Media Critiques
Grading the Media: Media Coverage of Wal-Mart Fails Public
By Scott O. Shaffer
Apr 12, 2005, 15:02

Wal-Mart advertises, “Always low prices. Always.”

Recently, there have been some questions by various groups of how the company is able to deliver on this promise.

Some news stories have said the company achieves its low prices in part because workers haven’t been able to unionize. Some have said that the reason for this is simple -- Wal-Mart does not need to unionize because they treat their employees fairly. Others have said quite the opposite.

In fact, these stories state that Wal-Mart has made every effort to destroy the unionization of their stores by using any means possible. The stories say the company has closed stores or engaged in alleged criminal behavior just to keep unions out.

On another front, human rights groups have questioned Wal-Mart’s alleged use of sweatshop labor in countries such as China. Wal-Mart says they do not run sweatshops. Instead, the American company insists they operate in China for cheap labor and that their business practices are legitimate.

Meanwhile, the business media have glorified Wal-Mart’s labor practices overseas as being the sole reason the company is able to manufacture low cost products to consumers. The plight of the Chinese workers has been largely ignored.

My question is: How did three respected but different media organizations such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Texas Observer cover Wal-Mart’s labor practices and the alleged use of sweatshop labor by its foreign production contractors?

The Wall Street Journal published eight stories for its conservative, business-oriented readership between 1992 and 2005. All but one story focused on Wal-Mart management and whether it was winning or losing its battles in court with labor.

The Journal ignored the meat cutters in Jacksonville, Texas, who successfully established the first union in a Wal-Mart store in February 2000. Then in 2003, the Journal failed to report that management had decided to close the meat cutters’ department as the company claimed the decision had nothing to do with the earlier union success in the department.

The Journal’s pro-management bias was particularly clear in its 1997 reporting on Clinton’s presidential task force efforts to ban clothing sweatshops worldwide in Windy Bounds and Hillary Stout’s story “Sweatshop Pact: Good Fit or Threadbare—Industry Could Get PR Boon, But Activists Worry.”

The story said, “In an industry where appearance is everything, the shadow of sweatshop factories and child labor has proved a frustrating blemish for U.S. clothing manufactures that have moved a lot of production overseas to save money.”

Instead of investigating the sweatshop labor claims, the reporters quote Wendy Liebmann, the president of WSL Strategic Retail Consulting Group.

“Yes, it’s a bad thing to have little children manufacture Nike sneakers,” Liebmann said. “But if the price goes up from $120 to $140, it’s like, ‘Wait a minute, I still want the $120 sneakers.’”

In other words, the consumers are made to be the cause of Wal-Mart’s questionable labor practices. There is no mention of the fact that executive salary packages have reached an all-time high and that Wal-Mart has had more than its share of CEOs since its founder passed away.

The story also fails to ask some other pertinent questions like--Is it really necessary to have children making designer sneakers in sweatshops? Where did the $120 go? How much went to labor cost and how much into Wal-Mart’s pockets? Where are their Christian morals they seemed to be so proud of in past times?

In fact, the Journal wrote no stories answering those questions from 1992 to 2005. Neither did the supposedly liberal New York Times.

Instead, the Times published four stories for a broad, general readership describing Wal-Mart’s labor practices between the same time period.

Both labor and management had voices in these stories, but the labor voice was often weak and sometimes confusing.

Two of the four of the stories described attempts by Wal-Mart workers in Quebec to form a union. The other half described Kathy Lee Gifford’s shocked response to charges that her apparel company was using sweatshop labor to supply Wal-Mart.

The Times misstated the essence of the Quebec story in its February 1997 headline, “Despite Election, a Wal-Mart Goes Union in Canada”.

The Times suggested that Wal-Mart had gotten a bad break. The reality was that the opposite was true.

The Ontario Labor Relations Board ruled that Wal-Mart had broken Canadian labor law when it intimidated its employees in Quebec who had attempted to form a union and certified the union. The headline should have read, “Workers Prevail to Form Union Despite Wal-Mart Lawlessness.”

On the other side of the labor-management divide, labor had a clear voice and advocate in The Texas Observer between 1999 and 2004 (the Observer’s archives only go back to 1999).

Wal-Mart’s labor practices and their impact on worker’s wages and quality of life were the focus of three stories published by the Observer.

Karen Olsson told the Jacksonville meat cutters’ story from the workers’ side in “Always a Rat Race, Never a Union.”

The firing of workers who had voted for the union, the slow response of the National Labor Relations Board to worker
complaints and the use of a team of Wal-Mart union busters from the home office in Bentonville, Arkansas, were all reported.

Jim Hightower told Hong Kong’s toy workers’ story in “Trouble in Toyland” with his description of mostly young women and teenage girls working 13 hours a day in toxic work places seven days a week for $.13 an hour to make toys for Wal-Mart.

The Observer, alone among the print media reviewed, reported an alternative to Wal-Mart’s labor practices.

Hightower, in “Giving the Gipper His Due,” reported that
Costco pays better and offers superior health benefits to Wal-Mart. Costco also allows unions. Yet, its labor costs are about half of Wal-Mart’s.

Jim Senegal, CEO of Costco said, “I don’t see what’s wrong with an employee earning enough to be able to buy a house or having a health plan for the family.”

But there is another side to Wal-Mart’s labor practices story and the Observer did not report it. The facts-on-the-ground are that the company creates thousands of jobs for low or unskilled workers. The alternative news source completely ignored the popularity of Wal-Mart among lower wage workers. These same workers are also customers who economists say get the equivalent of a much-needed paycheck raise from Wal-Mart’s low prices.

After reviewing each of these sources, one thing is clear.
None of the three sources reviewed has performed its job well in regards to Wal-Mart and its labor issues . To begin to understand why, a person must start with some simple conjecture.

Often in the media, the public sees itself as a consumer while ignoring the fact that most consumers are also employed workers. If credible sources have claimed over a period of years that Wal-Mart is engaged in anti-union or sweatshop labor practices, then the press has a responsibility to find out the truth and report the story fully, fairly and without bias.

Wal-Mart has 1.6 million employees worldwide and serves an estimated 138 million customers weekly. It affects workers and customers in more than 5,000 neighborhoods. If the press did the story fully, at least job seekers can decide whether to apply at Wal-Mart and customers can decide whether to shop there.

Also, Wal-Mart is owned by 333,000-plus shareholders. Investors can decide whether to buy company stock or perhaps change company policy.

The public should have known what it took for Wal-Mart to deliver on its promise of “Always low prices. Always” between 1992 and 2005. The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Texas Observer should have told them.

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