Destroying Communities, Abusing Workers: What's (Still) The Matter With Wal-Mart

http://www.alternet.org/story/156188/destroying_communities%2C_abusing_workers%3A_what%27s_%28still%29_the_matter_with_wal-mart/

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This past week marked the 50th anniversary of the opening of the first Wal-Mart store. From Rogers, Arkansas, Wal-Mart has sprawled across the globe, opening some 10,000 stores and becoming the world's second-largest corporation—amassing a fortune for the Walton family, and gutting the American middle class.

With all their money and power, it might seem that Wal-Mart's hold on the country is unshakeable. Yet the retail giant is facing a bit of a perfect storm in terms of its reputation right now. Revelations of horrific abuses at one of its U.S. suppliers and of bribes the company paid in Mexico, as well as communities fighting fiercely against Wal-Marts in their neighborhoods, are pushing the big-box giant into damage control mode.

Workers at C.J.'s Seafood, a Wal-Mart vendor in Louisiana, have made headlines with a strike against the company—and they're taking their complaints straight to the top, asking Wal-Mart officials and board members to meet with them to discuss their conditions. They're guestworkers from Mexico, brought in on H-2B visas to work temporarily in the U.S. preparing crawfish for distribution in Wal-Mart stores.

“Some of us work from 2:00 in the morning til 5:00 or 6:00 in the evening and get no paid overtime,” Marta Uvalle, one of the C.J.'s workers, told AlterNet. “Pressures to work got so bad that the supervisors locked the doors so that we couldn't take breaks. When the doors weren't locked we could only take five minute breaks. We were also threatened by the supervisor that if we took too long of a bathroom break or lunch break he would beat us.”