{"id":3184,"date":"2011-11-28T11:20:36","date_gmt":"2011-11-28T11:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/with_wal_mart_s_move_to_dc_an_opportunity_to_change_its_poor_labor_image\/"},"modified":"2021-06-30T10:04:29","modified_gmt":"2021-06-30T10:04:29","slug":"with_wal_mart_s_move_to_dc_an_opportunity_to_change_its_poor_labor_image","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/with-wal-mart-s-move-to-dc-an-opportunity-to-change-its-poor-labor-image\/","title":{"rendered":"With Wal-Mart\u2019s move to DC, an opportunity to change its poor labor image &#8211; National Consumers League"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- content_before_flip_start --><a href=\"https:\/\/savvyconsumer.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/11\/greenberg.jpg\"><\/a>By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director<\/p>\n<p>DC officials are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/local\/dc-politics\/wal-mart-plans-to-open-six-stores-in-the-district\/2011\/11\/15\/gIQAcUjfPN_story.html?tid=pm_local_pop\">welcoming six Wal-Mart stores into the city<\/a>. That would be an exciting development except that the biggest retailer in the world has a poor reputation \u2013 for <a href=\"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/worker-rights\/148-wage-theft\/523-wage-theft-qaa\">wage theft<\/a> (forcing employees to work off the clock), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2011-06-20\/wal-mart-wins-u-s-supreme-court-gender-discrimination-class-action-case\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">failing to promote women<\/a>, keeping wages so low that employees can\u2019t afford health insurance, busting efforts to unionize, signing their employees up for food stamps because they pay such bad wages, and squeezing their suppliers to reduce prices so severely they\u2019ve driven some of them out of business. And yet, it\u2019s hard for DC to turn its nose up at an offer to provide fresh grocery options in neighborhoods that currently have only fast food and convenience shops. It\u2019s regrettable that the city\u2019s two largest and longstanding unionized grocery chains \u2013 Giant and Safeway \u2013 haven\u2019t moved into these neighborhoods.<\/p>\n<p>So now we have Wal-Mart saying it will provide 1,800 jobs, offer fresh produce, and pay competitively; not surprisingly, DC locals are happy to have them. If this deal moves forward, the one thing DC Mayor Vincent Gray should do, given Wal-Mart\u2019s sorry reputation, is to require as a condition of providing permits to open the stores, a community benefits agreement that would provide the city with important concessions. Wal-Mart has curried favor by making donations to charitable organizations, including $3 million to workforce development in DC, and over half a million for summer youth employment. That\u2019s not enough. The city should get really creative, and require that the chain remain neutral to the UFCW\u2019s organizing efforts, require payment of a livable wage for all workers, have a plan to promote women and minorities in the management chain, and establish training programs for the city\u2019s youth.<\/p>\n<p>Wal-Mart doesn\u2019t have to live with a bad image among labor forever. The company will be coming to DC in force and has a great opportunity to start to make over that image.<\/p>\n<p><!-- content_before_flip_end --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director DC officials are welcoming six Wal-Mart stores into the city. That would be an exciting development except that the biggest retailer in the world [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3184"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3184"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20326,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3184\/revisions\/20326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}