I originally wrote this in 2009 for the National newspaper in Abu Dhabi, but it is till very much relevant today, given the recent catastrophe in Bangladesh and the attitude that wreaks havoc on the lives of workers and how corporations get away with murder.
Today I went to the supermarket and
got the feeling that perhaps they were actually selling super-food, since the
prices seemed to have doubled since I last bought a box of croissants. Instead of seeming like the place to
bargain hunt, it was like being in a bodega in Brooklyn where the prices are
usually double of those in the big chain stores. Well, if buying bulk isn’t the
best bet, then what? I think that I am going to invest in some whole wheat
flour and go back to my Copious Carrots Inc. days when I made baked goods and
sold them on the side. Only this time I will be my very own premier customer.
Times are hard.
Also, I got a call from a friend
asking me did my husband still have a job. Another’s husband just lost his,
sending her into the labor market. When you are not a Maddoff it seems that
there is very little place on this great big earth for us serfs to eek out a
decent living? Don’t worry, I won’t start lamenting on how Marx was right,
while he did have some good points. I’ll just say that somebody will be making
a killing on spoons while the rest of us are standing in soup lines. Since this
is UAE, let’s hope for harees since it sticks to your ribs.
I can’t say that I’m sad when
high-rollers take a hit, but what about the globalized workers? Living in the
UAE, where some people live off only 600 dirham’s a month, often wonder, what
is happening to them? The billionaires, who are suffering now, are not becoming
homeless, losing their aspirations to live a better life. What about the aunty
in India, living in a banana leaf hut, waiting on money from the Gulf? Now that
it’s dried up? You know those execu-thieves should be made to give the money
they stole to the poor and moved into a banana leaf hut and see how they like
it. What caused all of this? Let’s
just say, the Wal-Mart effect. Where businesses do everything they can to turn
a buck, crushing whoever is in their way. But now that the good times are gone
(for some) they are crying broke too. But are they really?
It’s funny, that now even biggie
corps are looking down in the mouth. Even the mega brand Wal-Mart, has announced
that it will being laying-off some of its staff a few weeks ago. This came as a
shock to me because in January, in a tiny, side bar, column in the back pages
of the Financial Times, there was a report, that Wal-Mart, despite all of the
hand wringing about the global economic disaster, has risen from a well stocked
storm cellar (no pun intended), with their executives boasting how they have
managed to “expand sales despite the slump in consumer spending. And that their
“high efficiency model” helped the economy to “play into their hands.” I’ll bet.
So, could their recent claims of poverty have to do with the
words “corporate bailout”? Why
not, it’s the great American way. But is this fair? Should they be allowed to
do so? Is anybody even looking into their books? Given Wal-Mart’s history of perennial economic, bliss which
appears to be an Aztec Empire-inspired economic model where at the bottom of
their mountain of money lays mound of corpses and body parts. Hence, this
matter definitely needs to be investigated, because the Wal-Mart Economic model
is leading to the disintegration of work and wages for many.
Most of Wal-Mart’s success is built
on the near million outsourced product manufacturers creating products in floating
factories, called export processing zones. (EPZ’s), workers are sometimes, locked
in factories, or closed in military-like barracks, guarded in secrecy that
rivals the CIA, working in 16 hour shifts. Asia, the Middle East and Latin
America, are their main sources of global employees, targeting especially girls
and women, who make up the majority of this labor source. These were the ones
globalization was to benefit, and now look at who’s getting the handout? While
factory workers in China go back to the farm. Where is Stiglitz now that we
need him?
Wal-Mart’s reputation at home is
not much better. In the internet film, Wal-Mart: the High Cost of Low Prices
illustrates, the other ingredient that has help the retailer to make a killing.
With Guantanamo-like tactics, its employees suffer starvation where they bypass
lunch hours because they could not afford to eat and eat their dinner at soup
kitchens. As a lobby, it won a suit which prevented workers from unionizing and
getting paid healthcare. The problem is in some small US towns Wal-Mart is the
only employer. Really how much were they paying them in the first place? Will
the cuts even make a dent? Can it really be that much in the red?
Wal-Mart, like the rest of America
likes getting the free stuff; USDA free cheese (given out in the 80’s), food
stamps, or free lunches (there was a camp using free government lunches, but
they were charging $500 per child), you don’t have to be too broke or have a
conscious either to get in on the goods. Just look at what happened on Black
Friday.
Black Friday is the most coveted
day in the US retail industry, where the night before, Wal-Mart, shoppers
looking for the best deals, camped out side of Valley Stream store, all night,
doors opened at 5 am. The 2000 horde, of rabid shoppers, stampeded into the
store, killing one man, and injuring several others, including a woman in her
eighth month of pregnancy.
This madness almost turned into massacre when the store
management announced that the store was closing, in order to care for the
injured and out of respect for their fallen co-worker, one enraged shopper,
said, “I’ve been here since yesterday morning.” I can imagine the rest of them,
cursing and joking their way through the aisles, dryly rebuking the
announcement, “So what he’s dead, I didn’t wait all night to get a plasma TV for
nothing.” American selfishness is mind-boggling indicator of the disease of
materialistic greed is perhaps what is really at the root of this global
crisis, where big corporations win and we regular folks wonder what’s next.
