Wal*Mart - Again!

I've written a couple of time about Wal*Mart for assorted reasons, see here and here.

By now everyone's read about the raids on Wal*Mart stores last night and the subsequent arrest of over 300 undocumented workers employed by cleaning contractors. See a good, outsider article in today's Globe and Mail (Canada).

What the fallout from this will be is hard to say. If they have proof that management knew about the practice - and there is word that investigators have tapes of phone conversations that prove just that - then there is the potential for this to be a very big deal. One of Wal*Mart's points that they always try to get across is that they are an "all American" company providing low prices on items that low wage workers could not otherwise afford. However, it is well known that Wal*Mart, through large purchases from overseas - especially China - and volume purchases and lots of pressure on domestic suppliers - can keep prices low. Additionally, in the almighty pursuit of keeping costs low, Wal*Mart is notorious for busting unionizing efforts early and ruthlessly, paying it's workers as little as it can get away with and for having absolutely draconian benefits.

None of this is news, but perhaps, a little at a time, as its methods are publicized, perhaps Wal*Mart can be driven back into the little town in Arkansas from which it came.