As Wal-Mart expands across Snohomish County, the arguments against the world’s largest retailer have come to the big screen.
Not far from a field where the company plans a 149,000-square-foot discount store, several dozen people gathered Nov. 16 in an elementary school cafeteria to watch the documentary “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price.”
While the movie is designed to persuade, virtually all in the Mill Creek audience already had negative feelings about Wal-Mart.
Lillian Kaufer, an organizer of the Nov. 16 showing, lives close to the store site in an area Mill Creek will annex in the coming weeks.
“I’ve seen other documentaries about Wal-Mart, so I thought if they ever tried to come here, I’d get involved,” Kaufer said. She added that she’s a business owner, so she’s not reflexively against big stores. “But I don’t think they’re fair competition.”
Carole Korecks of Bothell found out about the Nov. 16 showing through a political Web site. She said she’s not fond of big-box stores in general. Her sister in Oregon shops at Wal-Mart, however, and she’s taken a look inside the chain’s stores.
“I’m not going to knock the people who work there, though. They need the jobs,” Korecks said.
“The High Cost of Low Price” was directed by Robert Greenwald, who also directed 2004’s “Outfoxed,” about the Fox News Channel. Like that movie, the Wal-Mart documentary is for sale on DVD and is being shown at neighborhood meetings, union halls and churches nationwide.
Wal-Mart argues that the movie’s picture of the retailer is misleading.
“Let’s be clear about Mr. Greenwald’s intent: It is not to present a fair and accurate portrayal of Wal-Mart. It is a propaganda video, pure and simple, designed to advance a narrow special-interest agenda,” a company statement said.
The company also points out what it says are discrepancies of fact in the movie. The company’s statement was based on viewing trailers for the film, not the film itself.
Greenwald’s film does not level many new charges, but it includes interviews with many former employees who say the company’s wages are uniformly below average and that the health care benefits are too expensive for most of the “associates,” as Wal-Mart calls its workers. In some states, thousands of associates receive public health assistance to make ends meet.
Workers have filed numerous lawsuits alleging that the retailer forced them to work mandatory, unpaid overtime. In the film, former managers corroborate their experiences with that practice.
The film also looks at the fate of mom-and-pop stores in Midwest towns after the arrival of Wal-Mart.
Additionally, Greenwald takes aim at the company’s overseas manufacturing and environmental records, and its opposition to unionizing efforts.
Lee Scott, Wal-Mart’s chief executive officer, is shown only in news clips. Wal-Mart reportedly did not make representatives available for comment in the film.
In the Mill Creek audience, where Wal-Mart fans were an endangered species even before the film started, the documentary reinforced views.
“It makes me heartsick to think of what they’ve done,” Korecks said. “It’s unconscionable.”
Kaufer’s community group is collecting signatures and has hired an attorney for an upcoming hearing on the Mill Creek store.
Eric Fetters is a reporter with The Herald in Everett.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
