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Corporate Details

Wal-Mart CEO: H. Lee Scott Jr.
Headquarters: 702 Southwest 8th Street
Bentonville, AK 72716
Telephone: 501-273-4000

Wal-Mart Canada CEO: Mario Pilozzi
Headquarters: 1940 Argentia Rd.
Mississauga, Ontario L5N 1P9
Phone: 905-821-2111
Fax: 905-821-6393

Some Facts on the Beast from Bentonville:

Wal-Mart is the world's largest retailer, and second largest company

In FY 2005 Wal-Mart revenues were $312.4 billion with a record profit of $11.2 billion. It has over 6,500 outlets worldwide.

Wal-Mart is 3 times as big as the second largest retailer, Carrefour.

Wal-Mart sells four times what number-two US retailer Home Depot sells in a year and does more business than Target, Sears, Kmart, J.C. Penney, Safeway, and Kroger combined.

If Wal-Mart were a country, it would have the 21st largest economy, between Saudi Arabia and Taiwan, and representing more in revenues than the entire GDP of Ireland and New Zealand combined.

Wal-Mart employs 1.8 million people worldwide.

Wal-Mart employs over 70,000 people at 278 stores in Canada.

Since coming to Canada in 1994, Wal-Mart has opened the equivalent of a new store every 16 days.

Just under 1 million Canadians shop at Wal-Mart everyday.

Because Wal-Mart Canada is a privately owned subsidiary of Wal-Mart, Inc., it refuses to release its annual sales figures. Independent analyses, though, place Wal-Mart as Canada's largest big-box retailer.

In 2006, Wal-Mart entered the Canadian grocery business, opening three "Your Fresh Markets" in the Toronto area; it already controls 50 percent of the grocery sales in Mexico and is the largest grocery retailer in the United States.

In 2005, Wal-Mart closed its Jonquiere, QC, outlet after it unionized, claiming it was no longer profitable. The Quebec Labour Relations Board found Wal-Mart guilty of closing the store to avoid dealing with the union.

Wal-Mart provides its managers with a handbook entitled "A Toolkit to Remain Union Free."

Wal-Mart states 70% of its workers are full-time, but "full time," according to some Wal-Mart Canada workers, is 28 hours a week, meaning they gross less than $15,000 a year. Wal-Mart refuses to reveal its national hourly wage, but union representatives place it at around 9$ an hour.

Wal-Mart, by pushing out competition, eliminates three jobs for every two jobs it creates.

The Waltons, who control the Wal-Mart empire, are the richest family in the world, worth a combined $100 billion. In 2001, S. Robson Walton was ranked by London's "Rich List" as the wealthiest human on the planet, worth more than $65 billion (£45.3 billion) in personal wealth and topping Bill Gates.

Wal-Mart has been charged with human and labour rights violations in over 25 countries.

Wal-Mart has faced charges of 1,400 child labor violations in Maine alone.

Wal-mart is currently being sued by 1.5 million of its female employees over allegations of discriminations, the largest class action lawsuit ever filed. According to the suit, "although more than 2/3 of its hourly employees are female, they hold only 1/3 of store management jobs, and less that 15% of store manager positions. In addition, women in every major job category at Wal-Mart have been paid less than men with the same seniority, in every year since 1997 even though the female employees on average have higher performance ratings and less turnover than men."

Honduran workers making clothing for Wal-Mart, as well as other American companies, can work at a rate of making two shirts a minute, one sleeve every 15 seconds. That's 1,200 garments a day. They are paid on average $0.70/hour.

Although Wal-Mart claims it does not use sweatshops, a February 2004 report from the National Labor Committee and China Labor Watch on working conditions at a factory contracted by Wal-Mart in Chang Ping Township in Guangdong province revealed that:

-Workers were paid less than the legal minimum and worked longer hours than legally allowed
-Workers were trained to answer prepared questions and paid them a bonus for remembering them correctly during visits by Wal-Mart inspectors
-Emergency fire exits and medical boxes were normally locked, but the Chinese managers unlocked them ahead of inspections
-Time cards had been doctored.

What's up with Wal-Mart?

There are three essential problems with how Wal-Mart operates:

Bad for human rights abroad-
Wal-Mart perpetuates the use of sweatshop and child labour abroad by constantly demanding unrealistically low prices from its suppliers, leading to wage cuts.

Bad for workers domestically-
While Wal-Mart is the largest employer in North America, the low wages that it pays means low levels of total income. The fact that the largest class action lawsuit in US history is being launched by 1.6 million former and current Wal-Mart employees is very telling.

Bad for communities across Canada-
Aggressive competitiveness and predatory pricing lead to the closure of small businesses. The placement of Wal-Marts on the outskirts of towns pulls people out of the downtown; the result is the formation of a suburb of a city that does not exist. Local businesses are also more likely to re-invest locally, whereas Wal-Mart does not. Wal-Mart is typical of multi-national companies that funnel local capital out of the towns where they operate and back to corporate headquarters. This is the same process we see happening internationally to developing countries.

Some Wal-Mart Fallacies

Wal-Mart creates jobs. Aren't any jobs better than no jobs?
It isn't about the number of jobs, but more importantly he total income they provide. Wal-Mart employees are often minimum wage and part-time, which does not result in increased total income for the community. Wal-Mart, although providing more jobs, often eats up local jobs that provided greater income.

Wal-Mart is giving people in the Third World much-needed jobs
More often than not, these jobs barely meet basic human needs. They result in an unstable situation in communities where local income is ruled more by the whims of the global market than local needs.

Some people can't afford to shop anywhere else
It's true people need places to shop where the prices are affordable. At the same time, in the long run, the result is less money being put into a community so Wal-Mart's don't really provide a solution at all.

Wal-Mart is a good small-town neighbour
According to Michael Blumel, past president of the Nanaimo Chamber of Commerce, 580 Nanaimo businesses closed from March 1998 to March 1999. The following year, 300 shut down. "It's hard to ascertain who did what to whom," says Blumel, who is also a retail consultant and economic-development specialist for small to midsize communities. Wal-Mart's precise role in the demise of Nanaimo's downtown is difficult to pinpoint because an economic downturn and demographic factors such as an increase in young families seeking bargains have also played a major role in the exodus to big-box shopping, Blumel says. "If I estimate, I would say that 20 percent of our small businesses have gone out of business because of Wal-Mart," he says, adding that Nanaimo's Wal-Mart takes away approximately $4 million to $6 million a year from other operators, a number that could easily increase when Wal-Mart moves to a more suitable location, likely in the Woodgrove Mall." (from UFCW1518) One half of Wal-Mart's 720,000 US employees qualify for federal assistance under the American food stamp program." (from Homestead.com)

Wal-Mart respects the law
Wal-Mart is currently being sued for its treatment of women in what is the largest civil rights class action suit in history, representing 1.6 million former and current Wal-Mart workers. This suit charges that Wal-Mart denies women fair promotions and equal pay. Two-thirds of Wal-Mart employees are women who Wal-Mart pays less than men, refuses opportunities for promotion, and demeans because of their gender.