Wal-Mart Wanted.

New York City

The National Labor Committee is taking on Wal-Mart for its treatment of sweatshop workers.

The New York-based organization that campaigns against sweatshops says it conducted a 1997 study showing company contractors in China are mistreating workers.

"Wal-Mart is actually lowering standards in China, slashing wages and benefits, imposing long mandatory overtime shifts, while tolerating the arbitrary firing of workers who even dare to discuss factory conditions," says the group. "Factories like Liang Shi, where `Kathie Lee' hand-bags are made, pay the young women as little as twelve-and-a half cents an hour, forcing them to work eighty-four hours a week, while keeping them under constant surveillance. Some workers are in the position of indentured servants, not being paid for several months. The workers are housed in dirty, cramped rooms and fed a thin rice gruel."

Activists with the National Labor Committee plan to send thousands of WAL-MART WANTED posters around the world. The group is targeting Wal-Mart because it is the largest retailer in the world, with 825,000 employees and $118 billion in yearly sales. In 1997, Wal-Mart's profits were $7 billion.

"We try to do what's right and always have," says Wal-Mart in response to the campaign. "Since 1992, we have required our vendors and suppliers to abide by our `Standards for Vendors' policy.... In fact, Wal-Mart has ceased doing business with 120 factories for violating our vendor standards." Those standards require the company to comply with the laws of the host country. They...