821, e-mail natlabcom@aol.com, www.nlcnet.org.
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Many little people in many little places making many little steps will
change the world. - Brigitte Hauschild, Nicaragua
(If you can translate this sentence into languages other than Spanish,
German, French, or Russian, please contact Brigitte at
cwalter@nicarao.apc.org.ni)
Dale W. Wimberley
Department of Sociology
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University