Wal-Mart posted earnings of $10 Billion for 2004 – good news for investors, but bad news for the its workers and suppliers, for this result was achieved through discriminatory practices against female employees and using illegal child labor. Germany has always been a tougher market for Wal-Mart’s "race to the bottom" strategy, but the Handelsblatt recently reported that the retailing giant may have "turned the corner" in Germany, and is close to achieving profitability.
And the company continues to be source of negative headlines in Germany. Taz has called Wal-Mart the "the world’s most asocial company". And that label might seemed justified if the practices reported in today’s Spiegel are true. According to the Spiegel report, Wal-Mart forces its employees to work longer hours than they are contractually obligated to, or it threatens to close certain stores. In most cases, the employees give in, since they fear joining the ranks of the five million unemployed in Germany. Evidently the head of Wal-Mart Germany – Kay Hafner – has on occasion personally shown up at stores threatening closure if the employees did not give in to the company’s demands.
"Es
kommt immer wieder vor, dass Unternehmensvertreter den Betriebsräten
mit der Schließung der Filiale drohen, wenn diese nicht alle
Forderungen vor allem bei Arbeitszeiten akzeptieren. Dahinter steckt
Methode", sagt Dalibor.Laut Ver.di soll Deutschland-Geschäftsführer Kay Hafner gelegentlich in
den Filialen die Belegschaften persönlich mit Schließungsszenarien
konfrontieren.
There is little doubt that Wal-Mart would follow through on these threats, as was seen recently in Canada, where Wal-Mart did close a store rather than allow its workers to join a union.
Meanwhile Wal-Mart is the recipient of the Public Eye on Davos award for its unjust labor practices for its treatment of apparel production workers in Africa. The "awards speech" can be read (pdf in English) here.
