Shareholders’ meeting: Wal-Mart’s rampage a reminder of need to regulate, say UK campaigners

Wal-Mart’s annual shareholders’ meeting will be held tomorrow at the Bud Walton Stadium, and executives from Wal-Mart subsidiary Asda will be in attendance. To coincide with the meeting, US group Wal-MartWatch have launched a new campaign, offering practical suggestions to pressure the world’s largest corporation to start meeting its obligations to the wider community. The proposals, outlined in a full-page ad in the New York Times, address Wal-Mart’s employee health care plan, wages, local tax subsidies, labour policies, supplier conditions and corporate transparency.

Wal-Mart’s shareholder meeting comes as the UK Competition Commission starts the process of conducting its inquiry into the dominance of the ‘big four’ supermarkets in the Britain. Big supermarkets in the UK have consistently failed to meet their obligations to the community, and campaigners in the UK are calling for government to bring in new laws to effectively regulate the activities of the ‘big four’.

Matthew McGregor, senior campaigns officer for War on Want, which runs the AsdaWatch website, said,

“We are adding our voice to those in the US, and around the world, who are asking Wal-Mart to treat workers with dignity, to buy local first and to keep the environment clean. But for us in the UK, Wal-Mart’s example is a timely reminder that in Britain we need the government to step in and ensure that the dominance of the big four supermarkets is ended, to ensure fairness for local communities, supermarket staff and suppliers around the world.”

“Wal-Mart has a total disregard for the wider community – but in the UK, we have a chance to change that through government action. Opinion polls show that more than 80 percent of shoppers back new laws to better regulate the activities of supermarkets. We desperately need the government to bring forward proposals to ensure that we step back from the brink. We at risk of developing a Wal-Mart economy in the UK, but it’s not too late for the government to act”.

ENDS

For more information, please contact Rosie Walker on 020 7549 0584 or 07799465322

Notes to editors:

1) A copy of the “Shake hands with Sam” proposal, the New York Times ad and supporting research documents are all available on the Wal-Mart Watch website at www.walmartwatch.com/handshake. “Sam” refers to Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart.

2) AsdaWatch is a website run by War on Want and launched in May 2006. It monitors the activities of Asda Wal-Mart, and has been endorsed by the GMB, the trade union for Asda staff.

3) To mark the launch of AsdaWatch, an ICM opinion poll was commissioned into shoppers views of big supermarkets. The main findings were:

· 75% of shoppers think the government should bring in new laws to stop companies exploiting suppliers in developing countries

· 61% of shoppers believe that supermarkets are bad for local communities because of their market dominance

· 83% of Asda customers want to see tougher rules for supermarkets

· By a margin of 3 to 1, Asda shoppers believe that big supermarkets like Asda do not pay their staff “decent pay”