Reconsidering Wal-Mart
January 2nd, 2007 at 10:03am Geraldine
Wal-Mart occupies a special place in the demonology of the American Left–and with good reason. Its business practices lead to the exploitation of workers both at home and overseas and it has paved its path to success on the destruction of countless American small businesses, most of which were located in small towns like Grinnell. These sins have been extensively catagoried by organizations like Wake Up WalMart.
However, Wal-Mart seems to be taking steps to remediate these issues. Most notably, the front page of the New York Times today has an article that describes how Wal-Mart is using its power as the largest store in the nation to encourage consumers to buy more energy-efficient light bulbs. Compared to a traditional incandescent light bulb, a compact flourescent light bulb “uses 75 percent less electricity, lasts 10 times longer, produces 450 pounds fewer greenhouse gases from power plants and saves consumers $30 over the life of each bulb. But it is eight times as expensive as a traditional bulb, gives off a harsher light and has a peculiar appearance.” This is part of an ongoing effort by Wal-Mart to become a better corporate citizen and address a lot of the criticism it’s received. In fact, its new chief lobbyist is a former official in the Clinton Adminstration.
So do these efforts mean Wal-Mart has changed its stripes? I don’t know but it does seem to have some interesting political ramifications. It puts John Edwards, who has taken an active part in the anti-Wal-Mart campaign as part of his attempt to reposition himself as the progressive candidate in 2008, in an interesting position. He’s now criticizing an environmental do-gooder. While Hillary Clinton, who was a member of Wal-Mart’s board until her husband ran for President, doesn’t have to run so far from her past involvement with the largest company in Arkansas. While no Democrat will embrace Wal-Mart (after all, with enemies like SEIU and the UFCW, you’re not going to have a lot of Democrats who want to be your friends), how they address the issue will be important. It’s the difference between a nuanced position that won’t alienate corporate contributors and an all-out attack that will be a bid for support from organized labor.
The question is whether by word or by deed, Wal-Mart will be successful at changing its stripes so that an attack on its corporate practices is merely doing the bidding of labor unions rather than defending working Americans. The success of Wal-Mart’s efforts may not just determine its corporate image but the image of Presidential candidates as well.
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Entry Filed under: Miscellaneous, Activist Organizations, Environment, President 2008, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton
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5 Comments Add your own
1. Alec | January 2nd, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Wal-Mart needs to provide wages and benefits that allow its workers to live comfortably and with dignity–if that simple demand isn’t “nuanced” enough for corporate contributors, then they should take a hike. This country is ready to talk about the state of our middle class again and democrats shouldn’t shy away for fear of losing campaign dollars. Wal-Mart’s efficiency is enough to provide savings to consumers; business does not need to exploit people to turn a profit. If protecting the middle class in this country means making law friendly to organized labor again, then laws ought to be changed. If it means creating a national health care system that would benefit both business and the middle class, that creating that system is morally imperative. There are countless reforms our country can pursue to improve the lot of the hardest working Americans. But let’s not forget that we wouldn’t have much of a middle class without the help of organized labor, and it is no coincidence that inequality has grown in this country at the same time that union membership has declined. It worries me to see so many democrats turning on labor as if it’s just another “special interest” group, like the pharmaceutical industry lobby. We ought to be a little less worried about doing the “bidding” of labor –despite all the corruption, mismanagement, and overreach that has characterized its worst moments– because unions helped make this country and can help remake it. Instead, we ought to pass laws to make unions more transparent and accountable to their members, and then empower them to fight back against immoral concentrations of wealth and power. And if unions won’t work for people once the playing field is level again, people simply won’t join. If empowering labor cuts out our competitive advantage, we ought to rethink the global arrangements that are failing too many of the world’s poor and our own middle class. Folks who call this reevaluation anti-trade or socialistic are creating a convenient straw-man; they want to pretend that the sharpest corners of the market cannot be smoothed without destroying the whole system and so provide cozy intellectually justifications for ignoring pain.
Maybe it’s just your use of the word “bidding” that is setting me off Geraldine, but if I incorrectly sensed a hostility to organized labor that doesn’t apply to you, it is because too many democrats today only talk about labor unions as an obstacle—as when people blame teacher’s unions for the failures of our school system— rather than as the promise for change that they used to be and could one day reclaim, if only given a little help. Let’s keep the focus on the real bad guys and the grossest exploitations, rather than workers who come together to fight for a fair deal.
2. Alec | January 2nd, 2007 at 12:58 pm
A little more to the point—a change to environmentally friendly light bulbs is the least the company should be doing. The fact that such a small gesture by Wal-Mart is treated as a big deal and a signal that the company is becoming more responsible speaks to the destitution of our standards rather than a significant change in Wal-Mart’s big ol’ heart.
3. Chris | January 2nd, 2007 at 2:50 pm
I can’t help it. I don’t trust big business. They simply don’t have my best interests at heart… I’m happy they’re doing the right thing with the light bulbs, but I agree with Alec that this is the least they can do.
4. Iowa Progress » The&hellip | January 3rd, 2007 at 11:23 pm
[…] Well, not really but in this article (subscription only), Conor Clarke touches a lot of the themes from my post earlier this week. However, he thinks all the three major candidates, Clinton, Edwards and Obama have ties to Wal-Mart that could tarnish them (although, with the exception of Clinton, the ties are pretty weak). […]
5. Alec | January 4th, 2007 at 10:31 am
It is embarrassing to use the word “intellectually” in a sentence with a grammatical error.
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