Being a Global Citizen: A TNC: Wal-Mart.

Trade is a major globalizing force that effects us each and everyday. Through international trade, people now have access to products that they cannot buy or make in their homeland. For example, Canada is rich in oil, and exports it to many different countries that need oil. Meanwhile, Canada imports products like oranges, and bananas from other countries like the USA. Through the exchange of goods, people are exposed to other cultures, foods, and lifestyles.

For example, I like to drink an occiasonal coffee, but coffee beans do not grow commercially here in Canada. If it weren't for trade with countries that grow coffee beans, I wouldn't know what coffee is. Trade definatly has benefits, but there are some down sides to international trade too. You've probably heard the term, 'transnational corporation' before. My social textbook defines it as, "a company that is based in one country while developing and manufacturing its products, or delivering its goods and services, in more than one country". A transnational corporation (TNC), like Wal-Mart, can have a really big influence on the world economy.

Wal-Mart was #1 on the 'Top 25 Transnational Corporations' list in 2005. Judged by revenue, Wal-Mart raked in a cool $287,989 million. With the ability to move their operations around the globe, Transnational Corporations (TNCs) have alot of influence with governments, because governments must compete to attract business. TNCs often have big factories, and the movement of a factory to a different country can be devastating for communities (like a town in Mexico) that have the majority of their people making a living from the factory.

To keep the business of TNCs, some governments have lowered taxes, and adopted policies that transnationals will find helpful. Unfortunatly, this often leaves the locals with jobs, but a very low salary and a long work week. In a 58-page report, National Labor Committee director Charles Kernaghan, documented the horrific conditions under which Wal-Mart’s Christmas ornaments are made in China. Here are a few points from his report (released in 2007) that I found shocking:

> Five hundred to 600 16-year-old high school students were employed last summer, along with some children as young as 12 years of age, toiling 10 to 12 to 15 hours a day, seven days a week, and going for months on end without receiving a single day off. Wal-Mart Christmas ornament workers are at the factory a minimum of 84 hours a week, while at least half the workers are at the factory 105 hours a week.

> Anyone daring to take a Sunday off will be docked 2 ½ days’ wages.
Some workers earned as little as 26 cents an hour, just half China’s legal minimum wage of 55 cents an hour, which itself is not close to a subsistence level wage. Pay sheets smuggled out of the factory show workers earning a median wage of 49 cents an hour, including overtime, and $42.29 for 110 hours of work, while they should have earned $74.77. Workers were cheated of one-third of the wages legally due them. Factory pay sheets showed just eight percent of the workers earning the legal minimum wage, while 92 percent fell below that.

> Workers in the Spray Paint department who develop skin rashes and sores while handling potentially dangerous chemicals have no choice but to leave the factory, as management does not pay medical bills or sick days. For quitting on short notice, workers are docked one month’s pay.

> By July, the high school students were so exhausted from the grueling 12 to 14-hour shifts, seven days a week that they went on strike and brought a legal suit against the factory, denouncing the grueling, illegal hours and seven day workweeks for which they were paid below the legal minimum. The students also reported to the Labor Bureau that some 12-year-olds worked at the factory.

Can this really be Wal-Mart? The friendly store that boasts lower prices so that families can afford things? Needless to say, TNCs, can not only influence governments, but harm people's lives. Are the positives greater, in this Wal-Mart case, then the negatives? I don't think so. I believe that many families would be shocked to find that their snow-man tree ornament was made by a young teenager, working months without a day off.

I believe that we, as Canadians, have the duty to people who work in sweatshops like this, to be nosy and figure out where the stuff we buy is coming from. What conditions are the people who made my favorite Bluenotes sweater working in? Because Canada is a democracy, we can raise our voices for these people in protest (wouldn't you want to protest if you were docked 2 1/2 days pay for taking Sunday off?). Perhaps our government can, and will, get strict on TNCs such as Wal-Mart, and keep them from being heartless Scrooges.