What makes Wal-Mart the necessary target in a world where large companies engage in many of these practices on a regular basis? The company is the world's largest retailer, boasting $220 billion in sales. Its more than 3,300 stores and 1.2 million hourly workers makes Wal-Mart the largest retail employer in the country. The company has opened thousands of Wal-Mart "supercenters" for a more convenient, one-stop shopping experience by entering the grocery business. The size and scope of the company's influence and control in the United States determines the basis for acceptable wages throughout the country. Employees of grocery stores nationwide are feeling the heat from Wal-Mart's competition by seeing their stores need to reduce labor costs in order to compete. Wal-Mart's prices are about 14 percent lower than the average grocer's due to its union-busting activities. Moreover, because other companies must compete with Wal-Mart to stay in business, Wal-Mart quite arguably has the power to force higher paid, unionized workers out of the middle class and into poverty wages.
Unions are not the panacea in this or any case. But they are the force through which workers can begin to earn a decent living and be guaranteed overtime pay. It takes more than just organization, however. Local communities must demand higher standards of living set by Wal-Mart and other corporate retailers who have helped forced local businesses under. People must demand that Wal-Mart obey America's labor laws won through resistance, hard work, strikes and boycotts, and sometimes death by our grandparents and beyond. Community citizens can show their support for workers by letting them know we understand what they need, what they deserve. Workers must be willing to fight diligently to organize and to resist Wal-Mart's intimidation tactics, knowing that the law is on the side of the worker. All of this is easier said than done, but then again, everything in life is. It is much easier to sit back and say, "There's nothing I can do, I'm just one person. Besides, I don't work at Wal-Mart, I just shop there." We all have an equal responsibility to look out for our fellow citizen and to help right the wrongs when we know they are apparent. That is what the labor movement has always been about. That is what being a part of the larger American community is about. It is time Wal-Mart learns that lesson as well.
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