wfn.org | Bishop urges Wal-Mart to pay fair salaries to its workers

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Nov. 11, 1999 News media contact: Linda Green·(615)742-5470·Nashville, Tenn.
10-21-30-71B{609}

By United Methodist News Service

The United Methodist bishop in East Ohio has written a letter to the head of
Wal-Mart encouraging fair wages for people who make its products.

Bishop Jonathan Keaton's letter to David Glass, chief executive officer of
Wal-Mart, followed a resolution passed by the 1998 session of the East Ohio
Annual Conference. The letter was accompanied by a signed petition that had
been circulated throughout the year as part of the conference's
participation in a campaign by the National Labor Committee (NLC).

The NLC had identified the company as "one who benefited from the
exploitative use of sweatshop labor to produce products which are sold in
your stores," Keaton said in his letter. The resolution, authored by the
conference's Peace With Justice Project, called on East Ohio to act upon the
issue of sweatshop labor. 

Calls about this story to Wal-Mart's headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., were
not returned.

The letter, written on behalf of the 191,000 United Methodists in East Ohio,
sought to "encourage the Wal-Mart Corp. to ensure that the people making the
products they sell in their stores are paid a subsistence wage and are
treated with dignity and respect," Keaton said. It also included signatures
of 1,424 people who signed a petition calling on the company to see that the
workers making Wal-Mart products are paid a living wage and to disclose the
locations of the factories making those products. 

The Peace With Justice Project organized the petition drive. The
organization encourages United Methodists to study issues of peace and
justice as found in the denomination's Social Principles and Book of
Resolutions. It also urges them to identify "the sins and evils that oppress
and exploit God's creation" and work to remedy those.

The New York-based NLC educates and engages the public on human and labor
rights abuses by corporations. Through education and activism, the committee
seeks to "end labor and human rights violations, ensure a living wage tied
to a basket of needs, and help workers and their families live and work with
dignity." 

With a network of local, national and international groups, the committee
builds coalitions to promote labor rights and to urge companies to comply
with existing national and international labor and human rights standards.

East Ohio participated in the annual Holiday of Conscience Campaign, which
has been endorsed by the United Methodist Board of Church and Society. A
staff member of the Women's Division of the United Methodist Board of Global
Ministries serves as a trustee of the NLC.   

According to the NLC's World Wide Web page, past campaigns have targeted
large corporations such as the Gap, Liz Claiborne, Kathie Lee
Gifford/Wal-Mart and the Walt Disney Co. The page notes that these campaigns
have placed the sweatshops issue on the national agenda and created a
grassroots movement to hold corporations accountable for their labor
practices.

During the first Holiday Season of Conscience Campaign in 1997, the NLC
named several companies that allegedly benefited from sweatshop abuses.
Following that campaign, the committee singled out Wal-Mart, the nation's
largest retailer, to increase advocacy action instead of diluting efforts by
targeting several companies.

"The thinking behind the decision was that if Wal-Mart could be persuaded
into acting on the issues of wages and disclosure of factories, the entire
retail industry would follow," Keaton said.

Keaton said in the spirit of the United Methodist Church's call "to reform
the sinful structures of our time," the East Ohio Annual Conference "is
making our faithful witness against the exploitation and abuse of young
women and children around the world who now live in an inescapable cycle of
poverty while making goods for American consumers."

"Any system of production which provides one group with enormous economic
profit, while another is forced to live in absolute poverty, exists in
direct opposition to the kingdom of God," the bishop said.

The annual conference's resolution urged conference members to write to
corporations in the clothing industry, calling on them to join the White
House Apparel Industry Partnership; to pay subsistence wages to those who
manufacture their products; and to open their factories to nongovernmental
organizations and human rights groups for an accurate perspective of their
labor practices and workers' rights. The resolution also encourages church
members to verify that the corporations in which they invest do not use
sweatshop labor.

The conference will monitor the progress made with Wal-Mart through the
Peace With Justice Project, Keaton said.
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United Methodist News Service
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