DVD: Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices

California Jury Awards $172M to Wal-Mart Employees
And in California, a jury has awarded $172 million dollars to over 110,000 current and former Wal-Mart employees who said they were illegally denied lunch breaks. The jury found that Wal-Mart violated a state law that guarantees an unpaid half-hour lunch break to workers who work at least six hours, and grants them an extra hour's pay if they are denied this break. Wal-Mart says it will appeal the ruling. The case is one of around 40 across the country where Wal-Mart stands accused of workplace violations.

The above is from Democracy Now! Friday. Wal-Mart, the supposed friend of workers, families, communities and just about everyone other than the makers of NC17 and X-rated films. It's a nice image, it's just not true. If you're still caught up in the hype, there's a sure cure for it, Robert Greenwald's Wal*Mart: the high cost of low price. This film is available on DVD and distributed by a number of sites (including BuzzFlash) as well as online at their own site.

Greenwald's done a series of documentaries in recent years and this one may be the most effective. Via interviews with former Wal-Mart workers, the human costs of corporate greed are underscored. It's one thing to see the figures for the amount of Wal-Mart workers on public assistance (which the film provides), it's quite another to see, for instance, people share their own stories of how the low wages (and inflated premiums for coverage) impacted their lives. One woman notes that you have a sick child and you need to put food on the table, on Wal-Mart wages, so what do you do? Give the child an aspirin and try to be your own doctor.

Wal-Mart, which grosses billions each year, can't be bothered with providing adequate wages or health care to its workers. (Despite the speeches of corporate officials which Greenwald nicely juxtaposes with the actual realities.) They can insist upon tax breaks.

The film is 97 minutes. As such it can't include everything. It rightly notes how stores close down when the tax breaks run out and move out of cities. There's another technique they use (something community members have noted in countless e-mails) which is to abandon a store in a small town when their breaks are about to run out and insist upon new breaks for a new store that they will build in the small town. That has been just destructive as their pulling out of towns and cities when the breaks expire.

The film also addresses the reality of where Wal-Mart (which likes to boast of supporting American businesses) gets so much of its stock: from China. The sweat shop issue is raised and personalized as we hear one woman explain the conditions under which she works and, in fact, under which she lives for she's required to pay lodging for a dorm whether she lives there or not.

The effects on small businesses (Wal-Mart tends to flatten out all competitors when it moves into an area) are also noted. One woman notes that downtown in her town used to be packed before Wal-Mart came to town. One year, she counted the cars downtown. They numbered twelve.

Between abatements and breaks, Wal-Mart actually contributes very little to the communities it invades. It does add to the welfare rolls and instructs its workers on how to get assistance.

One moment that most drives home the "values" of Wal-Mart comes when noting a fund for workers who experience a health crisis. Employees donated over five million dollars to the fund. The Waltons (who are enriched by the family business)? They donated less than seven thousand dollars.

In larger areas, people have choices of where to shop and if you live in such an area, you'd be smart to ask yourself what exactly you are purchasing when you buy from Wal-Mart. In smaller areas, they may be the only game in town and you may have no choice. Regardless of where you live, Wal-Mart: the high cost of low price is a film you should consider watching.

The business model that is Wal-Mart is spreading. And why not? If a company as large as Wal-Mart can get away with not paying overtime, with discriminating against women, with failure to provide health care and moving workers to the public assistance rolls, why shouldn't other companies attempt it as well?

This film tackles large issues in a way that will inform you and move you.