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Striking Walmart Employees, Warehouse Worker, Artists and Experts Join Kalpona Akter in Exposing Walmart’s Negative Impact on Global Supply Chain Workers

CONTACT: Elizabeth Brennan at 213-999-2164 or Elizabeth.Brennan@changetowin.org
Zoe Bridges-Curry, 904-476-8681, zoe@berlinrosen.com
Lynsey Kryzwick: 646-200-5311 lynsey@berlinrosen.com

Group Takes their Message Directly to Executives at Corporate Headquarters with Art Commemorating the Deaths of 1,200 Bangladeshi Garment Workers

BENTONVILLE, Ark. – Before taking their message to executives and Walmart’s corporate headquarters, leaders in the call on Walmart to change course detailed serious problems in Walmart’s global supply chain and the megaretailer’s systematic disregard of workers’ safety and rights in a call with national reporters Wednesday.

“Walmart’s pattern is to first deny there is a problem that affects workers and then, when executives can no longer deny the issue, they promise changes that sound good on the surface, but in substance do little, if anything, to address the problems.  That’s true for scheduling problems that face associates, extreme temperatures and wage theft facing warehouse workers, safety concerns affecting garment factory and supply chain workers, and for retaliation against warehouse workers and stores workers. Even in addressing the alleged bribery scandal in Mexico, Walmart chooses to throw millions of dollars at the problem, rather than reforming its business practices,” said Dan Schlademan, director of Making Change at Walmart.

Kalpona Akter, an internationally recognized sweatshop critic and former child garment worker, said that while increased attention on garment factories in Bangladesh including a flood of visits by American and European elected officials and representatives from the world’s largest retailers gives her promise,  Walmart’s refusal to participate could doom the chances for success.

“What happened at Rana Plaza and Tazreen should never have happened, and we can never let it happen again,” said Akter, the executive director of the Bangladeshi Center for Worker Solidarity. “But if the world’s largest retailer refuses to address the state of workers’ rights and working conditions seriously, things will not change.”

Akter arrived in the United States Monday after hundreds of supporters raised funds to bring her to Walmart’s annual shareholder meeting to share her concerns with executives and shareholders.  Tuesday shareholder Jim McRitchie announced that Akter would be taking his place in speaking inside the meeting about proxy proposal no. 5, which would allow shareholders to call a meeting on critical issues affecting the company.

Following the teleconference, nationally recognized visual artists from San Francisco and Washington, D.C. assembled an oversized, human-powered, art installation with more than 1,200 pieces of fabric symbolizing the deaths of workers in Bangladesh.

Striking Walmart employee Barbara Collins, who has been requesting full time hours for years, and Javier Rodriguez, a warehouse worker who was fired in retaliation for speaking out about dangerous working conditions, are two of the 200 workers and their families who arrived in Arkansas Sunday after the week-long “Ride for Respect,” which stopped in nearly 30 cities. Walmart workers are on strike to protest Walmart’s retaliation against them for speaking out for the company to do better.

“Walmart first said there were no problems in the warehouses that move its merchandise, but when workers documented the problems and the state of California issued fines, the company was forced to admit workers were right,” Rodriguez said. “Walmart said it would start monitoring warehouses, but we have seen no evidence this is true. In fact, I was fired in March after speaking up about safety in the warehouse where I worked.”

Collins, who is on strike from her job at the Placerville, Calif. Walmart, said that worldwide Walmart has shown an unwillingness – and has even attempted to silence those who speak out – to listen to the people who make the company so profitable. She discussed an announcement on scheduling that Walmart made in April on the same day that hundreds of workers and supporters called on store managers  to implement fair scheduling policies at locations nationwide.  Still, even as the company spends millions of dollars on an ad campaign about jobs at the company and OUR Walmart members try to ensure newly proposed policies are implemented quickly and effectively, a new survey shows Walmart employees are largely unhappy with their employer, many long-time employees are not getting the hours they need.

“How many more empty promises can they make?” said Collins, a mother who relies on public assistance to support her two children. “Walmart is a large company, the largest in the world, but that doesn’t make them above the law nor doesn’t mean they can ignore the difference between right and wrong.  Families like mine are struggling all across the country because Walmart chooses to create part-time jobs that don’t let us earn enough, and keep us from getting work elsewhere.”

“Last year Walmart enjoyed $16.9 billion in profits and paid $5.4 billion in dividends, of which nearly halfwent just to the Walton family,” said Dr. Sylvia Allegretto, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley. “Yet many of Walmart’s workers don’t earn enough to make ends meet; many must rely on taxpayer-funded programs such as food stamps. As the single largest employer of U.S. workers, Walmart could easily take the high road with respect to its workforce.”

“Wal-Mart is also the single largest employer worldwide—and as such, they along with other multi-national corporations hold the power to implement real change to address safety and work related issues concerning workers around the globe,” Allegretto said.

Forty-one major, international brands have signed onto the Accord on Bangladesh Fire and Building in an effort to end senseless deaths and improve working conditions after 1,200 workers were killed in the Rana Plaza factory collapse and 112 workers were killed in the Tazreen Fashions factory fire. Walmart has refused to sign and instead announced its own non-binding initiative.

“Walmart has been pledging to take steps to protect the rights of workers in its factories in Bangladesh for more than a decade, but workers keep dying,” said Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, one organization that helped develop the fire safety accord.

“There’s no reason to think that the company’s latest promises will have any more substance than their previous promises,” Nova said.

 

For photos and video of strikers and their community supporters, visit http://changewalmart.tumblr.com. Or follow the conversation and see photos on Twitter at #Walmartstrikers.

UFCW and OUR Walmart have the purpose of helping Walmart employees as individuals or groups in their dealings with Walmart over labor rights and standards and their efforts to have Walmart publicly commit to adhering to labor rights and standards. UFCW and OUR Walmart have no intent to have Walmart recognize or bargain with UFCW or OUR Walmart as the representative of Walmart employees.

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Statement of Jim McRitchie, Wal-Mart Shareholder, on Announcement that Bangladeshi Sweatshop Critic Kalpona Akter Will Present at Wal-Mart’s Annual Shareholder’s Meeting

Jim McRitchie has proposed a key measure to enhance Wal-Mart accountability to shareholders. Mr. McRitchie’s Proposal No. 5 would allow Wal-Mart shareholders who own 10% of shares to call for a special meeting of shareholders on key issues of corporate governance.

Special meetings allow shareowners to vote on important matters that can arise between annual meetings. Shareowner input on the timing of shareowner meetings is especially important when events unfold quickly and issues may become moot by the next annual meeting. This proposal topic won more than 60% support at CVS, Sprint and Safeway.

Wal-Mart’s annual shareholder meeting will be live web-cast Friday, June 7 at 7:00 a.m. CT.

“I am pleased to announce that Kalpona Akter will present my Proposal No. 5 Friday at Wal-Mart’s annual shareholder meeting in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Proposal No. 5 is important to democracy for Wal-Mart shareholders. Ms. Akter represents Bangladeshi garment workers and her journey to Arkansas is particularly important because she will speak to issues Wal-Mart shareholders should have the right to discuss.”

Kalpona Akter, a former garment worker from Bangladesh, is the executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity. She has been an outspoken critic of sweatshop conditions in Bangladesh where Wal-Mart is the second largest producer.

News Comes As Walmart Announces Another False Solution to Protect Workers in Bangladeshi Factories

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, May 31, 2013
CONTACT: Lynsey Kryzwick, 646-200-5311, lynsey@berlinrosen.com
Elizabeth Brennan at 213-999-2164, Elizabeth.Brennan@changetowin.org
Zoe Bridges-Curry, 904-476-8681, zoe@berlinrosen.com

Kalpona Akter, a former garment worker from Bangladesh, will join striking Walmart workers and warehouse workers at the company’s annual meeting Friday, June 7 in Bentonville, Arkansas, to call for a change of course by top management.

Akter, who is the executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, is returning to U.S. for the second time this year after supporters raised thousands of dollars online to bring her to Bentonville for the shareholdermeeting. In April Akter toured the U.S. with Sumi Abedin, a survivor of theTazreen Fashions factory fire that killed 112 people in November.

“Walmart and the other large retailers hold the key to ending senseless deaths in garment factories throughout the world,” Akter said. “Walmart must ensure good pay and safe working conditions for all workers in its supply chain from the factories to the warehouses to the stores.”

Akter began working in the Bangladesh garment industry at the age of 12, making just $3 a month. As a young woman working at a factory that made clothing for a big U.S. retailer, she helped lead a strike when the company refused to pay workers for all the hours they had worked. In November she provided photos to The New York Times demonstrating that Tazreen produced clothing for sale by Walmart despite the mega-retailer’s earlier denial that it had any connection to the factory.

At the end of her U.S. tour with Ms. Abedin, news broke of the Rana Plaza factory collapse. More than 1,100 garment workers lost their lives there.

“After Rana Plaza the conversation has changed and there is more attention than ever before on horrible labor conditions inside the factories that produce clothing for major global brands like Walmart,” Akter said. “Unfortunately as other retailers start to take responsibility, Walmart and the Gap continue to turn a blind eye.”

Akter’s Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity is one of the labor or non-governmental organizations in Bangladesh, Europe and the United States that developed the Accord on Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety. More than 40 major brands, including Marks & Spencer, Carrefour, H&M, Benetton, Abercrombie & Fitch, and PVH (parent to Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger) have signed this agreement, Walmart has refused. The company also has refused to contribute to a compensation fund for factory fire victims.

Akter will meet hundreds of striking Walmart workers, members of the OrganizationUnited for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart), at the culmination of their week-long “Ride for Respect,” a caravan that has taken workers through nearly 30 cities, in Bentonville for the annual Walmart shareholder meeting. Workers are on strike to protest Walmart’s retaliation against them for speaking out for the company to do better.

Thanks to poverty wages and poor working conditions throughout its stores and supply chain, Walmart hauls in more than $16 billion in annual profits, and CEO Mike Duke makes 1,000 times more than the average Walmart employee. Four Walton heirs are among the nine richest Americans listed by Forbes. Together, the Waltons have more wealth than 42% of the American public combined.

A growing number of workers and supporters are calling on the company to end retaliation against employees and to publicly commit to providing full-timework with a minimum salary of $25,000 a year so workers don’t have to rely on taxpayer-funded programs to support their families.

For photos and video of strikers and their community supporters, visit http://changewalmart.tumblr.com/ or follow the conversation on Twitter at #walmartstrikers

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UFCW and OUR Walmart have the purpose of helping Wal-Mart employees as individuals or groups in their dealings with Wal-Mart over labor rights and standards and their efforts to have Wal-Mart publically commit to adhering to labor rights and standards. UFCW and OUR Walmart have no intent to have Walmart recognize or bargain with UFCW or OUR Walmart as the representative of Walmart employees.