|
|
Wal-Mart's sweetheart deal with the Bush Labor Department was thrown into the waste bin Wal-Mart will not get time anymore to hide its dirty linen before US child labour inspectors enter its markets. The two week advance warning that the company had agreed on with the George W Bush administration is now history. Yesterday, the US Labor Department informed that the agreement had expired. In October, the Labor Department's inspector general Gordon S. Heddell issued a devastating report on the deal, which had already been broadly condemned and considered unethical and shady. In the report, the department was criticised for making "significant concessions" to the company, and for "serious breakdowns" of its own procedures. When the deal started to be discussed, news releases of the Labor Department were written together with Wal-Mart. Favours for a powerful (and rich) friend In the New York Times of 1 November, US Representative George Miller said that the report showed that the Bush administration was seeking to do favours for a powerful friend and a major Republican contributor: - The Bush Labor Department chose to do an unprecedented favour for Wal-Mart, despite the fact it is well known for violating labor laws, including child labor laws. - The sweetheart deal put Wal-Mart employees at risk, undermined government effectiveness, and further undermined public confidence that the government is acting on its behalf, Miller said to the newspaper. Sweetheart dealings also in Maryland Recently, Wal-Mart was caught for other sweetheart dealings with the Republican regime in the United States as it came out that the company had arranged important financial support for the election of Maryland's governor Robert Ehrlich. The governor returned the favour by vetoing state legislation that would have forced the Bentonville multinational to participate towards the health care costs of its workers and their children, as its major competitors are already doing. Last week, the State legislators overturned the veto and the legislation is now being put in place. The infamous deal between Wal-Mart and the US Labor Department was particularly immoral as it weakened the protection of young workers. News about it existence leaked out only when the company was caught for using youngsters in dangerous tasks or under conditions that are forbidden by child labour laws. The agreement provided for a two-week advance warning, which of course allowed the retail multinational to make sure that inspectors would not find any traces of child violations when they finally came to the stores. Increasing trouble on its home markets Wal-Mart is increasingly in trouble on its US home markets. Consumer concerns over its brutal employer behavior is increasing fast, and campaigns such as WakeUpWalMart.com make sure that the Bentonville multinational cannot hide its bad behaviour from the public. Also outside the US home market, Wal-Mart's behaviour is being increasingly put in question. Commerce trade unions all around the world are contributing to a general awareness about the risk of walmartization of working life, through their joint UNI Commerce Global Union and UFCW network. Late last year, South Korean retail workers assembled outside a Wal-Mart store in Seoul, calling the company a 'Working Poor Maker" and demanding it to reverse its anti-union and anti-worker attitudes. In another part of the world, Scandinavian pensions funds have started to disinvest from the company and direct their funds to socially responsible enterprises instead. And the share prices themselves have gone down, as has consumer confidence, according to recent polls. In fact, Wal-Mart's workers are organised in many of the countries where the multinational has established itself. These include the United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil and Japan, all of which have been major targets for overseas growth. The unions that represent the Wal-Mart workers in these and other countries are all affiliated to UNI Commerce and participate in its work.
|
