Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
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| Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Robert Greenwald |
| Produced by | Jim Gilliam |
| Distributed by | Brave New Films |
| Release date(s) | November 4, 2005 (USA) |
| Running time | 95 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Budget | ~ US$1,500,000 |
| IMDb profile | |
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price is a 2005 documentary film by director Robert Greenwald. The film presents an unfavorable picture of Wal-Mart's business practices through interviews with former employees, small business owners, and footage of Wal-Mart executives. The film intersperses statistics between the interviews to provide large-scale examinations beyond personal opinions. The documentary was released on DVD on November 4, 2005.
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
While the film begins with footage of Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott praising the corporation at a large employee convention, the film spends a majority of its running time on personal interviews. A variety of criticisms of the corporation emerge from these interviews, including alleged anti-union practices, claims that Wal-Mart has a detrimental impact on small businesses, claims that Wal-Mart has insufficient environmental protection policies, and claims Wal-Mart has a poor record on worker's rights in the United States and internationally. The film ends with interviews of community leaders that have prevented Wal-Mart stores from being built in their communities and an exhortation for others to do the same.
[edit] Issues Addressed
The following list is a brief description of criticisms and accusations towards Wal-Mart from real life interviews by all kinds of people affected by Wal-Marts in their area. The interviews ranged from actual Wal-Mart managers to small town people (in near chronological order).
[edit] Small Town Effects
The first story in the film is about a man named Don Hunter who starts a hardware store in Middlefield, Ohio with other members of his family in 1992. When Wal-Mart arrives in Middlefield, the hardware stores is forced to close down after 43 years due to unbeatable competition. Later in the film an independent grocery store in Hamilton, Missouri, which was started by Red Esry in 1959 is quickly closed down by the arrival of a Wal-Mart in nearby Cameron. The relatives in the interviews felt it was unfair that the city was giving Wal-Mart subsidies when their grocery store got nothing. In urban cities, subsidies to Wal-Mart are believed to have closed down schools and important city services.
[edit] Associate woes
Several interviews show Wal-Mart associates who are overworked and underwaged. To add to their troubles, the company's health care plan is shown as very expensive at around $70 a week from a regular weekly paycheck. A vast percentage of families are supported by government health care which Wal-Mart seems to encourage their employees to do. It is also revealed that Wal-Mart corporates prevent the creation of any unions within their stores and keeps a closer eye on associates socializing with each other while working as a result. In Germany, Wal-Mart acquired two major retail franchises that were already unionized. The German employees feel that it is unfair for American employees to not have the same benefits they have working at a Wal-Mart. There are also allegations of racism and anti-feminism as well as cheating workers of overtime pay. Other incidences include hiring and locking immigrant workers in their stores during their night shifts.
[edit] Environment
Environmentalists in North Carolina uncover contamination of water the Wal-marts in the area seem to be responsible for. There are also numerous accusations of clean water violation acts by Wal-mart throughout the country.
[edit] Outsourcing
This segment features an interview which portrayed a day in the life of a Chinese Wal-Mart factory worker and her boyfriend. Rent and utilities are taken out of the workers' paycheck. Rent is taken out regardless of whether or not they wish to live in the dormitories the factory provides. There are also allegations that the employees must lie to inspectors who visit the factory that they work 6 days instead of the actual 7 days a week they work. In Bangladesh, women are overworked in sweatshops earning under a quarter an hour. A global service manager was deeply affected by the discovery of working conditions in Latin America.
[edit] Safety
Numerous reports of car thefts, assaults, rapes, and murders of both associates and customers are believed to have been due to Wal-Mart's cost-cutting of security. Most of these reports were committed outside the stores in parking lots. One incident involved a woman being abducted from a parking lot, which was clearly seen on the Wal-Mart security tape, and later murdered. The security videos were unsupervised as the video cameras were meant only to watch out for union activity, not customer safety.
[edit] Fighting Back
The final segment of the film tells the story of two towns that fought off Wal-Marts being built in their towns. One was led by a female pastor in Inglewood, California and another by a senior resident in Chandler, Arizona. Both campaigns eventually grew in high numbers. The film ends with a large list of American cities where Wal-Marts were planning to build but were rejected.
[edit] Reaction
The film has been endorsed and promoted by, among others, MoveOn.org and unions through the Wake Up Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart Watch campaigns.[citation needed] Wal-Mart has disputed the factual accuracy of the statements made in the film. Wal-Mart:The High Cost of Low Price has been credited as one of the reasons that Wal-Mart created a public relations "war room" in late 2005 to respond to criticism.[citation needed] Their most notable effort was to release, on the same day as the release of The High Cost of Low Price, a DVD film defending its practices entitled Why Wal-Mart Works; and Why That Drives Some People C-R-A-Z-Y. (Ironically, director Ron Galloway would later turn against the company, stating in the April 2007 issue of The New Yorker, "They just instituted a wage cap for long-term employees—people making between thirteen and eighteen dollars an hour. It’s a form of accelerated attrition. They can’t expect me to defend that.").[1]
"Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price" is currently #25 on Rotten Tomatoes' top films of 2005 with a rating of 92%.[citation needed]
However, others have criticized the film for being simplistic and inaccurate. Critics state that Wal-Mart actually pays higher than many other jobs, promotes from within, and its suppliers in developing countries provide higher wages than are otherwise available. It has also been criticized in failing to acknowledge that every change in the retail section (development of malls, for example) have been met by similar complaints, and that attempts to artificially stop this change generally fail to prevent the economics events (preventing a Wal-Mart from opening does not stop the job loss). Libertarians in particular claim that the movie actually promotes a failed type of socialism. .").[2] A Penn & Teller Bullshit show, #502, similarly criticized this movie for being socialist, for failing to point out the economic benefits of Wal-Mart, and for not being honest about the downsides of unionizing.
[edit] References
- ^ Goldberg, Jeffrey. "Annals of Spin: Selling Wal-Mart." The New Yorker. April 2, 2007. Retrieved on March 29, 2007.
- ^ Vallery, Jason. "Penn & Teller". Retrieved on February 24, 2008.
[edit] External links
- Official website
- Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price at the Internet Movie Database
- Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price at Rotten Tomatoes
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