The man who set out his stall against Wal-Mart
EVA LANGLANDS

WALK into your local Asda and you could be forgiven for thinking that it's a haven of good news. Low prices and goods abound. Milk, trainers, DVDs, red roses; you can get them all while blissfully avoiding the crowded high street, then leave patting your back pocket with money-saving glee.

Asda has 37 stores in Scotland, and employs some 24,000 people, many of them part-timers who fit in around their children's school hours, or semi-retirees with a desire to remain in the workforce.

The first impression is fairly positive, but a searing new film, due to open this month, threatens to do for Asda's parent company, Wal-Mart, what Super Size Me did to McDonald's. The film, an anti-globalisation feature documentary made by a passionate left-wing political activist, claims that your local Asda store is part of a monolithic corporation beating a destructive path across the United States, the UK and, indeed, the world.

Wal-Mart: the High Cost of the Low Price says the world's largest retailer, with $315 billion in annual revenues, and the owner of Asda in the UK, is having a negative effect on the lives of millions of people. For example, it shows: a single mother struggling to provide healthcare for her two small children out of her Wal-Mart wages; a man fired for unionising; a family business in Missouri closing after Wal-Mart open its doors down the road.

It has been described as a horror film with greed and globalisation at its heart. And according to Robert Greenwald, the film's director and producer, Scottish consumers could have a leading role in the next chapter of this gruesome tale, as Asda, the UK's number three grocer, accounted for about 10 per cent of Wal-Mart's $285.2 billion international sales in 2005.

"Wal-Mart didn't buy Asda to be a neutral holding company. That's not its personality," says Greenwald, a political activist and award-winning film-maker.

"It buys corporations around the world to implement its policies. People in Scotland are going to see Wal-Mart try its best to implement more and more of its aggressive, expansionist policies and economic structure."

Is this outspoken New York director - whose campaigning documentaries include Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, and Uncovered: The Whole Truth About The Iraq War - right? As evidence, his film shows London stallholders battling to save the 105-year-old Queen's Market, Upton Park in London, earmarked for demolition to make way for a 46,000 square foot Asda superstore.

And in February, Asda was forced to pay £850,000 in compensation to employees after an employment tribunal ruled the supermarket unlawfully offered employees a financial inducement to give up their union rights.

Greenwald is not surprised; union busting, he warns, is Wal-Mart's middle name: "Asda will try to do the same in the UK as Wal-Mart has done in the United States.

"They will do everything they can to destroy the trade unions and will not stop harassing those who dare speak out."

Asda has recently been embroiled in the final stages of a long-running dispute with the GMB union over pay and conditions for Asda workers. Both parties have recently agreed an action plan to work together to form a National Joint Council and are working on the details of this arrangement.

The lowest basic rate of pay in Asda, which applies to almost one in five workers, is £5.10 per hour - only 5p per hour above the national adult minimum wage. In 2005 the company paid a bonus to fewer than three out of ten of the staff - compared with more than nine out of ten staff the previous year. The retailer has been accused of channelling the estimated £12 million so saved into the already healthy profits of parent company Wal-Mart.

In Scotland politicians have joined the crusade against Wal-Mart. The Labour MSP Pauline McNeill backed the GMB's fight and publicly condemned the company's anti-union practices. Campaigners say every Asda store in Scotland is tarnished by the Wal-Mart mentality.

"Everything changed after Wal-Mart took over Asda in 1999," says Ian King, the GMB senior organiser in Asda in Scotland.

"There has been a creeping Americanisation of our stores and distribution centres. Asda has made serious attempts to destroy trade unions. Wal-Mart is infamous for abusing employee rights in the United States. Asda is following suit here. Its tactics are becoming increasingly aggressive."

Now people are asking if the documentary will do the same to Asda as Super Size Me did to McDonald's. Jam-packed with personal stories and statistics, the feature-length film gives plenty of food for thought.

Are the corporations are worried? Asda certainly isn't. On the eve of the film's release, the management are remaining calm.

"A lot of the content [of the film] is flawed," says a spokesman for Asda, echoing Wal-Mart's reaction following the film's American release in November. "Many of the case studies used to depict Wal-Mart as the 'root of all evil' are simply factually wrong. The film verges on propaganda. It has been funded by groups politically opposed to Wal-Mart and, unlike a news report, doesn't even attempt to offer a balanced view."

But Asda's tone may change: Wal-Mart's certainly did. At first, corporation officials claimed they would "pretty much ignore it [the film] because, to all but a handful of anti-Wal-Mart activists, it simply will be irrelevant".

Yet they soon saw that the film had rapidly galvanised a powerful and active anti-Wal-Mart movement across the United States. To date, more than 80 campaign organisations have signed up in support of the film, with two major lobby groups heading the fight. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who sat for six years on the board of Wal-Mart in Arkansas, no longer wants anything to do with it. Her re-election campaign returned a $5,000 contribution from Wal-Mart, citing "serious differences with current company practices". Now, it seems, the corporation is sitting up and listening.

In response to all this Wal-Mart has, since the film's release, initiated major changes for its 38,000-plus US stores. This month the giant discount retailer announced a plan to support small businesses near its new urban stores, including its rivals.

It also made a whopping U-turn on its much-disputed health care policy, announcing expanded coverage for employees.

Greenwald, however, remains cynical. The 62-year-old says he will only believe in Wal-Mart's reformation when he sees it: "Every day they make a new announcement saying they are changing. But so far it's just words. They're mainly issuing press releases and not doing anything of substance.

"Over time, I hope they realise it takes more than a press release and a few extra dollars to win people over.

"But I'm pleased they're responding to pressure from the film and groups worldwide. They know they've got to clean up their act."

Scotland's consumers may think twice about shopping in Asda if they see the film, says King. He says it's time consumers know more about Asda and its American big brother.

He describes the film as deeply motivating: "Consumers with a social conscience will leave the cinema with an entirely different view of Asda and Wal-Mart than they had before.

"This film is an accurate portrayal. It's going to completely change people's attitudes. People will realise that putting a cheap Asda dinner on the table has a high cost. Asda is driving down prices, but it's the ordinary eight-to-five workers that are paying for it. Asda is squeezing them so tightly, they are struggling to survive."

The underlying issue here is not simply Wal-Mart or Asda, but globalisation, as Greenwald admits. If the Walton family, who founded Wal-Mart, hadn't been such successful entrepreneurs, someone else would have filled their shoes long ago.

It's the corporate Wal-Mart mentality - global domination at any cost - which poses the biggest challenge to society over the coming decades, he says: "If it wasn't Wal-Mart, it would be another corporation. It's important we remember that." Another supermarket, Tesco, has also come under fire in recent months. The UK's biggest supermarket, accounting for 29 per cent of our shopping spend, has been accused of squeezing small shops out of the market and employing "bully-boy" tactics to force down suppliers' prices.

Inverness has now been dubbed a "Tesco Town" thanks to the retail giant which now takes for 51p of every pound spent on food shopping in the city that is the hub of the Highlands. With three Tescos already in and around the town and a fourth in the pipeline, Inverness's once bustling town centre is fast becoming one big "closing down" sign.

This month The Office of Fair Trading, the competition watchdog, will decide whether to refer the country's grocery market to the Competition Commission. Campaigners hope such a move will strengthen controls over the UK's big four supermarkets - Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons - which together hold almost three-quarters of the grocery market. But is legislation the answer? Greenwald nods, but insists his grass-roots buddies and consumers are also key players.

"You need legislation, grass-roots activists, unions and consumers to fight these giants. Wal-Mart has huge abusive practices in many areas. Protecting people is difficult," says Greenwald.

"The good news is you guys in the UK have warning. You also have a stronger trade union movement than Americans have. I hope those two elements combined will help people."

• Wal-Mart: The High Cost of the Low Price opens in Scotland on 26 May at the Glasgow Film Theatre. For more background, visit www.walmartmovie.com

Source: http://living.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=686762006

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