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Tour Blog 2007
Tour Blog 2005
Tour Blog 2004
Early in 2007, uberculture will kick off our latest Wal-Town tour, taking us across the country once again to join communities in fighting Wal-Mart. We will be organizing screenings of Wal-Town The Film, participating in public discussions on Wal-Mart's impact on local communities, and pulling publicity stunts and culture jams to draw attention to the dirty record of this big-box giant.
Beginning January 20, Wal-Town 2007 will visit roughly 30 cities across Canada, from St. John's, Newfoundland to Victoria, BC. This time around we will also be heading up north to the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Labrador and Northern Quebec.
Click to see the Tour 2007 schedule
History
In May 2004 and 2005, nine of us - six students, two documentary filmmakers, and one writer/photographer - left Montreal equipped with video cameras, sound recorders, computers, and roughly hundreds of pounds of print material. The first year we headed west - Montreal to Vancouver - the second year east - Montreal to Newfoundland and Labrador. Our mission? To disseminate information on Wal-Mart's questionable business practices.The first stop outside of Montreal on both tours was the town of Jonquiere in the Saguenay Region of Quebec, location of the first unionized Wal-Mart in the world. By May 2005, though, Wal-Mart Canada closed down the store in response to a successful union drive. From Jonquiere, we set out across Canada, stopping at at least one Wal-Mart store per day, and focussing on Wal-Marts in smaller communities along the way.
Upon arrival at each Wal-Mart store, we parked our Wal-Town van and set up our information table, stocked with pamphlets, booklets, and other materials. With literature in hand, we worked to engage customers, workers, and others through dialogue and debate. Some jams also involved more creative mehtods of getting peoples attention - read on to find out more!
Why Wal-Mart?
We will talk to people about the human rights violations Wal-Mart has committed, concentrating on labour rights and subsequent violations (citing the International Labour Organization - or ILO - where possible) in particular. We intend to address Wal-Mart's substandard labour practices abroad in the forms of exploitive "slave labour" and "sweatshop labour" in countries like Lesotho and Indonesia and China, as well as addressing the issue of Wal-Mart's poor domestic labour standards. Our critique of Wal-Mart can be divided into the three pillars of Wal-Mart’s business practices:Pillar 1: Exploitation of Labour and violation of International Labour Laws and Regulations abroad leading to Human Rights violations in over 25 countries.
Pillar 2: Discriminatory and Poor Labour Standards and Practices in North America.
Pillar 3: The Domination and Dismantling of the economic and socio-economic fabric of small communities in Canada by aggressive business practices like "Predatory Pricing" and anti-organized labour policies.
Based on our research, we have found that Wal-Mart specifically has violated articles 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 23, and 24 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR) including the rights of equality and non-discrimination, the right to liberty and security of person, and that no one shall be held in slavery or servitude. Most specifically though, we would like to draw attention to Article 23 which states that: (1) everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment; (2 ) everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work; (3) everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself [or herself] and his [or her] family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection, and (4) everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
Our Methods
To inform and engage the general public throughout this Maritimes tour we will neither rely on bullying and guilt tactics toward customers, nor defamy toward the Wal-Mart Corporation. We intend to engage customers and the local communities with open hands and good will, delivering much needed information and dialogue about Wal-Mart, and the questionable methods that the company has employed in order to become the largest retail corporation in the world. We hope to reach communities in Eastern Canada that are experiencing the big-box influx of American Transnationals, the champion of this phenomenon being Wal-Mart.On both trips we met with community leaders, politicians, business people, labour organizers and activists to develop a robust movement - national in scope and local in execution - to challenge and change Wal-Mart and it's exploitive practices. Ourselves, along with thousands of Canadians, are standing up and holding Wal-Mart accountable for it's harmful business practices, and demanding - through economic and cultural pressure - that the company invest more into the communities where it has built its big boxes.
Our Tour Sponsors
So far, we are grateful for the financial support of:
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union National Office
UFCW Local 333, North York, Ontario
Concordia University Television
The Canadian Federation of Students
The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada
The Commerce and Administration Student Association - Concordia
Our Supporters:
Oxfam CanadaThe Maquila Solidarity Network
Amnistie internationale (Canadian Francophone Section)
The Quebec Public Interest Research Group - Mcgill
The Quebec Public Interest Research Group - Concordia
The Canadian Democratic Movement
The Directors/Producers of "The Corporation"