There is really no other word for the people who run American corporations. Some of the European corporations are at least throwing some crumbs at the survivors of the Tazreen factory fire in Bangladesh, but according to the Times American corporations, including Walmart and Sears, are refusing to donate a plug nickel.
A handful of retailers — led by Primark, an Anglo-Irish company, and C&A, a Dutch-German company — are deeply involved in getting long-term compensation funds off the ground, one for Rana Plaza’s victims and one for the victims of the Tazreen fire, which killed 112 workers last Nov. 24.
But to the dismay of those pushing to create the compensation funds, neither Walmart, Sears, Children’s Place nor any of the other American companies that were selling goods produced at Tazreen or Rana Plaza have agreed to contribute to the efforts.
via New York Times
The amount involved ($6,000,000.00 total) is so low that the Walton's lobbyists only look for tax breaks that small for practice. Typically, Walmart responds to questions about its stinginess with a mix of hypocrisy and gobbledegook.
After the International Labor Rights Forum, an advocacy group based in Washington, wrote to Walmart to urge its participation in the compensation efforts, Rajan Kamalanathan, Walmart’s vice president for ethical sourcing, responded in an email that Walmart did not intend to participate. He wrote that “there was no production for Walmart in Rana Plaza at the time of the tragedy” and that the Walmart-related production at Tazreen was unauthorized.
In that email, made available by the labor rights forum, Mr. Kamalanathan made clear that Walmart was looking to the future: “Our focus is to positively impact global supply chain practices both by raising our own standards and by partnering with other stakeholders to improve the standards for workers across the industry. We will continue to invest our resources in proactive programs that will address fire and building safety in the garment and textile industry in Bangladesh to help prevent tragedies before they happen.”
via New York Times
Walmart can't spare the change because it needs it to hide its connections to the people that run its sweatshops that produce the crap that passes for clothing these days. As for the “proactive programs”, are there any suckers out there who would bet that Walmart will follow through with anything but self promoting PR? This is a corporation that is perfectly willing to let its American employees starve rather than paying them a living wage. It certainly isn't going to go out of a way to make sure that a few hundred Asians don't get fried every year or two.
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