MSNBC: Wall-Mart Hiring Youth, Not Paying Them
Thu Aug 02, 2007 at 11:43:18 PM PDT
I don't know how well this diary will be recived, it being 1:30 AM and half the site over at Yearly Kos (which I now sorely regret cheaping out and not registering for), but here it goes anyway.
Just when you think your well of outrage is dry, and you're too jaded to have any reaction more than a cynical laugh of scorn to a story of corruption, something comes along that, simply for its sheer brazenness, wipes the cynicism away in a Chicago second. This is one of those stories.
In a stunning act of journalism that forgoes the usual obsession for balance over substance that afflicts most reporting on anything that matters, Newsweek, by way of MSNBC brings us this tale of corporate greed and corruption
Wal-Mart is Mexico’s largest private-sector employer in the nation today, with nearly 150,000 local residents on its payroll. An additional 19,000 youngsters between the ages of 14 and 16 work after school in hundreds of Wal-Mart stores, mostly as grocery baggers, throughout Mexico—and none of them receives a red cent in wages or fringe benefits. The company doesn’t try to conceal this practice: its 62 Superama supermarkets display blue signs with white letters that tell shoppers: OUR VOLUNTEER PACKERS COLLECT NO SALARY, ONLY THE GRATUITY THAT YOU GIVE THEM. SUPERAMA THANKS YOU FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING.
I don't even know what to call this? Slave labor? Indentured servatude? How about simply exploiting a loop hole in the labor law and the desperation of the wretchedly poor to line your own pockets.
The use of unsalaried youths is legal in Mexico because the kids are said to be "volunteering" their services to Wal-Mart and are therefore not subject to the requirements and regulations that would otherwise apply under the country’s labor laws. But some officials south of the U.S. border nonetheless view the practice as regrettable, if not downright exploitative. "These kids should receive a salary," says Labor Undersecretary Patricia Espinosa Torres. "If you ask me, I don’t think these kids should be working, but there are cultural and social circumstances [in Mexico] rooted in poverty and scarcity."
So why is this story about Wall-Mart's exploitation of a loop hole im Mexican labor law of deadly importance to progressive Democrats and readers of this blog?
If you ever questioned why electing economic popualists like Jim Webb and Sharrod brown is so important this is why.
If you ever doubted our enemies are far more pervasive and entrenched then just Bush and his immediate cronies, let this be a wake up call.
If you ever hear someone question the value of regulation or strong unions, this story is what you tell them.
And if you ever doubt for a minute that given the chance, Wall-Mart would exploit the children of this country as cynically as it exploits those of our southern neighbor given the chance to inflate its bottom line, let this put your mind to rest.
And if you haven't stopped buying things from Wall-Mart yet, what the hell is stopping you?
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