Unions Urge Shoppers: Anywhere but Wal-Mart
Feature Story by Tyler Lewis - 8/16/2005
The nation's two largest teacher's unions are asking Americans to "Send Wal-Mart Back to School" by boycotting the retail giant and purchasing their school supplies at other stores.The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association, together with WakeUpWalMart.com, a national campaign to change Wal-Mart's business practices, want to convince ordinary Americans to send a strong message to Wal-Mart, claiming the retail giant blocks workers from unionizing, underpay employees, and offers paltry health insurance coverage.
On August 10, a coalition of labor and teachers unions, grassroots activists, and politicians held press conferences in 34 cities around the country in a coordinated effort to urge parents to shop somewhere other than Wal-Mart for their children's back-to-school supplies.
The campaign's call for a boycott comes just a few weeks before the second biggest shopping season of the year.
"Every day Wal-Mart's so-called 'low prices' comes with too high a cost for our families and our children," said Paul Blank, campaign director for WakeUpWalMart.com.
Ridiculing the teachers' unions who joined the boycott, Wal-Mart released a statement on Wednesday saying, "Through low prices - like 25 cent crayons - and substantial support for local education, students are our priority, not politics. Isn't it time the teachers' unions do the same?"
Critics of Wal-Mart's business strategies point to the 24 child labor law violations cited in a Department of Labor investigation of Wal-Mart last year and to the nearly 4,900 times Wal-Mart was sued in 2000.
A 2004 report released by Congressman George Miller, D. Ca., found that the average Wal-Mart employee makes $8.23 per hour compared to the $10.35 per hour the average supermarket employee works.
Only 41-46 percent of Wal-Mart employees, as compared to the 66 percent of employees at other similar large companies, receive health benefits, according to the report.
Responding to Wal-Mart's statement on Wednesday, AFT President Edward J. McElroy said that Wal-Mart "could change the way it does business. It could end its abominable treatment of its workers and its violations of child labor laws... Instead, it issued a press release/advertisement touting its 25-cent crayons as an example of how the company supports communities. Wal-Mart just doesn't get it."
The boycott is the latest in a series of public and legal woes for the nation's largest employer. Wal-Mart is currently embroiled in a class-action lawsuit brought by female employees charging the corporation discriminates against women in salary and promotion opportunities.
