Boycott Walmart

The city of San Diego recently passed a measure that would ban certain giant superstores, particularly taking aim at Wal-Mart Supercenters. San Diego's mayor vows to veto the ban, but the city council can and will override his veto with five votes.

There are numerous reasons that this initiative should be supported. They milk every city for enormous amounts of community dollars - the city of Chicago balked when Wal-Mart asked them for $18 million in subsidies. Often, smaller communities will shell out the money in hopes of regaining it in sales tax dollars. More often, Wal-Mart, after receiving millions of dollars from that city, will build a 180,000 square feet warehouse only to abandon it (and the city) a few months later. By then, they've already caused plenty of damage and the city is left with a giant warehouse that the public has paid for that no other company will lease. They drive all the local mom & pop shops out of business, they don't pay their workers a fair wage, AND they don't provide adequate and affordable healthcare to their employees.

A memo written by Susan Chambers, Wal-Mart Executive Vice President for Benefits, for the Wal-Mart Board of Directors, said: "We also have a significant number of Associates and their children who receive health insurance through public-assistance programs. Five percent of our Associates are on Medicaid compared to an average for national employers of 4 percent. Twenty-seven percent of Associates' children are on such programs, compared to a national average of 22 percent (Exhibit 5). In total, 46 percent of Associates' children are either on Medicaid or are uninsured." Chambers wrote, "Wal-Mart's critics can easily exploit some aspects of our benefits offering to make their case; in other words, our critics are correct in some of their observations. Specifically, our coverage is expensive for low-income families, and Wal-Mart has a significant percentage of associates and their children on public assistance.'' [Susan Chambers Memo to the Wal-Mart Board of Directors; New York Times, 10/26/05]

Even if you don't care much about Wal-Mart employees and fair labor treatment, you should care how your this corporation affects your wallet. Wal-Marts affect how your tax money is spent and can even raise your taxes in many cases. They substitute public assistance programs in place of decent healthcare - which means we pay what they SHOULD be paying.

There are a billion other reasons to stop patronizing Wal-Mart. You can go here to get a quick overview of how evil Wal-Mart really is. Or please watch the documentary, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, now available on DVD.