DavidDexter's Blog

I have to admit, I was lured to wakeupwalmart.com after seeing the WalMart/Sam's Club attack ad broadcast on several local television stations.  More so, because the overall attack ad blatantly oozed so much negativity and generalities than the fact that WalMart/Sams Club was the target.  I was more interested in finding out who the true backer of the campaign was, that was disseminating this latest attack via the mass media.

It's our old friends, the United Food and Commercial Workers union, the largest union of retail workers in the nation.

I have nothing against unions - they have their place in certain situations.  But this immediately shot up a red flag that this was less about waking up WalMart to "public safety" and "human rights" concerns than it was an attempt to whine about WalMart because the UFCW is frustrated.  The UFCW is moaning again because its latest attempts to unionize WalMart (and fill UFCW coffers with all that untapped union due resource) have been about as successful as Quebec's attempts at seceding from Canada.

If "public safety" and "human rights" was truly the issue of the attack ad - then it should have also included other bulk retailers such as Costco and Target - which also have just as many Chinese or Forced Labor made products as WalMart does on its shelves.  Which were just as unsafe and lead-laden.  Which were sold to the public in bulk.  Which Costco and Target didn't do anything more or less than WalMart to protect its consumers.

But ... Costco is the darling of the UFCW.  And Target, often viewed as the "Anti-WalMart" even though the two retailers operate similar to one another, is only half-heartedly smacked around by United Food and Commercial Workers union because it is 6 times smaller than WalMart and doesn't create as big of headlines.  Plus the fact that "Target Dog" is a lot cuter and lovable than a Smiley Face that bounces around knocking prices onto the floor.

Plus .... wakeupwalmart-target-samsclub-bjs-costco-marcs-fleamark
ets-ebay-chineseguysellingrosesandstufffromtrunkofcar.c
om just  isn't as cool sounding as wakeupwalmart.

I'm not a big WalMart fan myself.  Many stores are dirty.  Customer service is ... well ... nothing like you see in their television ads.  Products are sometimes as cheaply made as their price.  And its annoying that to draw people into a new store, they'll carry name brand items like Kiwi Shoe Polish and a good price - then two weeks later, the Kiwi is pulled from the shelves and replaced with Uncle Somebodies' Black Shoe Wax and they never restock Kiwi again.  But I'm not stupid either.  And Costco can be just as dirty.  I do shop there for items, like any other person who has to squeeze as much out of every penny from my paycheck.  I'm not going to pay $40 for an item at a "UFCW" approved store, when the same item is available for $10 at WalMart.  In simple economics - I'm not throwing away $30 from my family's budget just to satisfy a union.  For a product, that itself, probably wasn't made in the United States in the first place.

This "I don't shop at WalMart because they stock products not made in America by Americans" fantasy is ... ridiculous.  Every major store you shop in, every major online retailer carries a bulk of non-American products.  I had a good laugh once when a friend of mine commented that she'll never step into a WalMart to buy clothes because they aren't made in the Good Ol' USA.  I asked her to check the tag on her Columbia jacket that she bought at Dick's ... made and assembled in Malaysia.  So much for the I only buy USA thing with her ... I guess she won't be shopping at Dick's anymore either.  If you think this way, the next time you go to the grocery store, you better check really close to where your food came from as well.  That can of corn probably came from Argentina and was only canned in Iowa.   I guess you could dump the corn out and eat the can, but the can itself probably came from China or Taiwan.  So that leaves you with the label - made from a pulp and paper manufacturer in Canada.  So much for American Corn ...

Anyway ... wakeupwalmart.com is a farce.  Thinly disguised as a "Protect The People" website, it's just the same old United Food and Commercial Workers union rant that they can't unionize WalMart.  Only this time, they're using the same bait and switch tactic WalMart used with the KiWi shoe polish in my local WalMart.  Except, instead of shoe polish, they're using Chinese Lead and Forced Labor as the bait.

I think wakeupwalmart.com does more damage to the United Food and Commercial Workers union's image than WalMart ever could have done.  If the UFCW truly was concerned about Human Rights and Consumer Safety - they'd create a joint web reference site with Amnesty International and the Consumer Products Safety Commission/Underwriters Laboratories and address these issues that affect all retailers and consumers ... instead of wasting UFCW resources on a narrow-sighted attack ad.

Meanwhile ... Walmart enjoys free publicity that it didn't have to pay for, at the expense of UFCW members.  Once again, the WalMart Empire ... still wins.