Jamala Rogers
Andy, Andy. What were you thinking? With the history of Wal-Mart as a despicable corporate giant, it doesn’t need an Andy or an Amos to speak on its behalf.
Andy Young was forced to step down recently as the head of Working Families for Wal-Mart, based upon negative stereotypical comments made last week. Andrew Young once boasted that he’s “more a spokesman for the company” than the company itself.
Here is a man who walked in the light of Dr. Martin Luther King to advance the civil and human rights of all people. Young has served as an ambassador and as Atlanta’s mayor. Why in the world would he feel that he has to be the black voice box for Wal-Mart and tarnish a half-way decent legacy?
There is a national boycott of Wal-Mart (not the Sam’s Club division) because of its anti-family policies. The company, founded by Sam Walton, is credited with the “big box’ retail phenomenon and has built its mega profits on unscrupulous and unfair business practices.
Those of us supportive of the boycott sometimes felt invisible as 100 million shoppers pass through Wal-Mart stores in the U.S. and nine foreign markets. It can be a difficult argument to tell people not to shop at a store when their economic blinders lead them to the cheapest prices in town.
Robert Greenwald, movie director and producer, tried to illuminate these arguments in his documentary about Wal-Mart, The High Cost of Low Prices. Greenwald acknowledged the culture of fear created and perpetuated by the company increased his own production costs for the expose´. Greenwald and his crew went through thousands of workers before they found those willing to speak on camera. The same happened when they had to find small companies who had been negatively impacted by the discount store giant. Even the original high-profile donors for the film project bailed out, fearful that Wal-Mart would retaliate and not carry their other projects. Now, that’s some mean-spirited power in operation.
Andy Young’s damaging comments came from responding to the question as to why he thought Wal-Mart should replace the “mom and pop” stores in black neighborhoods. He responded that they would be better than the Jewish, Asian and Arab owners who have been exploitative. His broad-brush approach attempted to obscure the facts about the business which could easily be renamed World-Mart.
Wal-Mart probably has more litigation suits by customers, employees, vendors, city councils, etc. than any other company. Its employees, predominantly women, face minimum wages and hostile working environments. These include policies that make them work overtime without pay and make the company the beneficiary of their life insurance policies. Based upon the average wage of a cashier, an associate would make more money being on welfare. Of course, it wouldn’t even come close to the corporate welfare the company receives for rolling into town with false promises of good jobs. Like a scourge, Wal-Mart’s influence can eliminate the town grocer, retail clothier, pharmacist, restaurant and other businesses in one fell swoop.
Finally, and without the help of Andy Young, the company may start to heed these important issues in a language it understands best – profit loss. For the first time in a decade, Wal-Mart declared a quarterly loss. Chicago’s City Council recently passed a measure that the company must pay a livable wage if it wants to do business there.
Andy and other mouthpieces for Wal-Mart must realize that this is not about hatin’ on a billion dollar company. It is about fairness and justice that a $2 million-a-day pubic relations budget can’t buy.