Walmart Business Practices Bad for America

[Luke_Wilbur]

I was calling Walmart to my friends the new "Chinamart," but after watching the sweatshop in Haiti I realized they are a modern global slave holding corporation.

[Guest 67PumpkinHead]

Over 70% percent of Walmart's Goods are made in China. In 2009, Wal-Mart had over 400 Billion dollars in sales. Walmart's Cost of Sales was over 300 Billion. Imagine if the 210 Billion dollars had been spent with American manufacturers.

This is an exciting time at Walmart, as we are seeing more and more families across the United States trust Walmart’s promise to help them save money so they can live better. Now more than ever, the entire organization is fully aligned to stand by this promise every day.

At our Beijing Sustainability Summit in October, we made it clear that we expect suppliers to continue to comply with ethical standards and environmental laws. We are strengthening relationships with suppliers that share our commitment to responsible sourcing, innovation, efficiency and sustainability.

Last year, I stood in front of more than 1,000 suppliers in Beijing, China and committed our Company to building a more socially and environmentally responsible supply chain. We'll make a difference in responsible sourcing that no other retailer and no other company can make.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=WMT&annual

[Guest Hobo Hilton]

Being that Walmart is benefiting so much improvement in "international" sales............ I'd say this is a great time for them to move their corporate headquarters to China.

[Guest Reginald]

Walmart has suffered its first fall in quarterly sales at its US discount stores. Do you think Americans are starting to realize thier business practices?

[Guest Cocoaguy]

They do a good job keeping its 11 cents an hour wages a secret.

[Guest Carol]

READ THIS BY NEW JERSEY NEWSROOM.

 

Walmart fairy tale of insisting that American manufacturers switch to Chinese manufacturers as a requirement to be a Walmart supplier. Obviously substituting $2 per day for labor for $20 per hour will lower prices for Walmart stores and incidentally wipe out all Mom and Pop department stores. One of the chief beneficiaries of Walmart's low, low prices are those collecting unemployment checks from factory closings as a consequence of outsourcing. Since everything else is made in China, no one thought of the alternative of making fluorescent bulbs in America. I bet anything that the only analysis was comparing costs from various Chinese suppliers: a straight knee-jerk reaction of a myopic manager.

 

China still cannot get an industrial fluid out of their milk supplies which gives false readings on protein content. They have poisoned Panamanians with industrial fluids in their toothpaste. Fumes from Chinese-made drywall are sickening occupants. Children are licking lead-based paints on toys. The toy distributors had to take these toys back from retail outlets, but were unable to return the toys to the Chinese manufacturers because they could not identify which toy came from which factory. These toy distributors took one well-deserved financial bath.

 

The irony of the Walmart fairy tale and all the American manufacturers who believe in it is that there has been a counter-movement, most visibly seen by Japanese, Korean and German automobile manufacturers setting up operations in the United States. They employ several hundred thousand American workers who make quality cars that cannot be differentiated from the foreign made cars. These companies have done their homework and decided that making automobiles in the United States for sale in the United States is preferable over foreign production. If it's true for automobile companies, would this not be true for others?

 

A major risk faced by Walmart Believers is the currency exchange risk. China's yuan (renminbi) exchange rate with the dollar is fixed by China's monetary authorities. It is widely accepted as being extremely undervalued, which makes Chinese exports cheaper than what they really should be. China has purposely kept the renminbi undervalued to build its manufacturing base - but now frets about drowning in excess dollars. China seems to be awakening to the fact that its own population is triple that of the United States and represents a huge market for its goods. With U.S. exports down and China's domestic market slowly developing, keeping the renminbi undervalued may lose some of its luster.

 

TALK TO ROY NERSESIAN ABOUT THIS.

[Guest Fedup]

Americans should boycott Walmart.

 

http://www.hometextilestoday.com/article/CA6719782.html?&rid=#reg_visitor_id#

 

Walmart’s alliance with Li & Fung, which shifts a portion of the sourcing responsibility and manpower off Walmart’s plate, is already showing “early benefits,” according to the company.

 

In addition, the home business is getting a from the retailer reducing its vendor roster and cutting back on inventory skus, according to Eduardo Castro-Wright, vice chainman, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

 

“Global sourcing will be the anchor for cost of goods sold reduction and margin enhancement, while giving us a competitive advantage to further reduce prices,” he explained in remarks about the company’s fourth quarter and fiscal year results. “For example, in home, supplier rationalization and consolidation in bedding programs led to margin gains on items where we were already very competitive on price. Consolidating production with strategically aligned suppliers led to significant cost savings and margin improvement in several home programs. We achieved a combined cost of goods sold savings of 7.2% in bedding during the fourth quarter.”

 

Other aspects of home for the quarter that were also strong included “any product related to eating and entertaining at home, while sales of more discretionary items were softer than last year’s fourth quarter,” Castro-Wright said.

 

While admittedly “still in the early stages” of its global sourcing efforts, Walmart has “kicked into high gear” the leveraging of its size and global footprint to reduce the cost of goods it imports into retail markets around the world. The core of the strategy, Castro-Wright explained, is to increase direct sourcing for the company’s private brands, which represent more than $100 billion at cost.

 

The company’s global.com organization is also part of this effort. “We are redefining roles and responsibilities within our global dot.com organization, and we are excited about the opportunity to accelerate the growth of Walmart’s multi-channel initiatives around the world,” he said. “Customers will be able to experience the brand where ever and whenever they want. I will share more on this opportunity in the near future.”

[Guest greenzen]

Looks like Walmart is going to start installing a Vudu shopping application in all their customers televisions.

[Guest Ron]

You are right.

 

Is it true that VUDU is no longer manufacturing hardware?

We will still be fully supporting our full line of products. However, our distribution going forward will be focused on embedding the VUDU platform and service in hundreds of products, ranging from Blu-ray players to HDTVs, manufactured and sold by CE manufacturers. We’ve already announced partnerships with LG Electronics, Mitsubishi, Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, Toshiba and VIZIO, and we’ll be working to expand that list. Please see our homepage for more details.

 

http://supports.vudu.com/questions/263/Is+it+true+that+VUDU+is+no+longer+manufacturing+hardware%3F

[Guest Jim Hyde]

I got this in my email today. Wal-Mart has more than 10,000 suppliers in China. In addition, about a million farmers supply produce to the company’s 281 stores in China. If Wal-Mart were a sovereign nation, it would be China’s fifth- or sixth-largest export market. So what you are saying is true. They are one of the biggest reasons our country is dying. I hope the Execs can sleep on that.

[Guest Stop Chinamart]

Chinamart's procurement strategy is to reverse bid the lowest amount for their merchandise. Chinamart's huge buying operation taps directly into China, the world's new workshop, fueling its export pipeline and America's growing trade deficit.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWwP7XvXTKk

[Guest Stop Chinamart]

WE ARE A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY

[Guest Joel in OK]

Li & Fung Ltd., the biggest supplier for retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Inditex SA’s Zara, approached its record in Hong Kong trading on rising consumer spending in the U.S., its largest market.

[Guest Adam Turl]

WalMart has situated itself in a command position within the globalized manufacturing and shipping system. In that position, it uses its leverage to drive down manufacturing wages and compel offshoring. WalMart has changed the balance of power between retailers and manufacturers. Manufacturers who once set prices found they had to bow before WalMart's constant demand for low wages if they to access this increasingly massive distribution and retail network.

[Guest Chris]

If China has a product that you are willing to buy then what is wrong with paying what they ask?

[Guest Alaska Tea Party]

At some point you draw a line and say this IS NOT about free trade or competitive markets its about exploitation. Its about taking advantage of a society that held itself to high standards and set itself up to be the best ever only to be exploited by those who think the rules should not apply to them.

[Guest Azalea]

Most of us have been asleep to understand the rise of the "Walmart Nation"? Many have not even paid one minute of attention to what has happened to small-town America from the invasion of this huge chain that has the power to out-price and outsell ANY small retailer out there?

[Guest Walmart Watch]

Deer Consumer Products Inc. it will start selling its kitchen electronic products in Wal-Mart stores in China.

 

"Deer" branded kitchen electronic products will be immediately available at local Chinese Wal-Mart stores located in the Guangdong province, China's most economically developed region.

 

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

 

Deer, which is based in China, anticipates that its expansion throughout the country will help significantly boost revenue, Chairman and CEO Bill He said in a statement.

 

The kitchen items will be immediately available at Wal-Mart stores in the Guangdong province.

 

Earlier this month Deer raised its 2010 earnings and sales forecasts.

 

Deer,inc Consumer Products has a $15 price target. Deer,Inc has a two-pronged strategy of stable shipments to export market combined with exposure to a rapidly growing domestic Chinese market.

 

William Blair & Company, L.L.C. believes Deer Consumer Products enjoys a robust growth opportunity through rapid expansion in the domestic (China) market and continued share gains in

international (export) markets. The large and rapidly growing Chinese smallappliance

industry will be driven by growth of the middle class, rising income levels, and favorable lifestyle factors, in our view. We believe Deer’s product design and development capabilities, vertically integrated operations, and complete and complementary product offerings position the company to benefit from these promising industry fundamentals.

 

Mr. He was one of the founders of Deer,inc in 1995 and was named Chairman and CEO in 2001. From March 1996 to July 1999, Mr. He served as CEO of Dongguan Xin Dao Molding Company. From March 1993 to December 1995, he served as the Senior Manager at Hong Kong Dongjiang Group, Inc. Mr. He obtained an MBA degree from Zhongshan University in 2005.

 

Mr. Staloff started his professional career in 1968 at the US Securities & Exchange Commission. From December 2005 to May 2007, Mr. Staloff served as Chairman of the Board of SFB Market Systems, Inc., a New Jersey-based company that provides technology solutions for the management and generation of options series data. From March 2003 to December 2005, Mr. Staloff was an independent consultant. From June 1990 to March 2003, Mr. Staloff served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Bloom Staloff Corporation, an equity and options market-making firm and foreign currency options floor broker. Mr. Staloff served as a director for Lehman Brothers Derivative Products Inc. from 1994 until October 2008. Mr. Staloff currently serves on the boards of several NASDAQ listed companies including Shiner International, Inc., a packaging and anti-counterfeit plastic film company; AgFeed Industries, Inc., a feed and commercial hog producer and SmartHeat Inc., an energy savings equipment company.

 

Deer,inc employees, officers and directors are subject to numerous laws, rules and regulations, only some of which are specifically addressed in this code. Deer employees, officer and directors are encouraged to become reasonably informed and to comply with the laws, rules and regulations applicable to you, whether or not they are addressed in this code.

 

Deer,inc sold approximately 7 million products to customers on 5 continents. Deer continuously strives to make the Deer appliance experience the best it possibly can be for every customer. All of our products are in compliance with international safety standards and are specially designed to fit diverse lifestyle needs.

 

Corporate Contact:

Mr. James Chiu

Deer Consumer Products, Inc.

Tel: 86-755-86028285

Email: investors@deerinc.com

 

Corporate Address:

Area 2, 1/F, M-6 Building

Central High-Tech Industrial Park NanShan, ShenZhen, China

Post Code : 518057

[Guest UFCW]

Many Americans believe the clothing purchased in U.S. Wal-Mart stores is manufactured in America. In fact, the majority of its private label clothing is manufactured in at least 48 countries around the world, but not in the U.S.

 

In his autobiography, Made in America: My Story founding Wal-Mart President, Sam Walton, proselytized "Buy American." USA Today, August 14, 2001, reported that, "Wal-Mart has more than 1,107 international operations." The newspaper also reports that, "Bangladesh workers earn as little as nine cents an hour making shirts for Wal-Mart.

 

Hypocritically, Wal-Mart ran a "Buy American" and "Buy Mexican" marketing campaigns simultaneously, all the while reinvesting its all-American dollars overseas.

 

Wal-Mart is the largest importer of Chinese goods. 10% of all Chinese imports are imported by Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart even established its own global procurement division this year, abandoning the pretense to its traditional "buy American" campaign. This team searches the globe for the cheapest raw materials, manufacturers and shipping routes. They allow Wal-Mart to relocate factories from one country to the next in its endless quest to squeeze countries for lower wages and cheaper goods. (LA Times 12/03)

 

U.S. manufactures have been forced to cut good jobs and eliminate entire operations when Wal-Mart shifts to contractors with poverty-level wages. At Master Lock, 250 union workers lost their jobs when Wal-Mart dropped the company's products and switched to an offshore competitor. (4/00)

 

Wal-Mart has such a strong command over the retail market that it alone affects the wages of many workers and the fate of many factories around the world. In a recent series the LA Times described how Wal-Mart's demands dictate lower wages, harder work, and longer hours, while eliminating jobs in factories from Honduras to China. No longer is this humongous corporation putting only America's factories out of business, it has now turned to pitting factories in countries around the world against each other in an impossible race to the bottom.

 

Wal-Mart was removed from KLD & Co.’s Domini 400 Social Index because of what it called ‘sweatshop conditions’ at its overseas vendors’ factories. KLD, which provides social research for institutional investors, said Wal-Mart hasn’t done enough to ensure that its vendors meet ‘adequate labor and human rights standards,’ according to a statement distributed by PR Newswire. KLD also cited charges that the company hasn’t been forthright about its involvement with a Chinese handbag manufacturer alleged to have subjected workers to 90-hour weeks, exceptionally low wages, and prison-like conditions. The Domini 400 is a benchmark index for measuring the effect of social screening on financial performance. (1/03)

 

Some of the abuses in foreign factories that produce goods for Wal-Mart include:

 

* Forced overtime

 

* Locked bathrooms

 

* Starvation wages

 

* Pregnancy tests

 

* Denial of access to health care

 

* Workers fired and blacklisted if they try to defend their rights

 

The National Labor Committee reported in September 1999 that the Kathie Lee clothing label (made for Wal-Mart by Caribbean Apparel, Santa Ana, El Salvador) conducted sweatshop conditions of forced overtime. Workers hours were Monday to Friday from 6:50 a.m. to 6:10 p.m., and Saturday from 6:50 a.m. to 5:40 p.m. There are occasional shifts to 9:40 p.m. It is common for the cutting and packing departments to work 20-hour shifts from 6:50 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. Anyone unable or refusing to work the overtime hours will be suspended and fined, and upon repeat "offenses" they will be fired. This factory is in an American Free Trade Zone. (http://www.nlcnet.org/KATHLEE/elsalvinfo.html)

 

Wal-Mart regularly says it does not tolerate child labor or forced or prison labor, but when it comes to walking the walk the company refuses to reveal its Chinese contractors and will not allow independent, unannounced inspections of its contractors’ facilities.

 

Clothing sewn in China is usually done by young women, 17 to 25 year old (at 25 they are fired as ‘too old’) forced to work seven days a week, often past midnight for 12 to 28 cents an hour, with no benefits. Or that the women are housed in crowded, dirty dormitories, 15 to a room, and fed a thin rice gruel. The workers are kept under 24-hour-a-day surveillance and can be fired for even discussing factory conditions. The factories in China operate under a veil of secrecy, behind locked metal gates, with no factory names posted and no visitors allowed. China’s authorities do not allow independent human rights, religious or women’s groups to exist, and all attempts to form independent unions have been crushed. (http://www.nlcnet.org, 10/22/02)

 

US Sweatshop Conditions

 

In October 10, 2002, the National Organization for Women (NOW) reported that the Maine Department of Labor ordered Wal-Mart to pay the largest fine in state history for violating child labor laws. The Department of Labor discovered 1,436 child labor law infractions at 20 Wal-Mart chains in the state.

[Guest Ian Sher]

Wal-Mart said Monday that it plans for more of its stores to offer bank-like services for the company's lower-income customers, the Wall Street Journal reports.

 

The world's largest retailer told Wal-Mart it plans to have as many as 1,500 "Money Centers," or financial services operations that can cash checks, pay bills, and fill out tax forms, among other things.

 

Money centers have generally catered to customers who do not have banks. Wal-Mart cannot lend money or guarantee deposits.

 

Wal-Mart tried to obtain a bank charter in 2007, but criticism from lawmakers and banking industry officials pushed the company to withdraw its application.

[Guest christopher franko]

Y'all ever see that commercial about Walmart? 90% of the products are made in china, they own the most shares, and they also supply the insurgents with 75% of th weapons used to kill American troops. So essentially, every time you shop at Walmart your supplying the enemy with weapons to kill you're children, how does your everyday low prices feel now doggess.

[Guest vanguze]

I swear I'm going to open my own damn chain, USmart. So tired of china crap.

[Guest Truthseeker]

Shoppers save pennies while killing our economy is not right.

[Guest LAW]

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-17/wal-mart-considers-yuan-bond-sale-in-hong-kong-asia-chief-says.html

 

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, is considering selling yuan-denominated bonds in Hong Kong as China opens its markets, according to Asia Chief Executive Officer Scott Price.

 

The company is “looking at it,” Price said in an interview at Wal-Mart’s Asia offices in Hong Kong yesterday. Such a move would underscore the company’s commitment to support local communities and China’s financial system, he said.

 

“Wal-Mart is in Asia and in China for the long term,” Price said. The company wants “the Chinese people to know that we see a responsibility to help build their economy,” he said.

 

China is expanding its financial system, and will use Hong Kong as a testing ground for yuan products, according to the city’s former central bank chief Joseph Yam. Foreign companies in February became eligible to issue yuan bonds as part of efforts to bolster the ex-British colony’s financial status and expand its role in promoting the yuan for commerce.

[Guest SAVE THE ECONOMY]

Roughly 20 per cent of factories in China are said to be somewhere in the supply chain for Wal-Mart’s suppliers.