I Highly Recommend the Movie About Walmart

[JPZenger]

I saw the movie Walmart: The High Cost of Low Prices on DVD. (It is available for rent from netflix.com). It was much better than I expected. It comprehensively covered all the problems with Walmart, beyond the obvious issues. If you watch it, be sure to watch the funny fake Walmart commercials on the extras part of the DVD.

Some of the most interesting parts were interviews with Walmart managers who left the company. For example, one guy said he was a dedicated employee who "bled walmart blue." He was assigned to visit factories in other countries that made products for Walmart to make sure that the factories were following Walmart's requirements for humane treatment of workers. He saw all kinds of problems and rushed back to Bentonville to tell the execs what he learned. He thought they would be as shocked as he was, and would make sure that the conditions improved. Instead, they fired him.

The film also shows how employees in overseas sweatshops were forced to lie to people sent to oversee conditions in the factories.

They also had a segment on the high rate of crime in Walmart parking lots across the country. Even though the company had completed a study that detailed the problems, the company did nothing. After one person was kidnapped and murdered from a Walmart parking lot, it was realized that her kidnapping was caught on Walmart's outdoor cameras. However, there was no one watching the cameras because the only reason they were placed outside the story was to try to find evidence of union activity. In another case, they found that Walmart had 4 security guards and 200 cameras watching their merchandise inside the story, but no guards and no cameras watching the outside.

They also covered anti-union activity, and how Walmart closed the only union store in North America (which was in Canada). If a manager hears the smallest rumor of a union, he is required to call HQ immediately. That afternoon, a team will fly to the store on a corporate jet to take over control of the store to kill any potential of a union. The managers are trained to identify employees in advance who might possibly become union leaders.