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Watch a TV ad with 1992 Miss America about how to support Wal-Mart's women workers. Quick Time Video

Watch a NBC news feature about discrimination of women at Wal-Mart. Quick Time Video

UNI-Europa Commerce Conference said no thanks to Wal-Mart:
No place for social dumping in European commerce

Wal-Mart is not welcome in our neighbourhood. This is the message from the commerce trade unions from all over Europe. At their Conference in Stockholm, Sweden last week, the unions denounced world's largest retailer for its social dumping and poor employer record. Present in the United Kingdom and Germany, the company is expected to try to expand further.

Not in our country, not in our neighbourhood. Mariusz Skrzypek, one of the young UNI Commerce supported organisers shows thumbs down for Wal-Mart. The world's largest retailer is a poor employer and builds its success on social dumping. There is no place for Wal-Mart in Poland, where the Solidarity trade union movement is working with UNI Commerce to unionise multinational retailers and to negotiate collective agreements.

"The retail giant from Arkansas uses its size and resources for brutal pressure on suppliers, competitors and communities, neglecting the effects on employment and living conditions. At home in the United States, it is known as a bad employer, building its competitiveness on low wages and a denial of normal benefits. To sustain this approach, Wal-Mart goes to great lengths to keep trade unions out", the unions say in their resolution.

"Europe’s commercial workers say no to the labour relations concept that Wal-Mart represents. It is a danger for labour standards in commerce and for the future of the industry itself. The challenge of Wal-Mart to commercial workers worldwide underlines the need for a continued close global cooperation between UNI Commerce and its affiliates, to secure trade union and collective bargaining rights and to deal with the negative overall effects of the  policies and action of Wal-Mart, and any other company that applies the same kind of approach. "

Wal-Mart should be split up

"The European Commission and the U.S. competition authorities must urgently look into the effects of Wal-Mart on society, competitors, consumers and workers. This should be done with a view of establishing whether its dominant global position is not a serious threat to free competition, and the company thus need to be split up."

"The globalisation of the world economy and the further expansion of regional and world-wide multinationals cannot be allowed to be driven by business interests and market forces only. They have to serve the needs of working people and their families and enable them to lead their lives under conditions of security and well-being", the European commerce unions say.

Watch a TV ad with 1992 Miss America about how to support Wal-Mart's women workers. Quick Time Video

Watch a NBC news feature about discrimination of women at Wal-Mart. Quick Time Video