Wal-Mart doesn’t give a shit about people going hungry in America
Yesterday, MLive.com posted a brief article on the new campaign by Wal-Mart, which claims it wants to fight hunger in America.
The MLive article tells people about an online campaign that Wal-Mart is promoting, where by just clicking on the site you can determine which community across the country will receive $1 million dollars to fight hunger. As of today, Grand Rapids had more hits than any other city.
The Wal-Mart campaign has identified the food hardship rate for the 100 largest communities in America, according to the Food Research and Action Center. Being identified as one of the 100 largest communities for food hardship in the country should be cause for major concern and would have been a more relevant story for the Press reporter to take. Instead, we are just told that Grand Rapids is in the lead and doesn’t that just sound more positive?
Stealing a lot from the poor and giving a little back
The whole notion that Wal-Mart wants to fight hunger in America would make any reasonable person burst out in laughter. Thinking that the largest company in the world wants to actually fight hunger in America tells us something about how well propaganda works in this country. Here are several reasons why Wal-Mart is not committed to fighting hunger in the US.
- Wal-Mart is the wealthiest company in the world with over $14 billion in profits last year alone. The company makes that kind of an annual profit because it has destroyed many local businesses and pays its workers poverty level wages. In 2008, Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. made a $29,682,000 salary, which according to United for a Fair Economy is 1,314 times more than the salary of an average full-time Wal-Mart worker.
- If Wal-Mart paid its workers a livable wage they could seriously reduce the number of people needing food assistance in the United States. Wal-Mart also constantly violates worker pay agreements and is currently facing about 80 individual lawsuits from workers and 4 class action lawsuits for worker violations.
- Wal-Mart gets millions in tax breaks every year from communities across the country when they broker deals to build new stores. In addition, Wal-Mart use state and federal tax loopholes to pay less in taxes and get all kinds of subsidies. For example, Wal-Mart has been taking advantage of a tax loophole that the federal government closed years ago, paying rent to itself then deducting it from state taxes in about twenty-five states. Data from filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show that on average Wal-Mart has paid only about half the statutory state rates over the past decade.” (2008 Wal-Mart Watch Report)
- Wal-Mart is a company, like any other company, that is committed to maximizing their profits. You cannot simultaneously end hunger and make a profit. Besides not paying workers in the US a livable wage, Wal-Mart profits off the misery of millions globally by selling products made in sweatshop conditions. Thus, Wal-Mart is also contributing to hunger around the world by benefiting off a neoliberal global economic system.
- Wal-Mart’s board of directors is made up of a group of economic elites who are also committed to maximizing profits and maintaining inter-corporate relations, which allows them to be a united front against government and public scrutiny. Look at who sits on Wal-Mart’s Board of Directors and ask yourself if these people are committed to fighting hunger.
There are many more reasons to discredit the claim that Wal-Mart wants to fight hunger in America, but we think you get the point. Wal-Mart recognizes they are despised by millions of people throughout the country, so this new campaign is really a PR effort to paint themselves as a “responsible” corporation.
This tactic of “funding community projects” is not a new one employed by corporations. Robber Barons like Carnegie and Rockefeller did the same thing 100 years ago as a means to prevent working class rebellion against their obscene wealth in the face of widespread poverty.
Currently, companies like Chase Bank, Pepsi and Wal-Mart are also trying to con the public into thinking they care about our communities by offering funds for local projects. We need to see these efforts for what they are, elaborate public relations ploys to divert our attention from how they continue to amass incredible amounts of wealth while more and more people fall into poverty.
Trackbacks
- Wal-Mart doesn’t give a shit about people going hungry in America (via Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy) « The Wobbly Goblin
- Wal-Mart Strikes Again « Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy
- Cheerleading for corporations in Grand Rapids « Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy
- Kellogg claims to fight hunger in PR stunt for World Food Day « Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 
This is a well-reasoned post which I’m afraid will never make it to the light of day because as a populace we have swallowed, hook, line and sinker the idea that corporate america cares about people. Corporate America cares about itself! And now that Corporations have unlimited ability to finance elected campaigns, it will ensure that it continue to set the agenda in this country. We have truly become a country run for and by corporations, without limit. What to do about Walmart? What are the choices? That’s what I’d like to know.
Cynthia, while I agree that Wal-Mart has tremendous power they are not all powerful. People can combat Wal-Mart by supporting the campaigns against the company, by confronting them and exposing them for what they truly are.
In addition, people can chose not not support Wal-Mart by shopping there and supporting local economies. However, ultimately we need to challenge capitalism and create other ways of meeting our basic needs, such as the Really, Really Free Market, worker run economies and economies based on cooperation, instead of profit. There are no easy answers, but then again systemic change never is.
Once again, a large corporation wants to put it’s head out the door just in time for the holiday’s spewing and spouting about how wonderful they are and how much they do and want to do for the American people. Once again, when they spew it’s nothing but washed up, chocolate covered garbage that many Americans grasp and grab thinking of a new hope. Until we can uncover Corporate America for all the world to see, people are going to continue to support and maintain this EVIL GIANT. Wal-mart is party to LEGAL CRIME IN THEIR OWN RIGHTS, IF ANY GOOD CITIZEN USED THESE BACKWARDS LOOPHOLES THEY WOULD BE IN JAIL. But alas, as a good citizen we can choose the right to shop and support local business. You and I making a stand really won’t hurt Wal-mart, but if we rally the people of our country to make it Wal-mart un-appreciation day and commit to not shopping at the Evil Empire they might take a hit. United We Stand!
Jerry, we appreciate your feedback. We do need to get more people to not shop at Wal-Mart, but we also need to expose and confront them and the economic system in which they operate. Just getting people to shop at Meijer is not a solution.
On the 2008 campaign trail Obama slammed Hillary for working for walmart.Alot of people on the left were excited that obama condemned walmart, he was going to take on corporate giants.What a disappointment obama turned out to be.
A lotta leftists supported Obama. What a disappointment the left turned out to be! But hey, that’s how it always is. On to the next issue and/or the next election!
Thanks for this article–great information. Wal-Mart has created a lot of misery, that’s for sure. As you point out, Wal-Mart squeezes blood out of sweatshop workers. There’s also group that has been hit particularly hard: workers at small and regional American businesses.
For years, Wal-Mart played an effective game with these vendors and their workers. First, it would offer a contract. They would demand more product every year. Then, once the business became financially dependent on the Wal-Mart contract, Wal-Mart would start demanding concessions–that the vendor give up part of its profits so that it sell its product at lower prices to Wal-Mart, for example. The demands would become more and more crippling. Worker pay and benefits would get cut. Safety conditions suffered. Worker positions then had to be reduced, and hours for the remaining workers lengthened. I know of several companies in the West Michigan area that this happened to. A few companies were smart enough to cut and run. Some vendors eventually were run out of business. Others became more and more like sweatshops as the business struggled to stay afloat.
Then, in 2009, Wal-Mart shifted its game. It created vendor contracts with so many demands that many mid-sized businesses struggled to keep their contracts going. There were all sorts of expenses demanded of the businesses: one was that the vendor had to make products available based on a high-demand situation at Wal-Mart, but that Wal-Mart had absolutely no obligation to buy even one item from the vendor.
Another demand was related to the vendors’ marketing and advertising budgets. Wal-Mart’s contract essentially demanded that a set amount of that money be turned over to Wal-Mart for their own ad campaigns. This meant that many smaller vendors had to turn over all their marketing budget money to Wal-Mart, leaving companies unable to make their products available to other buyers.
As for very large vendors, they are now asked to pay staggering amounts to the retail giant. According to one article, “Complying with Walmart’s guidelines would, in theory, mean a company the size of Procter & Gamble Co. diverting around $1 billion in U.S. media dollars into Walmart’s media budget or marketing and merchandising vehicles — a sum roughly equivalent to what Walmart spent on all of its own measured media last year, according to TNS Media Intelligence.”
Just this one demand gives you an idea of how Wal-Mart treats its vendors. And the people who end up paying for that, the people who suffer the most, are the vendors’ workers–in reduced wages, benefits, safety on the floor; and ultimately loss of jobs.
Talk about pure evil.
Here’s a link to the article that describes the market-budget ransacking:
http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/walmart/2009/threatens_suppliers_for_marketing_dollars.php
I left a couple of words out of a sentence above, making it sound that I felt small and regional businesses had it worse than sweatshops. I meant to write: There’s also another group that has been hit particularly hard in this area: workers at small and regional American businesses.
im wanting to put a walmart out of business one day thats my dream. i will make it happen even no matter what. my email is burningwizzard12@aol.com