What Do Wal-Mart's Low Prices Mean for Women Globally?

“All we know is that it goes to Wal-Mart, but we don't know where that is.”

-Worker on a Banana Plantation in Guatemala

All consumers want lower prices, especially at a time when wages are falling and prices are rising for housing, food, and transportation. However, it's becoming increasingly clear that lower prices at Wal-Mart come with far too high of a cost.

In just forty years Wal-Mart has grown from a fledgling store in Rogers , Arkansas to become the largest company in the world [i] . Wal-Mart's slogan reads “Always Low Prices,” and there is no doubt that they deliver on this promise. Unfortunately, these low prices have huge implications for working people around the world. Wal-Mart has recognized they can benefit enormously by paying poor, primarily women, workers around the world $.20 /hr to sew the sleeves on a shirt rather than $9.00/hr to have a worker in the United States produce that same result. While Wal-Mart is not alone in this business practice—it has become standard practice for retail companies to search around the world to find the lowest cost goods to sell in their stores—their size and ferocity at pushing this practice is unprecedented. Brand names and retail stores make the most profit when they buy clothing, electronics, and other products in countries with extremely low wages. This practice is known as the “race to the bottom” and has been criticized by workers rights and anti-poverty groups for years. Unlike many companies, Wal-Mart is not only taking advantage of the low minimum wage and the lax enforcement of labor laws in many countries, but they are encouraging suppliers to lower production costs, in effect making wages even lower for workers and worsening dangerous working conditions.

Wal-Mart's Impact on Women Workers around the World

As Wal-Mart strives to decrease prices for customers in the United States , women workers producing for Wal-Mart are negatively impacted around the world. Products sold in Wal-Mart stores are made by millions of predominantly young women in factories that pay poverty level wages, have forced overtime, routinely cheat workers on pay, continuously increase quotas without pay and create dangerous working environments. [ii]

The story of women workers at a banana packing plant in Guatemalan is just one example of the negative impact Wal-Mart can have on workers. Women workers at packing plants on banana plantations are required by the company to pack a certain amount of bananas into boxes everyday in order to keep their jobs. These requirements are known as production goals. Workers often receive bonuses when they exceed the goals and reprimands—including potential dismissal—when they do not. This banana plantation recently received a contract to supply bananas to Wal-Mart, who required that bananas not only be cleaned weighed, and packed into boxes (the traditional duty of banana packers) but that the bananas also be bagged and priced at the packing plant since wages on the banana plantation are much lower than those of store employees in the U.S. who had customarily done these jobs. While Wal-Mart demanded these extra steps, they were not willing to pay more per pound of banana, so in turn the banana company refused to pay more to workers for the additional production steps. The women workers at the plant had to complete these extra steps yet their productions goals were not lowered, making it impossible for them to reach their goals. In fact, many women have lost their bonuses (which they count on to increase their salaries to a living wage) and are afraid they will lose their jobs because of the increased production load. Additionally, the increase in work has led to more injuries for the workers and has forced many older women out of the packing plants since they are unable to keep up with their increased goals. [iii] Unions in many banana plantations are challenging these increased production goals, but global pressures like those from Wal-Mart are a powerful force.

Because of the sheer size of Wal-Mart, it not only has the ability to impact workers in the agricultural sector but in all sectors, including electronics, consumer goods, and especially in the clothing industry. San Pedro Sula , Honduras is home to several garment factories that produce for Wal-Mart. In order to keep up with Wal-Mart's increasing demands, these companies have had to reduce costs and deliver more production, which takes place on the backs of workers. Currently, these companies produce the same amount of clothing as previous years but with twenty percent fewer workers. For the remaining workers, this translates to earning less and producing more. Women who work in these factories sew sleeves onto shirts at the rate of 1,200 garments a day—two shirts a minute, one sleeve every 15 seconds, for only $35 a week. [iv]

Workers in Honduras and Guatemala are not alone, nor are the impacts of Wal-Mart limited to increased stress and a loss of pay. The desire for low cost goods leads suppliers to create or ignore dangerous conditions for workers, including unventilated workrooms, unsafe workshops, verbal abuse, sexual harassment and abuse, firings for pregnancy, arbitrary dismissals and forced overtime [v] . These conditions lead to high incidences of repetitive stress injuries, bladder and kidney infections, as well as cancer and respiratory illnesses among workers. In addition to poor working conditions at Wal-Mart producing factories, as a result of their low wages, workers live in conditions of abject poverty and are often unable to provide food and shelter for their families.

Women who become pregnant are especially at risk for poor treatment and negative health impacts. The horrendous conditions in the workplace as well as those of poverty can lead to miscarriages and complications with pregnancy. Furthermore, women are forced to work far into their pregnancies and are not awarded adequate maternity leave. In a Guatemalan maquila factory that produces for Wal-Mart, women were illegally forced by their bosses to take pregnancy tests prior to and during employment. [vi]

The poor treatment of women by Wal-Mart is not limited to poor, developing countries. In the United States , Wal-Mart is facing the largest private civil rights class action lawsuit ever for sex discrimination: Dukes v. Wal-Mart , in which seven California women—current and former Wal-Mart employees—are charging the company with systematic sex discrimination in promotions, assignments, training and pay. Women make up seventy-two percent of Wal-Mart's sales work force but only thirty-three percent of its managers. A study conducted for the Dukes plaintiffs by economist Marc Bendick found such discrepancies to be far less pronounced among Wal-Mart's competitors, which could boast of more than fifty percent female management. [vii] Additionally, Wal-Mart provides inadequate and extremely costly health care, forcing many women workers and their families to go without. Wal-Mart's practice of forcing many employees to work part-time makes them ineligible for the over-priced company healthcare.

Wal-Mart Is One of the Most Anti-union Companies in the World

The retail giant has a long history of harassing and firing workers who talk about organizing unions in their stores. In the spring of 2005, workers began organizing at a Wal-Mart store in Jonquiere , Quebec , Canada . Before the union could gain any strength, Wal-Mart sprung into action and promptly closed the store, citing that it was not making money and that the union's demands were completely unreasonable. Shutting down the store sent a clear message to all Wal-Mart employees that if they begin to organize, their fate would be similar. In ten separate cases, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled that Wal-Mart repeatedly broke the law by interrogating workers, confiscating union literature, and firing union supporters. At the first sign of organizing in a store, Wal-Mart dispatches a team of union busters from its headquarters in Bentonville , Arkansas , sometimes setting up surveillance cameras to monitor workers. [viii]

Around the world, Wal-Mart suppliers meet union organizing drives by women with brutal force. On July 18th and 19th of 2001, union members at the Choi Shin and CIMA Textiles factories in Guatemala were attacked at work by organized mobs of anti-union workers and supervisors who demanded that they resign from their jobs and the union. The factories, owned by the Korean company Choi & Shin, produced clothes for Liz Claiborne and Wal-Mart. While the Liz Claiborne Company stepped in to support the union, Wal-Mart remained quiet. [ix] Workers around the world who attempt to form unions to demand better wages and safe conditions are often targeted with illegal dismissal, blacklisting, and physical violence, even death.

The Power of Wal-Mart

As Wal-Mart pays ever lower prices for goods around the world, it significantly impacts the lives of workers that produce goods to be sold in their stores. Yet the power of Wal-Mart has even greater implications for all workers worldwide. Wal-Mart is a pricing leader, meaning that once they set an incredibly low price, all other retailers are then expected to offer the same price and must cut costs to do so. Therefore, the practices and policies of Wal-Mart set the retail standard and even more workers are ultimately affected. The success of Wal-Mart is unprecedented and has made Wal-Mart the example that many other companies are trying to emulate. The model of Wal-Mart is profit at all costs, including the human costs of worker's rights and lives, both at home and abroad. We must stand together in the face of this enormous challenge, or the damage to workers' and women's rights everywhere could be irreparable.

What can you do to challenge the “Profit before People” philosophy of Wal-Mart?

• Educate friends and family about the impact of Wal-Mart and their Low Prices. Encourage them to support local businesses and businesses that pay a living wage and support workers' rights, especially the right to form a union.
• Find out more information and join local campaigns that are fighting to unionize Wal-Mart and educate others about these campaigns around the country.
• Join national campaigns to fight Wal-Mart. Go to Wake Up Wal-Mart at http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/ or Wal-Mart Watch at http://walmartwatch.com/
• Join STITCH's Action Email Alert. Go to the STITCH website at http://www.stitchonline.org or email stitch@stitchonline.org. We will let you know about actions you can take to support women workers' fight for economic justice against Wal-Mart and other unfair employers.

[i] Fishman, Charles. “The You Don't Know.” Fast Company Issue 77, December 2003, page 68.

[ii] “Wal-Mart and Women,” AFL-CIO Campaign fact sheet.

[iii] Speech by Maria Carmen Molina, leader from SITRABI Banana Union, Izabal , Guatemala .

[iv] Cleeland, Nancy, Iritani, Evelyn, and Marshall, Tyler . “Scouring the Globe to Give Shoppers a $8.63 Polo Shirt.” LA Times , November 24, 2003

[v] Ayer, Marie, Mattson, Cory, and Gerson, Daniela Mijal. “The Maquila in Guatemala : Facts and Trends.” STITCH fact sheet, updated 2004.

[vi] “Wal-Mart and Women,” AFL-CIO Campaign fact sheet.

[vii] Featherstone, Liza. “Wal-Mart Values.” The Nation , December 16, 2002 .

[viii] Olsen, Karen. “Up Against Wal-Mart.” Mother Jones , March/April 2003.

[ix] Maquila Solidarity Network Website, http://www.maquilasolidarity.org