[lit-ideas] Lead Us Not Into Penn Station and Deliver Us from Wal-Mart?
- From: Eric Yost <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 14 May 2005 01:06:27 -0400
Complete story at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/005/17.40.html
Deliver Us from Wal-Mart?
Christians are among those sounding the alarm about the ethics of this
retail giant. Are the worries justified?
by Jeff M. Sellers
The cavernous hallway outside Chicago City Council chambers is echoing
with the sound of 150 people chanting, "We're fed up, we won't take it
no mo'!"
The lady with the megaphone is leading a mix of union workers and
community reform activists shouting slogans against the world's largest
retailer. One of the protesters, Ella Hereth of the advocacy group Jobs
with Justice, tells CT that Wal-Mart is the "poster boy for corporate
exploitation."
She ticks off the complaints: low pay, scant benefits, race and sex
discrimination, and profiting from mistreated workers in foreign
"sweatshops." Before the Chicago City Council votes to block one store
but allow another, aldermen label Wal-Mart "the worst company in
America" and an "evildoer."
As it has grown into a powerhouse with sales of $256.3 billion—more than
the sales of Microsoft and retail competitors Home Depot, Kroger,
Target, and Costco combined—Wal-Mart has become a lightning rod
nationwide in local tempests of moral outrage. Church leaders (primarily
mainline, liberal, and Roman Catholic) have joined grassroots activists
fearful that mindless global market factors will steamroll human dignity.
"Wal-Mart's practices are immoral and unfair," says Reginald Williams
Jr., associate pastor for justice ministries at Trinity United Church of
Christ in Chicago. Pastors at the 8,500-member Trinity United and eight
other African American congregations in Chicago called for a boycott of
Wal-Mart.
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