In Mexico, Wal-Mart Pays Teen Labor Nothing To Work in Supercenter Stores
In 1999 the Mexico City government negotiated an arrangement with the Supermarkets and Department Stores Association of Mexico to allow teen-aged students to work as unpaid baggers. Wal-Mart stores in Mexico take full advantage of this agreement and have an estimated 19,000 unpaid teen workers between the ages of 14 and 16 years old at its stores.
Wal-Mart lets kids who are not on its payroll do volunteer bagging and other duties at its "Superama" stores in Mexico. The teenagers are not on the payroll and do not receive any benefits from Wal-Mart. Instead, they rely on tips from customers of the stores. To encourage tipping, the stores hang signs and banners that announce that the baggers are volunteers and do not receive any compensation other than the tips.
In a country where half of the citizens live off less than $4 per day, we can only assume these volunteers aren't really raking in the cash.
Wal-Mart's own international code of ethics expressly forbids any "associate" from working without compensation. However, the Mexican subsidiary says that these volunteer baggers can not be considered employees.
The Mexico City government's top labor official disagrees. Federal District Labor Secretary Benito Miron Lince calls the volunteer bagging program an injustice. He says that the baggers are providing a service on the stores' premises that benefits the company by providing a better customer experience. Currently, minimum wage in Mexico is less than $5 per day and Lince says that Wal-Mart certainly can afford to pay this to the workers.
The Wal-Mart chain of discount stores is making a healthy profit in Mexico. The retail giant had 893 retail stores open at the beginning of 2007 and plans to have added 125 more by the end of the year. And why not, considering how they can legally get kids to work for free?
Wal-Mart says that their program to allow teen baggers to work for free in their stores was designed "in accordance with the International Labor Organization's (ILO) Guidelines".
The program's accordance with ILO Guidelines is, however, being questioned by government officials in Mexico. Article 2 of the ILO's Convention 138 specifically prohibits the employment of 14-year-old children.
Three student researchers from the Autonomous University of Mexico conducted a study in which they documented violations of the 1999 agreement between the Supermarkets and Department Stores Association of Mexico and Mexican labor officials. The researchers conducted their study at the Wal-Mart Supercenter store in Southern Mexico City.
Among the violations that the researchers found were inadequate training and forcing teens to work double shifts which exceeded the six-hour-per-day limit established by the agreement. It appears that these non-employees are certainly being treated more like employees than volunteers at the Wal-Mart stores in Mexico.
So, why would these kids and their families allow them to be exploited by Wal-Mart? In Mexico, any opportunity to earn money for your family is a welcome one, even if it means just bagging up purchases in hopes of receiving a tip.
In the U.S. illegal immigration is considered a growing problem and certainly is a legal issue that plays largely in the press. However, considering the living conditions, extreme poverty and now the exploitation by U.S. companies that these people are subjected to, who can blame them for seeking out a better life for themselves and their families?
