The True Costs of Low Prices
Dinovella, Elizabeth
Books The True Costs of Low Prices Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers' Rights at Wal-Mart By Liza Featherstone Basic Books. 282 pages. $25.00 By Elizabeth DiNovella Betty...
...She joined the company with hopes of moving up through the ranks...
...The job went twice to teenage boys...
...Ultimately, Featherstone argues, dramatic change may not come until consumers start seeing themselves as citizens, too...
...She eventually became the lead plaintiff in the largest civil rights class action lawsuit in American history, Dukes vs...
...But she contended that mistakes were made by a "couple knuckle-heads...
...These women felt betrayed when they realized they were denied the prospect of advancement...
...In his autobiography, Wal-Mart's founder Sam Walton admitted that women were put at a disadvantage in the company...
...The only place where Wal-Mart has agreed to unions is in China, though there they will be state run...
...Factory workers who made $50,000 a year (including overtime) couldn't compete with Chinese workers...
...Gunter says she could not be a manager because she lacked the skills, but her supervisors never gave her the opportunity...
...Dee Gunter started out as a cashier in the photo lab...
...Wal-Mart wants to keep its stores union-free, and has been successful in that regard...
...Americans are supporting Wal-Mart through tax breaks, subsidies, and state-funded health care...
...Featherstone proposes unionization as a way to improve the working conditions of female employees...
...Things do not improve up the corporate ladder...
...The story of Wal-Mart exemplifies some of the very best qualities in our country-hard work, the spirit of enterprise, fair dealing, and integrity...
...In 1992, President George H. W. Bush gave Sam Walton the Presidential Medal of Freedom...
...also included a stint as a vet's assistant, was rejected three times for the pet department job because, she was told, she didn't have enough experience," writes Featherstone...
...In Georgia, 10,000 kids of Wal-Mart employees are in the state's health program, costing almost $10 million a year...
...Featherstone writes that the company's culture played a pivotal role in the alleged sex discrimination...
...But this isn't the Stone Ages, and this isn't the times of Scarlett O'Hara," she says...
...But it's also fiscally irresponsible...
...Selling Women Short ends with chapters on efforts to reform the "Bentonville behemoth...
...25.00 By Elizabeth DiNovella Betty Dukes began working for Wal-Mart as a cashier ten years ago...
...Her requests for training were continually denied," Feath-erstone writes...
...In fact, the higher women rise, the greater the disparity with male counterparts, writes Feath-erstone...
...It was Walton's wife and daughter who pushed him to put a woman on the board...
...She wanted to head the pet department...
...Workers in more than thirty states are suing the company for making them work "off the clock...
...Make another copy...
...Recently, PBS's award-winning newsmagazine, Frontline, did a program entitled "Is Wal-Mart Good for America...
...Fewer would qualify for Food Stamps...
...The Walton family is as rich as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett combined," the article states...
...Policies on promotion varied by store, though this is changing, partly due to the lawsuit...
...Nearly 70 percent of the company's workforce are women, but only one-third of salaried managers are...
...The National Labor Relations Board has issued sixty complaints against Wal-Mart for the illegal firing of pro-union workers, unlawful surveillance, and intimidation in the last ten years, but the fines have been insignificant...
...In the early 1990s, top executives and board members received a series of letters signed by more than 100 managers describing a pattern of discrimination against women in promotion and a pattern of retaliation against women who complained...
...Melissa Howard, a store manager in Indiana, testified that she had to attend business meetings at Hooters restaurants...
...Odle recalls, 'I was like, What...
...Isn't that the lamest excuse ever?'" Featherstone includes lots of statistical evidence about sex discrimination at Wal-Mart, but it gets overwhelming at times...
...Internal documents paint a different picture...
...Elizabeth DiNovella is Culture Editor of The Progressive...
...It was named most admired company by Forbes magazine in 2003...
...She sees the need to organize Wal-Mart as an urgent task, as grocery stores across the country are mimicking Wal-Mart's low wages and skimpy benefit packages...
...The program traces Wal-Mart's steps from regional retailer to international giant...
...Kathleen MacDonald works in the candy department of a store in Aiken, South Carolina...
...In 1986, Hillary Rodham Clinton, then-first lady of Arkansas and a lawyer with a firm that often represented Wal-Mart, joined the board...
...His vision is about what's fundamentally good and right about this country...
...Male cashiers make, on average, more money than women do...
...In 1992, female employees at corporate headquarters formed a committee called the Women in Leadership Group...
...If Wal-Mart lived up to its own rhetoric and paid women fairly, it would positively affect millions of people...
...According to a study by the Institute for Labor and Employment at the University of California-Berkeley, California taxpayers subsidized more than $20 million worth of health care costs for Wal-Mart...
...Featherstone argues that the sex discrimination lawsuit is the direct result of employees who believe in equal opportunity...
...At that time, only 3 percent of store managers were women...
...Stephanie Odle was an original member of the class action suit...
...One of the touted aspects of Wal-Mart company culture is its commitment to hiring from within...
...Department of Labor statistics back her up: Not only do unionized women make more money in general, they earn wages closer to those of fellow male employees...
...Job openings were not posted and often went to men who were groomed for the positions...
...Wal-Mart makes a lot of noise about values...
...Featherstone cites a Wal-Mart spokeswoman who said she did not dispute the plaintiff's individual stories...
...One union organizer says, "We can't even get our members not to shop at Wal-Mart...
...And her rhetorical flourishes can be a bit over the top...
...Wal-Mart should live up to the American values that generations of people have fought for: a day's work for a day's pay, equality, and fair play...
...The lowest paid workers are cashiers, and 92.5 percent of them are women," writes Featherstone...
...He told Wal-Mart employees at a distribution center in Bentonville in May 2004, "This is one of our nation's greatest companies...
...Featherstone documents the ongoing attempts by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union to organize the company, and notes the shortcomings of the unionization bid...
...Public welfare is very clearly part of the retailer's cost-cutting strategy," she writes...
...Even in 1985 the company's top forty-two officers included no women, and the board of directors was similarly female-free," writes Featherstone...
...Conceivably, more women could participate in the Wal-Mart health insurance program if they received higher wages...
...This isn't about Sam's wealth," the elder Bush said...
...In 2004, the company hosted its board of directors meeting in Shenzhen...
...Company spokespeople deny this is the case...
...Strong union drives are under way in Jonquiere, Quebec, and Loveland, Texas...
...Gunter, whose r?sum...
...The Sisters of Charity sought resolutions demanding regular reports on the issue...
...In the early 1990s, Wal-Mart's stock prices dropped...
...She alleges she was demoted for complaining about discrimination...
...Unequal pay is morally wrong...
...Amid all the talk about how rich Teresa Heinz Kerry is, consider that the Walton family is 117 times wealthier...
...She also said she had to go to strip clubs during drives to faraway meetings...
...Male regional vice presidents make 33 percent more than women in the same positions, she reports...
...By the late 1990s, Wal-Mart was dependent upon Asian imports...
...They issued a report in 1996 that said "stereotypes limit opportunities offered to women" at the company...
...A November 2004 article in China Business Weekly states that more than 70 percent of commodities sold by Wal-Mart are made in China...
...One woman Featherstone interviewed was a former manager and she "was deeply ashamed that many of the women working under her were forced to collect Food Stamps and other forms of welfare...
...In a flattering profile, Forbes mentions that the Waltons are the richest family in the U.S...
...In Wisconsin, Wal-Mart made front page news because the state provides health insurance for 3,765 people who are Wal-Mart employees or the spouses and children of Wal-Mart employees...
...Vice President Dick Cheney agrees...
...She catalogs other creative actions like "shop ins" and boycotts, even though these haven't had much of an effect...
...Feather-stone finds hope in the growing support for shareholder resolutions that demand equality within the company...
...Frontline went into the Chinese factories and filmed the workers doing the work that used to be done in factories across the U.S...
...When she asked her manager why there were such differences in pay between men and women, she says he told her, "God made Adam first, so women will always be second to men...
...Filed on behalf of 1.6 million current and past women workers, the case claims widespread sex discrimination at the world's largest retailer...
...Featherstone is at her best when she describes the stories of women who work at Wal-Mart...
...On the store manager level, men earn an average of $105,628 while women make $89,280...
...But some values transcend geography...
...Wal-Mart now has forty stores in China...
...Wal-Mart is the darling of Wall Street...
...But Dukes, who is also an assistant minister at her Baptist church, never got the chance...
...But internal documents bearing the company logo inform employees about how to apply to "Social Service Agencies...
...Featherstone shows that the personnel policies of Wal-Mart were inconsistent at best, creating an ideal place for favoritism and discrimination...
...Featherstone writes: "When she told her supervisor she wanted to take the test, too, he told her he only had three copies...
...Wal-Mart faces other legal challenges besides allegations of sex discrimination...
...For example, she calls the activities at the annual meetings "Nurembergian rites...
...Statistics on Wal-Mart employees are incriminating, too...
...And at shareholder meetings throughout the 1990s, a group of nuns, working with the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, called attention to allegations of sex and racial discrimination...
...The company began importing goods from overseas, especially China...
...Gunter is a conservative Republican and fundamentalist Christian and declares that she is "no women's libber...
...An internal Wal-Mart audit found extensive potential violations of child labor laws...
...And lawsuits based on racial discrimination have also been filed by workers, some of whom are plaintiffs in Dukes vs...
...Wal-Mart Stores, Inc...
...The annual taxpayer cost of paying for health care coverage for Wal-Mart employees and their families in Wisconsin is $4.75 million...
...The letters demanded that the company's leaders take action...
...State governments are finally looking at how many Wal-Mart employees are participating in government-funded health care programs for low income families...
...Wal-Mart Stores, Inc...
...In Featherstone's defense, this type of data is the backbone of the case...
...City people don't get Wal-Mart...
...But the details about lawyers involved may bore the readers...
...Journalist Liza Featherstone recounts the stories of some of these employees in Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers' Rights at Wal-Mart...
...At least 85 percent of Wal-Mart products are made overseas, most of those in China, under sweatshop conditions, by workers, mostly women, who lack the right to organize," Featherstone writes...
...But the Chinese workers make about fifty cents an hour...
...Wal-Mart is for country people," said Vice Chairman Tom Coughlin at the 2003 annual meeting...
...She requested a skills assessment test, which provides vital data for future promotion, an exam that three male colleagues were taking...
...Surely the money is there, as profits remain enormous...
Vol. 69 • January 2005 • No. 1
