Wal-Mart: Fascism Out, Communism In
Local employees have established a branch of the Communist Party at [Wal-Mart's] China headquarters. The party branch was set up in the office in the southern city of Shenzhen where Wal-Mart runs its fast-growing China business, said Jonathan Dong, the company's spokesman in China.Wal-Mart's acquiescence to the party cells – a decade after it opened its first store in China – reflects a stepped up effort to ingratiate itself with a country that it sees as increasingly vital to its future growth. The establishment of party branches follows a similar retreat for Wal-Mart in July, when the company – which has remained largely union-free elsewhere – caved to strong pressure from China's All-China Federation of Trade Unions to allow union branches in its stores.
Fascism to remain at U.S. and European stores, for the time being.
Wal-Mart Workers in China Set Up Communist Party Branch [WSJ]
Comments
I'm totally thinking of that Simpson's episode where you see a chinese sweatshop with slogans on the wall, like "Talking is Counter-Revolutionary"
I think Wal-mart and the Chinese Communist Party probably have a lot of common ground when it comes to policies regarding human rights.
Posted by: Woah | December 18, 2006 04:16 PM
While the Teamsters are a bunch of mobbed up thugs, they don't hold a candle to the ACFT. You'll get killed or sent to the Laogai just for doing the wrond sort of Tai-Chi, while Bentonville only doesn't want to have a bunch of mobsters stealing its empoyees salaries at its US stores.
Wal-Mart's anti-union policy is especially ethical and just in China's vicious environment, and its especially sad that they caved on another human rights issue for market access, just as Cisco and Google have.
Posted by: Bulging Bracket | December 18, 2006 05:10 PM