Exploiting Mexican Kids for Profit

OUR VOLUNTEER PACKERS COLLECT NO SALARY, ONLY THE GRATUITY THAT YOU GIVE THEM. SUPERAMA THANKS YOU FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING.

Above is the sign that tells Walmart Shoppers what the Mexican "volunteers" are given (which is nothing) in Walmart stores in Mexico. Walmart does not hide the practice proudly displaying the sign to shoppers. "WalMart is Mexico’s largest private-sector employer in the nation today, with nearly 150,000 local residents on its payroll. An additional 19,000 youngsters between the ages of 14 and 16 work after school in hundreds of WalMart stores, mostly as grocery baggers, throughout Mexico-and none of them receives a red cent in wages or fringe benefits."

The use of unsalaried youths is legal in Mexico because the kids are said to be “volunteering” their services to WalMart and are therefore not subject to the requirements and regulations that would otherwise apply under the country’s labor laws. Nearly half the Mexican population scrapes by on less than $4 per day. This is why families are forced to send the teens to work for tips even if it depends on the goodwill of Walmart shoppers. Walmart is quick to point out it did not invent the "volunteering" but it dwarfs all other companies that use the policy. Although WalMart’s worldwide code of ethics expressly forbids any “associate” from working without compensation, the company’s Mexican subsidiary asserts that the grocery baggers “cannot be considered workers.”

WalMart’s bottom line is also very healthy. WalMart de Mexico reported net earnings of $1.148 billion in 2006 and $280 million in profits in the second quarter of this year, a 7 percent increase in real terms over the same period last year. Buoyed by the handsome bottom-line results of the preceding 12 months, WalMart de Mexico Chief Executive Eduardo Solórzano announced plans in February to add 125 new stores and restaurants to its existing network of 893 retail establishments during the course of 2007. That ambitious expansion plan will represent new investment totaling nearly a billion dollars, according to company spokesmen.

Walmart also says it is fully within the International Labor Organization's guidelines. It cites a study conducted by the Mexican government and a U.N. agency that found that teenagers participating in the baggers’ program were less likely to use illegal drugs than peers who panhandled or hawked merchandise on city streets. Oh would that not happen if you paid them a living wage? Minimum wage? Any wage?

A study conducted by three student researchers at the Autonomous University of Mexico documented violations of the 1999 agreement at a WalMart Supercenter store in southern Mexico City. These included inadequate training and forcing youngsters to work a double shift, thereby exceeding the six-hour limit per day established by the accord. Then again, things could be a lot worse. In February 2005, WalMart agreed to pay the U.S. Labor Department $135,540 in civil money penalties to settle charges of 24 child-labor violations. Some of the accusations involved minors who operated forklifts, chain saws and other potentially dangerous equipment. Stuffing groceries into plastic bags would seem considerably less hazardous.

Of course this is fully on the backs of the U.S. government, Republicans and Democrats. Maybe even Clinton is more to blame for passing NAFTA and all the free trade agreements with nothing in the agreements for labor standards, minimum wages or human rights. Companies will not come into line because it is the right thing to do. It will only happen if we push them.

There used to be a saying at the Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut where I worked with teens and youth in foster care:

"People rarely do things because they see the light, the do them because they feel the heat."

That is doubly true for the amorphous conglomeration called Walmart.