In a development that will not surprise anyone, mammoth retailer and purveyor o’ crap Wal-Mart is getting sued for ignoring the conditions of the factories from whence their ultra-cheap merch comes (via the BBC):
The class-action suit has been filed in Los Angeles on behalf of 15 workers in Bangladesh, Swaziland, Indonesia, China and Nicaragua.
Each claim they were paid less than the minimum wage and not given overtime payments. Some say they were beaten.
Wal-Mart promised that the beatings were merely for morale and didn’t leave any marks. I keed, I keed. America’s superstore said it would investigate the claims, duh.
The lawsuit mentions the obvious; the evil yellow circle who zigs and zags about Wal-Mart’s commercials wantonly dicing and slicing numbers is to blame. If they’re going to sell merchandise for unbelievably low prices, they’ll make up for those sales somehow, somewhere– Gunga Din is the easy choice, it seems.
The superstore is predictably vague in its response:
“It’s really too early for us to be able to say anything about this particular complaint,” said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Beth Kath.
“It involves a number of companies and manufacturers and we’re just beginning our research to learn more.”
Research away.
Why sue WalMart for it?? That’s ridiculous!
Same token, why not sue Walmart buyers for buying at low prices?
This is totally vague. Lets just start suing each other for buying stuff at Walmart and ignoring what walmart ignored.
Most of the stuff you get in Walmart is the same you’d find in any of the fleece-marts like Giant etc. It’s silly to deride Walmart for selling crap, as if you get better stuff elsewhere that you can afford so easily.
Following President Bush’s lead (and that of OJ Simpson), the CEO of Walmart promised to personally lead the investigations!
Just kidding
Mangal – if you buy stolen goods, you can be prosecuted. If you buy goods made under extreme working conditions, you’re probably also liable for damages under some aspect of the law, although I’d have to look it up.
Clearly, they’re filing the suit under some pretext …
Bullshit…Walmarts suppliers have some of the best working conditions in this part of the world…Do incidents occur? Absolutely…like the Honda thing in Gurgaon…but to sue Walmart for its suppliers practices is bullshit…
The activists here are just following the standard script — ignore it when it’s brown people exploiting other brown people. But the second you can find a link to a rich, white guy, sue his ass off.
That’s absurd 3V – in these sorts of cases, the brown factories tend to be fly-by-night operations. The first company that they can sue that wont vanish is Walmart, b/c the supply chain is so shallow. That makes Walmart more culpable, but it’s also simple cost-benefit analysis. It’s rational, not racist; you’d do the same thing in their shoes too.
The suit seems just like an act of jealousy to me.
Why is it rational that walmart is ‘promoting’ unethical behavior?
The most irritating thing about this post is the implied cause and effect between low prices and supposed ‘exploitation’. As if Walmart pushes a policy of exploiting people for the sake of it!
What’s to prevent any other retailer from buying and selling from the same suppliers? and they probably do it too!
C’mon, please grow up and understand demand-supply dynamics. Walmart’s price advantage is not because they go and scour for the most exploitative employers and buy from them.
Well who supports brown-on-brown lawsuits anyway, vinod? You? I think the priniciple that applies is “deep pockets.”
I think we’re actually in some degree of agreement even though you characterize the arg as absurd
Because the country these suppliers are located in have
later… a foreign entity (Wal-Mart) throws an economic lifeline (a purchase order) to the region…
And so, as a result of all these problems, the activists target… the lifeline.
I really dont understand the liberal hatred for Wal-Mart. Whats wrong with wal-Mart’s ultra efficient ways of business ?? If Wal-Mart does not get its supplies from India or other developing nation, where the labor laws are lax, its the loss for the developing nation and its people.
The anti wal-mart people are going to end up being like the anti child labor movement people who actually end up hurting children.
The other argument about Wal-Mart crushing its competition, was just proven wrong BY TARGET stores. TARGET keeps improving its fundies while Wal-Mart has to whine about “Gas Prices”. So the economics is working !!! Just let the market forces work. (I hate to say this statement … but cant help it)
Maybe all those workers were hurt because of falling prices. Oh..wait that’s not a joke. Shit.
Walmart is just another alpha dog in this dog-eat-dog capitalistic melee. What’s Walmart doing that other corporations aren’t?
I would say that you are half right from USA perspective:
Starbucks is still evil but
WalMart is good. See:
http://www.yoest.org/archives/2005/09/why_elites_hate.html
(I’m having trouble with your trackbacks.)
Thanks, Jack
ha, this doesnt surprise me in the least. I work for one of their distribution centers, in the shipping department. The types of trailers that we send to our own stores are hazardous and just plain pitiful. I have sent out trailers with hundreds of dollars of broken merchandise that is so poorly placed inside the trucks as soon as employees go to remove them they will undoubtedly fall and quite possibly hurt them. This is not because im a poor worker but because of the impossibly high standards that we are required to meet or face being written up. get written up the right amount of times and your fired. Im also thinking about the terrible lack of safety on a daily basis. I see associates doing things only an idiot would copy, simply because they have to make rate. i can only remember a few times when we were accident free for more then a week. If OSHA were to come in tomorrow, I would probably not have a job next week. Im in America, and I can only imagine the standards they place on out of country employees.