What if

[bigeyes]

we called for our leaders to change the laws that allow companies like Wal-mart and Target to engage in predatory business practices?

What if we started insisting our representatives introduced legislation to stop allowing businesses to bring in products made in sweatshops, to stop forcing manufacturers to keep lowering production costs until they couldn't afford to stay in business, to stop forcing their employees to go on state sponsored insurance because they couldn't afford the company plan?

What if we insisted eminent domain became illegal? It seems to me that in some cases they have tried to stop Wal-mart with eminent domain, but in others Wal-mart has actually gotten their land through eminent domain, so that doesn't work out too well, does it? It's just another sneaky legal way for people to steal.

What if all the energy people put into complaining about how awful big box stores are and putting up websites went into contacting representatives and watching to see how they vote, and who contributes to their campaigns, and voting for change? I know I've lived in areas where people voted for Wal-mart coming into the city instead of against, so what if instead of campaigning against what the majority sometimes see as low prices, people instead campaign against the abuses?

The reason I ask this is because I see people insist Wal-Mart is the biggest evil out there, but I know for a fact there are other retailers doing all the same things they do, and it just seems to me it would make more sense to stop the problem by making the actions illegal instead of going after the retailer. When you have people who are living on fixed incomes, or in areas where Wal-mart is already their only shopping option, you're swimming upstream. But when you have people voting who are pissed off about jobs going overseas, or who are outraged about sweatshops, eminent domain, loopholes that allow the wealthy to take advantage of the poor...it just seems to me it makes better sense to fight the battle from that standpoint.

Especially when I see Targets being built in places where people are protesting Wal-marts, and they get ignored even though they do the same things. It doesn't make any sense.

Links I dug up about Target's similar business practices, and some pretty silly reasons why people will still shop there because they're smaller than Wal-mart even though they do the same things! :

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/50058/
http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/...any.cfm?id=295
according to this article, the only reason to boycott Wal-mart instead of Target is that they're bigger, not that they're worse.
http://www.wisebread.com/is-target-r...ad-as-wal-mart
This article mentions that Target doesn't give their employees a much better deal than Wal-mart, but doesn't expand on that statement to give actual numbers or percentages.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortu...1782/index.htm
This article points out many similarities between the 2, and imo, Target seems to be worse, just smaller.
http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/walm...get_better.php
http://abcnews.go.com/business/holid...3989096&page=1
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...6/ai_n22469115
http://www.sunmt.org/gaptrial.html
http://www.laborradio.org/node/1727
http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/.../scorecard.cfm



Target has managed to come into places where Wal-mart has done the dirty work for them, then, with a pretty package and slick marketing, look like the good guy while doing the exact same things.

But the way they both get away with it is by our government having legal loopholes that allow them to do so. If they weren't allowed to import things made in sweatshops, they couldn't. If they weren't allowed to have insurance plans that ate up entire paychecks, they couldn't. If they weren't allowed to nickel and dime suppliers out of business, they couldn't.
If our tax codes weren't written the way they are, big businesses couldn't find ways to get out of paying taxes. There are websites devoted to tracking how Wal-mart gets out of paying taxes, but how many websites are devoted to tracking the other retailers? How many big businesses are paying as much in taxes as working people? How many of us are devoting our time to demanding that our tax code change to allow us to do the same thing as big business when it comes to taxes?

Here are some links to how your reps vote on specific bills, and who contributes to campaigns for various offices, so some of this stuff is out there for public view.

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/

http://www.fec.gov/disclosure.shtml

http://www.followthemoney.org/
http://www.opensecrets.org/?gclid=CI...FRwvagod5Eh7kg

Am I the only person who thinks about this stuff? It just seems like the anti-Wal-Mart people are fighting a losing battle that could be won if they re-directed their efforts.

I mean, if a boycott can work, why can't we use our actual legislative system to do this?

[Solose]

I just want to say I completely agree. I want to add that what you said doesn't just apply to large corporations. I know for a fact that my local grocery store has lower wages than wal-mart, very bad health insurance that hardly covers anyone, and routinely switches people's schedules even when they have children, forcing them to leave kids at home alone sometimes. I understand that as a small local store they don't have the means neccessary to provide the insurance and benefits a large corporation can, even if they wanted to. But I really wish people would focus on improving the lives of working people rather than blaming the company they work for.

It especially irks me when people get all upset that wal-mart doesn't give employees good health insurance but are against universal coverage, which wold remedy that problem. It's just so easy and convenient to find the scapegoat. Wal-mart is just a symptom of the problem!

[bigeyes]

Exactly.

And while people are gathering signatures against the second Wal-mart in your town, Target comes in and builds and nobody lets out a peep. It makes no sense at all.

As long as American companies are allowed to make profits from the sweatshops, they will. As long as they can underpay and under-insure their employees and let state insurance plans and food stamps take up the slack, they will. On 2 different occasions when I was single I have had jobs that other people thought were good jobs, yet my coworkers with children were on food stamps and state insurance. One of those was a state job.

It makes people feel better to demonize Wal-mart, and the people who profit are laughing all the way to the bank. Wal-mart isn't hurt by it, and nothing changes.

You will never convince someone who is barely surviving that it makes sense to drive further, or ride another bus further to pay more for merchandise they can pick up at Wal-mart. You're swimming upstream. It makes better sense to change the rules that allow these companies to get merchandise from places that don't pay their workers fairly and who dispose of toxic waste unsafely. It makes better sense to insist these companies have to pay for their workers' insurance and have to pay a fair wage.

If people really cared about the people who are in this position they would find a way to help them get out of this position instead of looking down on them for their choices. It's easy to boycott the discount store when you have money, resources and choices.

[Turquesa]

I want to add that these mega-corporations are a huge drain on the nation's economy, and it would be good to frame our argument that way.

They send jobs and plants overseas to avoid paying U.S. workers and U.S. taxes, respectively. (It's probably similar in Canada and other Eng-speaking countries). As PP said, they compel workers to have tax-payer funded health insurance. They are parasites on local economies; one group claims that for every 100 dollars that Borders earns, only 13 dollars go back into a local economy.

And when these giant corporations do massive lay-offs, they compel workers to sign on to other public assistance programs. I'm all for these programs and even expanding them, but I'm not for corporations creating their unnecessary and preventable use.

Do we ban large corps? No. But we must demand much tighter regulation and more ethical practices.

ETA: I agree with PP on the Wal-Mart boycott. I've often wondered if it isn't sort of classist . . . and I say this as a Wal-Mart boycotter. How many of us have boycotted those yuppy chains like Star-sucks and Barnes & Noble? I humbly and shamefully admit that I haven't . . . .

[bigeyes]

Originally Posted by Turquesa

I want to add that these mega-corporations are a huge drain on the nation's economy, and it would be good to frame our argument that way.

Do we ban large corps? No. But we must demand much tighter regulation and more ethical practices.

That makes so much more sense than trying to get people to stop shopping at one retailer when there are so many retailers doing the exact same things. The boycott obviously is not working, and it isn't solving the problem. They're spending too much time making Wal-mart out to be the biggest evil of all time and ignoring the real problem. Corporate welfare is the biggest drain on our economy, and while Wal-mart is part of it, they are not the sole beneficiary.

[Turquesa]

The same thoughts occurred to me when I was watching "The High Cost of Low Prices." The documentary was so short-sighted. Sure, it's terrible that Wal-Mart employs hyper-exploited Chinese laborers and stores dangerous chemicals close to a river. But why isn't anybody questioning the local, state, and federal laws (lack thereof) that allow this to happen? What is the machinery behind all of this egregious corporate behavior? And why isn't anybody working to unplug it? In case you can't tell, I'm totally with you on this issue.

[bigeyes]

I also love how the story of stuff tells you how awful it is to keep buying new stuff, then they tell you how you can get their little movie on your brand new ipod.

Stuff like that slays me.

[Pariah]

I think this is an excellent thread. I've often wondered why Wal-Mart and similar are allowed to do what they do in the first place, and the OP expounded on that greatly.

Subbing!

[onelilguysmommy]

thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!

i see so many people ranting about the evils of Wal-Mart and then raving about how wonderful Target is, especially around here where apparently its almost required to hate Wal-Mart. and it makes me so angry! ugh.

[jempd]

I think that lobbying is a big part of the problem. It's true that it isn't the whole problem, but it has grown hugely in the last decade or so, and as much as people want to change things the fact of the matter is the corporations just politically have a huge amount of power because of lobbying. And you can't really improve the lives of working people without at least bringing attention to corporations such as big-box stores abusing their power over their employees. So, yes, that would be blaming them. I agree with the posters that said that the same people who complain about poor insurance coverage should not then oppose universal coverage, and that complaining about Wal-Mart but then saying nothing about Target is not consistent. But I think the latter happens mostly out of lack of information. Don't forget that paying for their part of insurance coverage of employees is a large part of every company's, large and small, cost of doing business, and that the insurance companies have some of the most powerful lobbyists of all.

[imagine21]

I don't think that the lack of legislation is the problem. It is the lack of enforcement. There is neither the willingness nor the funds needed to enforce the laws that already exist to protect localities, workers and unions. As long as government is viewed as the problem (and it's hard to change that given the propensity for it to be influenced by lobbyists) we have no enforcement of the "good laws."

[pampered_mom]

Originally Posted by onelilguysmommy

i see so many people ranting about the evils of Wal-Mart and then raving about how wonderful Target is, especially around here where apparently its almost required to hate Wal-Mart. and it makes me so angry! ugh.

Exactly! Dh has actually had this discussion with a close friend of his and he just couldn't see it. What we actually find most ironic is that Dh has worked for both Wal-Mart and Target (at this point at Target in two different states) and actually got paid more at Wal-Mart compared to both times at Target.

Target is also just as anti-union as Wal-Mart and employs many of the same tactics (as does his present employer, a large multi-state daycare company).

OP and pps are right...it's definitely much more systemic.