In preparing to introduce WALMART: THE HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE” during the 2014 Labor Film Series — nearly a decade after the film’s release — I consulted a great many resources in updating the film’s critique. I reviewed recent books and articles that dealt with the several issues the film raises in its indictment of Walmart and discovered that in most instances the company’s behavior has either not improved, despite their claims to the contrary, or has actually worsened.
This page provides links to some of these resources. I hope you find them useful.
Jon Garlock, September 2014
Walmart’s official story
Walmart’s economic Impact on local communities
- http://www.popularresistance.org/new-report-wal-mart-destroys-local-economy/
- http://advocate.nyc.gov/files/Walmart.pdf
- http://www.forbes.com/sites/walterloeb/2014/06/16/why-walmart-suddenly-thinks-smaller-is-better/
Walmart workers’ health care
Walmart and unions
- http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2013/10/07/how-angry-walmart-workers-helped-convince-foreign-investors-to-dump-shares/
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julie-b-gutman/walmart-labor-laws_b_3390994.html
- http://www.workers.org/articles/2014/06/13/walmart-workers-strike-20-cities/
Walmart and wage theft
- http://consumerist.com/2014/05/14/walmart-subcontractor-to-pay-21m-in-warehouse-workers-wage-theft-lawsuit/
- http://www.salon.com/2014/05/17/report_regulators_cant_stop_wage_theft_partner/
- http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/whd/WHD20120801.htm
- http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/01/business/more-workers-are-claiming-wage-theft.html
- http://www.bravenewfilms.org/wagetheft_crime
Walmart’s discrimination against women and black workers
- http://www.propublica.org/article/the-impact-and-echoes-of-the-wal-mart-discrimination
- http://makingchangeatwalmart.org/people-of-color/
- http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/business/21bizcourt.html?pagewanted=all
Subsidies to Walmart
- http://www.americansfortaxfairness.org/files/Walmart-on-Tax-Day-Americans-for-Tax-Fairness-1.pdf
- http://www.walmartsubsidywatch.org/
- http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/pdf/2004/walmart.pdf
- http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml
Walmart’s environmental impact
- http://makingchangeatwalmart.org/factsheet/environment/
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/13/walmart-sustainability_n_4263032.html
- http://www.ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/ILSR-_Report_WalmartClimateChange.pdf
- http://grist.org/business-technology/2011-11-29-can-you-say-sprawl-walmarts-biggest-climate-impact-goes-ignored/
- http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/business/wal-mart-is-fined-82-million-over-mishandling-of-hazardous-wastes.html
Walmart’s exploitation of foreign workers
- http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/chinese-workers-fight-wal-mart-better-wages
- http://prospect.org/article/wal-mart-swallows-chinas-economy-workers-fight-back
- http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2013/06/07/former-bangladesh-sweatshop-worker-to-billionaire-walton-family-use-your-wal-mart-fortune-to-stop-worker-deaths/
- http://www.globallabourrights.org/campaigns/walmart-race-to-the-bottom
Walton family wealth
Citizen resistance to Walmart
Walmart film critique
IN PRINT
Nelson Lichtenstein, Wal-Mart: The Face of Twenty-First Century Capitalism
The New Press (New York, 2006)
Anita Chan (ed.), Walmart in China
LR Press (Ithaca, 2011)
Steven Greenhouse, The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker
Alfred A. Knopf (New York, 2008)