The idea a person's worth is measured in 'economic growth' is only contributing to the problem with an example of Walmart. Since when does a human being's treatment while working require the component of contributing to the nation's economic growth?
Low income workers need increases in pay, not simply a Kumbaya moment for a 'feel good feeling.' These workers are valuable and they need to fight for more than working conditions, They need to fight for a better quality of life at home, too. Assuming, of course, they have a home life an not just a 24-7 working life.
Map of Walmart stores in the U.S., as of August 2010.
..NERMEEN SHAIKH: Historic labor protests (click here) against the nation’s largest private employer, Wal-Mart, are expanding to 28 stores in 12 states. Organizers are describing the actions as the first retail worker strike in Wal-Mart’s 50-year history. The strike began last week in Los Angeles and has spread to stores in Dallas; Seattle; the San Francisco Bay Area; Miami; the Washington, D.C., area; Sacramento; Chicago; and Orlando.
Wal-Mart workers are not unionized and have long complained of poor working conditions and inadequate wages. According to organizers, employees are protesting company attempts to, quote, "silence and retaliate against workers for speaking out for improvements on the job." This is Wal-Mart associate Carlton Smith speaking in June at Wal-Mart’s annual shareholder meeting in Bentonville, Arkansas....
Walmart CEO and President Mike Duke (click here), is earning his bonuses by depriving warehouse workers of water while sweating. But, don't blame Duke for the inhumanity, the Walmart headquarters is in Alabama where no one cares about human beings in poverty, only the money that can be gotten through their exploitation. It is a cultural right of Duke to deprive his employees of humane conditions, it has existed so long in Alabama it is near and dear to their hearts.
Duke gets confused about the values of his global empire as to the rights of workers to live through a work day shift.
Will Duke lose his job? We can only hope.
4/25/2012 @ 6:02PM
Could Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke (click here) lose his job over the company’s Mexican bribery scandal? CNNMoney had an intriguing article yesterday suggesting that Duke could become a target of law enforcement officials who are probing whether the company violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the federal law that makes it a crime for U.S. companies or their subsidiaries to bribe foreign officials. No boss of a major U.S. company has ever been charged under the law. Duke could be the first....
There is only one effective way to handle these violations and that is unionization. There is no other means to achieve recognition for work place suffering and danger. Unions can impose a change to the corporate culture to return decency to the businesses model.
by Ben W. Heineman, Jr
11:21 AM May 4, 2012
CEOs must respond quickly, decisively and comprehensively to investigate and address wrong doing as soon as they learn of it.
Though it may seem common sense, that last phrase — "as soon as they learn of it" — seems repeatedly to elude, and then to haunt many a CEO, including high-profile ones. The key point for business leaders — and one that I would often make to executives when I was at GE — is this: You own the problem the instant you hear about. You will be judged by every action you take, or don't take, from that moment on.
The trials and tribulations of News Corp, as underscored by the recent findings of a parliamentary committee, and of Walmart, as detailed in the recent New York Times allegations of Walmart bribery in Mexico, illustrate vividly the adverse consequences when this fundamental governance rule is not followed....
