PLEDGE NOT TO SHOP WAL-MART

Dear Working Families e-Activist,

Pledge Not to Shop at Wal-Mart for
Back-to-School Supplies


Tell Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott you will not buy back-to-school supplies from Wal-Mart this year because Wal-Mart needs a real education about how to treat workers.

Click on the link below to take the pledge:

(Click here.)

Child labor violations. Sex discrimination. Low wages. Lousy benefits. All from Wal-Mart—a company that rakes in $10 billion a year in profits.


Wal-Mart needs a real education in how a rich company should treat its workers.

And together, we're going to provide it by pledging to buy back-to-school supplies from other stores this year. Please click on the link below to send your pledge to Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott:


There are hundreds of reasons to pledge not to buy back-to-school supplies at Wal-Mart this year. Here are a few:


As the world's largest retailer, today Wal-Mart is setting the standard for America's workplaces—and it's a standard of low wages, poor benefits and worker abuse that working families cannot accept. Together, we have to stop the Wal-Marting of America's jobs.


Wal-Mart has racked up huge fines for child labor law violations. The rich company reportedly makes children younger than 18 work through their meal breaks, work very late and even work during school hours. Several states have found Wal-Mart workers younger than 18 are operating dangerous equipment, like chainsaws, and working in such dangerous areas as around trash compactors. (The New York Times, 1/13/04; The Associated Press, 2/18/05; The Hartford Courant, 6/18/05)


Wal-Mart pays poverty-level wages and fails to provide affordable company health insurance to more than 600,000 employees. That means Wal-Mart workers and their families have a hard time paying the bills and getting the health care they need—and Wal-Mart is at or close to the top of state lists of employers whose workers are forced to rely on taxpayer-funded health insurance programs like Medicaid. (Wal-Mart annual reports; Business Week, 10/2/03; state reports)
Pledge not to buy back-to-school supplies at Wal-Mart this year. Click on the link below:

http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/WalMart_Pledge


Need more reasons to buy school supplies elsewhere this year? Try these:


Wal-Mart has a shameful record of paying women less than men. Wal-Mart pays women workers nearly $5,000 less yearly than men. Some 1.6 million women are eligible to join a class-action lawsuit charging Wal-Mart with discrimination. (Richard Drogin, Ph.D., 2/03; Los Angeles Times, 12/30/04)


By demanding impossibly low prices, Wal-Mart forces its suppliers to produce goods in low-wage countries that don't protect workers. A worker in a Honduran clothing factory whose main customer is Wal-Mart, for example, sews sleeves onto 1,200 shirts a day for only $35 a week. (Los Angeles Times, 11/24/03)


Wal-Mart can afford to do better. Wal-Mart—America's largest private employer—raked in $10 billion in profits last year. CEO Lee Scott landed almost $23 million in total compensation last year alone. Wal-Mart has no excuse for its behavior.
Let's educate Wal-Mart. Click on the link below to send Scott your pledge not to buy back-to-school supplies at Wal-Mart this year:

http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/WalMart_Pledge


Thanks for all you do for working families.


In solidarity,


Working Families e-Activist Network, AFL-CIO
July 21, 2005

P.S. Please forward this e-mail to friends and family members and urge them to join you in pledging not to buy back-to-school supplies at Wal-Mart this year.




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