RE: [Futurework] Walmart and the American dream

[Harry Pollard]

Arthur, You complain about my assumptions but you too make assumptions. Why do you assume a radically lowered lifestyle? You seem to imply that this outsourcing to lower wage countries is keeping our lifestyle high. I would expect you therefore to conclude that we should keep doing it in order to maintain that lifestyle -- of which I mightily approve. Yet, you don't seem to like it. It's a puzzlement. I don't understand that whenindustry changes its system to outsourcing, it seems to go smoothly. Yet, should we want to return to the old ways, that would be difficult. That's another puzzlement. I'm not sure quite how we are going to lose "design capability" from outsourcing. We can always hire some Indians to provide the abilities we lack. They would love to enjoy our standard of living. Or, we could be more basic and get rid of the university soft courses, such as Black Studies and Women's Studies, not to mention the mostly wasted educational time producing ever more lawyers, and replace them all with solid (and difficult) engineering and science courses. Incidentally, some of those Indian schools are so tough the average American undergrad would faint if he were exposed to them. The GDP is a statistic that suffers from the shortcomings of all government measurements. However I'm very interested in the tenor of many futurework contributions. They seem to favor the simple life with local communities taking in each others' washing so they don't need a Wal-Mart. Guess the GDP would fall precipitously -- but then it would be all right. Harry    From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2003 1:38 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Futurework] Walmart and the American dream Once we have lost design capability the "it" we supply might be quite different than what we wanted in the first place.   The adjustment problems might seem OK in the abstract but in reality moving the US to a radically lowered GDP and lifestyle only to try to rebuild later is not a simple, smooth or easy process.   arthur -----Original Message----- From: Harry Pollard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2003 3:44 PM To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Futurework] Walmart and the American dream Arthur,   If we don't have the purchasing power to buy it, it will stop coming in. Then we'll supply it ourselves.   What's the problem?   Harry       From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2003 4:46 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Futurework] Walmart and the American dream America's dirty little secret.    Helps to keep the US competitive.  Also in agriculture in California.   So the question is:  If Americans are buying products made in low wage conditions in China (perhaps in PLA prisons) which are then sold in non-unionized Walmarts, cleaned by illegals earning low wages---who (morality and ethics aside)  do we think will have the purchasing power to buy all this stuff????   arthur -----Original Message----- From: Ed Weick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 12:04 PM To: futurework Subject: [Futurework] Walmart and the American dream One wonders if the cleaners had to line up and sing the Walmart song, or do the Walmart salute or whatever it is that Walmart employees do.  Probably not though.  They weren't really Retail Associates, or whatever staff are called. Ed Weick     October 25, 2003 Cleaner at Wal-Mart Tells of Few Breaks and Low Pay By STEVEN GREENHOUSE very night for months, Victor Zavala Jr., who was arrested on Thursday in a 21-state immigration raid, said he showed up at the Wal-Mart store in New Jersey to clean floors. As the store's regular employees left at 11 p.m., Mr. Zavala said, they often asked him whether he ever got a night off. Mr. Zavala, identified by federal agents as an illegal immigrant from Mexico, told the Wal-Mart workers that he and four others employed by a cleaning contractor worked at the Wal-Mart in Old Bridge every night of the year, except Christmas and New Year's Eve. Now Mr. Zavala feels cheated, saying he worked as hard as he could pursuing the American dream, only to face an immigration hearing that could lead to deportation for himself, his wife, Eunice, and their three children, 10, 7 and 5 years old. He was one of 250 janitors employed by Wal-Mart contractors who were arrested at 60 Wal-Mart stores before dawn on Thursday. "My family's not happy about this," said Mr. Zavala, who said he paid a "coyote" $2,000 to smuggle him into the United States three years ago. "My children do not want to leave and go back to Mexico." A federal law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity said yesterday that several current and former cleaning contractors for Wal-Mart, the nation's biggest retailer, were cooperating with the government in its investigation. On Thursday, federal officials acknowledged that they had wiretaps and recordings of conversations and meetings among Wal-Mart executives and contractors. Federal officials said that as part of the Thursday raid, they searched the office of a middle-level manager at Wal-Mart's headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. The officials said the government believed that Wal-Mart executives knew the cleaning contractors were using illegal immigrants. Federal officials noted that 102 illegal immigrants working for Wal-Mart cleaning contractors had been arrested in 1998 and 2001 and that 13 Wal-Mart cleaning contractors had pleaded guilty after those arrests. Those pleas remain under court seal. Wal-Mart said yesterday that it had begun an internal investigation and would dismiss anyone in its work force who did not have proper immigration papers. Wal-Mart also told its officials to preserve any documents that might be relevant to the federal inquiry, which is being conducted by the Department of Homeland Security's division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Wal-Mart officials said that the raid surprised them, and that they had no idea the company's cleaning contractors used illegal immigrants. They acknowledged yesterday that 10 immigrants arrested on Thursday in Arizona and Kentucky were employed directly by Wal-Mart. Company officials said they had brought these workers in-house after certain stores phased out the use of the contractors for whom the immigrants had worked. Wal-Mart officials also said the company required its contractors to hire legal workers only. "We have seen no evidence thus far that anyone in Wal-Mart is involved in any scheme involving illegal workers," Tom Williams, a company spokesman, said. Government officials and Walmart executives declined yesterday to name the cleaning contractors whose employees were arrested. "These arrests are part of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement mission and part of our continuing commitment to investigate companies that are hiring individuals who are not authorized to work in the United States," said Garrison Courtney, a spokesman for the immigration agency. Federal officials said yesterday that the leading nation of origin for the janitors caught in Thursday's raids was Mexico, with 90. The Czech Republic was second with 35, followed by Mongolia with 22, Brazil with 20. Uzbekistan, Poland, Russia, Georgia and Lithuania each had about a dozen. Mr. Zavala, the janitor in Old Bridge, N.J., said he got his job shortly after arriving in the United States, when a neighbor asked whether he wanted work cleaning buildings. Mr. Zavala, 28, said he did not know the name of his boss. Mr. Zavala said he believed that the Wal-Mart managers knew the janitors were illegal immigrants. "Deep in their minds, of course the store managers knew it," he said. "The other guys from the crew didn't speak one word of English. Of course they knew it, but if you asked them, they'll say `we thought they were citizens or residents.' " Mr. Zavala said the contractor that he and Eunice, his wife, worked for paid them $400 a week each for working 56 hours. That would come to $6.25 an hour if time and a half overtime is included for all hours worked in excess of 40. "We don't know nothing about days off," said Mr. Zavala, whose hometown is Mexico City. "We don't know nothing about nights off, we don't know health insurance, we don't know life insurance, and we don't know anything about 401(k) plans." He said that when he was arrested and taken to a detention center in Newark, immigration officials mocked him for taking a job that paid so little in a state where rents and living expenses are so high. He said that in his 16 months as a cleaner at Wal-Mart, he was given only two nights off. He said he did not think that the contractor withheld taxes from his pay, raising questions about whether the contractor was making the required contributions for Social Security and unemployment insurance. Misha Firer, an illegal immigrant from Russia, said he worked for three months last year as a cleaner at Wal-Marts in Ephrata, Pa., and Glens Falls, N.Y., working 90 consecutive days without having a day off. Mr. Firer said that he earned $6 an hour, working the midnight-to-8 a.m. shift, washing, waxing and buffing floors. He said the chemicals were so strong that some workers had nose bleeds, sore eyes and skin irritations. "Nobody wanted to take the job," he said. "It was a night job and it paid very little." Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | Help | Back to Top