Wal-Mart – Com 121 Spring 2010

Imagine receiving a text message on your cell phone stating that you could not go to the store because as soon as you stepped through the doors you would be arrested and taken away. Well this scenario became a reality for millions of Latinos around the United States.

In the beginning of March millions of Latinos received a text message stating that Wal-Mart was working with ICE agents to stage immigration raids in the stores. However Wal-Mart has denounced such rumors and sent out a statement saying:

“The rumors circulating via text message, and other means, about Wal-Mart coordinating or supporting immigration raids in our stores are not true. These rumors are baseless and inaccurate.”

The text messages were received in Georgia, South Carolina, and New Jersey. All of which have a high concentration of Latino immigrants. Though the text messages were seen as a hoax their implications still put fear into those in the Latino community, which make up a large portion of Wal-Mart shoppers.

Recently it was commented on the news forums of Univision.com, by a person with the initials J.A.S.G., that two days after receiving the text message he went to Wal-Mart and saw ICE agents asking everyone for their papers but this was not confirmed.

Some say that the cause of the text messages was the push by the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR) to boycott Wal-Mart stores starting March 21^st to urge the corporation to support immigration reform. It is thought that it was someone from this organization who sent the text message.

No matter who sent the message I believe that it is counterproductive to the cause of immigration reform when people start to throw false accusation and cause unnecessary panic among a people who are already under the stress of waiting on the outcome of immigration reform.

Wal-Mart announced yesterday plans to open 300 new units in Mexico this year. That’s almost one every day. Since the first one opened in 1991, Wal-Mart has steadily been taking over the Mexican economy. Thanks, in part, to NAFTA stipulations, it now even has its own claim in the stock market. The multinational corporation has expanded their operations and bought out competing companies. Their holds in the country now include:

Wal-Mart Supercenters
SAM’S Club
Bodega Aurrera (grocery supercenter)
Superama (grocery supercenter)
Suburbia (high-end supercenter)
Vips (restaurant)
Banco de Wal-Mart (banking firm)

Wal-Mart participates in charity work as well. In 2009, Wal-Mart

Gave 22 tons of food to flood victims in Michoacán, a state in northern Mexico
Gave 100 tons of food to Haiti relief efforts and 2 billion pesos to the Red Cross
Built 4,198 family orchards
Fed 13,590 undernourished children

Currently Wal-Mart has over 174,000 employees and plans to create 7,000 permanent jobs with the store openings this year. They will invest an unprecedented 12.5 billion pesos in the operations, up 28% from last year.

But who will actually “save money, live better?”

According to WakeUpWalmart.com for every two jobs Wal-Mart creates, three are lost. This is due largely to the fact that the transnational company puts smaller, local stores out of business. Not only that, the locations Wal-Mart chooses to build are often prime agriculture fields. When I traveled to Mexico last summer I saw entire villages plowed over by the opening of one of these mega-stores, displacing hundreds and hundreds of people.

For a company whose social responsibility pillars enumerate goals such as “promote sustainable feeding of less fortunate communities in Mexico” and “promote competitiveness,” are they practicing what they preach?

Tag: Wal-Mart

Attention Wal-Mart Shoppers