As egregious and evil as Wal-Mart's abuses are, they've never been
any worse than those of any other major retail corporation. And, to be honest, they've never been worse
than small business either. In fact, a worker
is more apt to have some kind of health insurance benefit, as lousy as it may
be, from the big corporations than a small business. And small business hates unions/organized
labor no less than Wal-Mart..
It's no longer possible to wear clothing and not participate
in the exploitation or enslavement of another human being. Target, Gap, VF Corp (North Face, Wrangler
and Vans), Sears/Kmart, Footlocker, Macy's (Younkers), JC Penney, American
Eagle Outfitters, Nordstrom, Kohl's, and OshKosh B'Gosh all buy their garments
from the same sweatshops as Walmart. That's
where local clothing shops get their goods too.
It's understandable that sentient people when they learn of
worker abuse (aka seen the Robert Greenwald documentary) want to do something
to resist this evil. And, it's understandable that Americans think they can
consumerize change, not only because boycotts have worked in the past, but
because we've been conditioned to believe we can consumerize (or buy) our way
out of anything. Tragically--thanks to
GATT, NAFTA, and the abolition of Glass-Steagall, conditions have deteriorated
to the point this is no longer possible.
In 2013, while boycotting Walmart might make folks feel
better, it's close to meaningless otherwise.
But, as one young woman told me, "I don't care if it changes
anything. I 'm just trying to find ways
to feel better about myself as a person."
There are a lot of ways we could stand up for workers, but
they would require risk and sacrifice, and most folks--even "liberal"
folks aren't that interested in change. We
could stop voting for the lesser of two evils, ditch both major political
parties, and stand in the street demanding campaign finance reform and not go
home until we get these things. We need a pervasive systemic change now to fix
Walmart. We need to end the personhood
of corporations (see Move to Amend), reinstate Glass-Steagall, and
abolish/revise NAFTA. And, yes, we need
to dismantle capitalism for a more public economy, but short of that the other
things I mentioned would be a healthy start.
That's not say, it still isn't immoral to cross a picket line in front of Walmart if you see workers marching. It's still immoral if it's mostly astro-turf laid by some project coughed up by Citizen Action Network, trolling for votes for Democrats at election time. They've no doubt sucked in some real workers who deserve our support. (Though they'll need it more after they're discarded when CAN is done using them.)
Here's a little blast from the past, when there was still
hope. Some may laugh at it, but I weep.
