Up Against Wal-Mart

Anti-Wal-Mart activists in Fayetteville, Arkansas, are organizing a June 4-6 gathering to protest the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting. Composed of students, labor unions and local progressive groups, the Against the Wal Coalition hopes to increase awareness of the retail giant’s unsavory business practices.

“For nearly a decade, unions, small towns and environmentalists have fought Wal-Mart with mixed success,” says Joe Diffie of the Against the Wal Coalition. “Our goal is to get all these movements together and bring them here to the belly of the beast.”

The three-day event comes at a time of renewed criticism of the company. A scathing report issued on May 24 blasts Wal-Mart for receiving $1 billion in subsidies from U.S. state and local governments.

These subsidies include free and reduced-price land grants, infrastructure assistance, tax credits and job training funds, according to Good Jobs First, a Washington, D.C.-based research group. The study found that Wal-Mart received subsidies for the construction of 160 retail outlets as well as for 90 percent of its distribution centers.

“That a company with $9 billion in profits can wrest job subsidies from state and local governments shows that the candy store game has gotten out of control,” says Greg LeRow, executive director of Good Jobs First. “The subsidies to Wal-Mart are particularly troubling, given that the company uses taxpayer dollars to create jobs that tend to be poverty-wage, part-time and lacking in adequate healthcare benefits.”

The Arkansas-based company and world’s largest retailer, with more than $250 billion in annual sales, is often at the center of controversy. Organized labor deplores Wal-Mart’s fierce opposition to unions, international observers cite the company’s reliance on sweatshop labor, environmentalists warn about its contribution to urban sprawl, community advocates lament the erosion of downtown communities, and civil rights activists point to numerous examples of discriminatory practices.

Both major presidential campaigns are focusing on contrasting images of the company.

John Kerry recently walked the picket line with striking members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, who have been unsuccessful in their attempts to organize Wal-Mart grocery workers (Wal-Mart opted to sell pre-packaged meat rather than allow its butchers to unionize). In contrast, Dick Cheney used a recent visit to Wal-Mart to stump for the president, saying, “This is one of our country’s greatest companies.”

The dichotomy of Wal-Mart’s image is also evident in local communities like Fayetteville.

“A lot of people here really like Wal-Mart. Many are former or current employees with one or two shares of stock in the company,” says Diffie. “But the average person here hasn’t increased their wealth – only the managerial class has benefited.”

Day one of the convergence will feature an Alternatives to Wal-Mart Village, where organizers plan to offer teach-ins, workshops, art and gardening projects and a collective kitchen.

“One thing about the Ozarks is that we have a sustainable environment and a lot of hard-working people,” says Natalie McMahon, an organizer for the anti-Wal-Mart coalition. “We’re trying to promote our culture and to let people know that an alternative to Wal-Mart still exists.”

Coalition organizers estimate 1,000 people will join their march on June 5.

The group has also launched a traveling roadshow to “spread the word around the mid-South about the downside of Wal-Mart’s low prices and rapid expansion around the world.”

For more coverage, see arkansas.indymedia.org.


This article originally appeared in the NYC Indypendent