The poster child of anti-labor business practices has just launched a new mandate for its global suppliers to adhere to stricter ethical standards. The company made the announcement Wednesday in Beijing at its first “sustainability summit.” China is home to some of the world’s most lax labor and environmental regulations and it is for this reason – along with cheap labor costs – why companies like Wal-Mart consider the country the “go-to” source of goods for its stores.
The company plans to launch the new supplier agreement in January which would include contract provisions to allow for outside audits of specific social and environmental criteria, including a ban on child and forced labor and pay below the local minimum wage.
But many are still highly skeptical. For example, on Thursday the AP reported that Wal-Mart closed an auto repair center in Canada where workers had recently voted to organize. The closure comes after an arbitrator in Quebec had imposed a labor contract on the facility in August. The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union called the closure an “attack” on all Wal-Mart workers. This act follows a store closure by the company in Jonquiere, Quebec in 2005 after workers there agreed to unionize. The union has a Canada Supreme Court case pending over whether those workers’ rights were violated.
In the U.S., Wal-Mart has been one of the most aggressive companies in opposing a bill called the Employee Free Choice Act before the U.S. Congress that would allow labor organizations to unionize workplaces without secret ballot elections.
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