8-26-05,8:55am

America’s biggest retailer—with $10.3 billion in profits last year—has a shameful record of child labor violations, sex discrimination, low wages and lousy benefits.

We don’t need to reward Wal-Mart for that kind of corporate behavior. We can do our back-to-school shopping somewhere else this year.

More than 30,000 Working Family e-Activists have pledged to buy back-to-school supplies somewhere other than Wal-Mart this year, and we’ve sent those pledges to Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott. Let’s really get his attention. If you haven’t already signed the pledge, please click on the link below:

And once you have pledged, please click on the following link to tell friends and family members to take the pledge, too:

There are hundreds of reasons to pledge not to buy back-to-school supplies at Wal-Mart this year. Here are a few:

* As the world’s largest retailer, today Wal-Mart is setting the standard for America’s workplaces—and it’s a standard of low wages, poor benefits and worker abuse that working families cannot accept. Together, we have to stop the Wal-Marting of America’s jobs.

* Wal-Mart has racked up huge fines for child labor law violations. This rich company reportedly makes children younger than 18 work through their meal breaks, work very late and even work during school hours. Several states have found Wal-Mart workers younger than 18 are operating dangerous equipment, like chainsaws, and working in such dangerous areas as around trash compactors. (The New York Times, 1/13/04; Daily News, 2/18/05; Hartford Courant, 6/18/05)

* Wal-Mart pays poverty-level wages and fails to provide affordable company health insurance to more than 600,000 employees. That means Wal-Mart workers and their families have a hard time paying the bills and getting the health care they need—and Wal-Mart tops state lists of employers whose worker are forced to rely on taxpayer-funded health insurance programs like Medicaid. (Wal-Mart annual reports; Business Week, 10/2/03; state reports)

Pledge not to buy back-to-school supplies at Wal-Mart this year. Click on the link below:



Then click on the following link to urge your friends and family to sign the pledge, too:



Need more reasons to buy school supplies elsewhere this year? Try these:

* Wal-Mart has a shameful record of paying women less than men. Wal-Mart pays women workers nearly 40 cents less an hour than men. Some 1.6 million women are eligible to join a class-action lawsuit charging Wal-Mart with discrimination. (Richard Drogin, Ph.D., 2/03; Los Angeles Times, 12/30/04)

* By demanding impossibly low prices, Wal-Mart forces its suppliers to produce goods in low-wage countries that don’t protect workers. A worker in a Honduran clothing factory whose main customer is Wal-Mart, for example, sews sleeves onto 1,200 shirts a day for only $35 a week. (Los Angeles Times, 11/24/03)

* Wal-Mart can afford to do better. Wal-Mart—America’s largest private employer—raked in $10.3 billion in profits last year. CEO Lee Scott landed nearly $23 million in total compensation last year alone. Wal-Mart has no excuse for its behavior.

Click on the link below to send Scott your pledge not to buy back-to-school supplies at Wal-Mart this year:



Then click on the following link to invite your friends and family members to join you in pledging not to buy back-to-school supplies at Wal-Mart this year:

http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/WalMartPledge/forward

Thanks for taking action for working families again.

In solidarity,

Working Families e-Activist Network, AFL-CIO Aug. 24, 2005