Prius Envy and the Greening of Wal-Mart: A Blind Spot for the Human ...

Tag : profiled steel

Can it be that our green heroes Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pittcare about the cachet of owning a Prius, but not about the abusedworkers making these feel-good cars?
A report from the National Labor Committee released earlier this month, alleging abusive working conditionsin Japanese Toyota Prius plants, provides a much needed jolt to theenvironmental and business communities about the danger of viewingenvironmental concerns as separate from human concerns.
Supervisory workers in Japanese Prius assembly plants areoverworked to the point of exhaustion, and sometimes, death, thereport said. One-third of assembly line workers are poorly paidtemp workers. Its parts supply chain is " riddled withsweatshop abuse," including trafficking of tens of thousandsof foreign guest workers, sometimes working 16-hour shifts. Thereport tweaks celebrities for endorsing the Prius withoutconsidering the human capital aspects behind the way they areproduced.
The urgency with which environmental groups, Al Gore, and the mediahave touted climate change as the defining issue of our time hasresulted in related workplace safety and health issues gettingbrushed aside. Toyota, along with GM and Ford were also cited in anextensively researched story from the Wall Street-oriented magazine Bloomberg Markets in December of 2006. The story linked slave labour conditions toproduction of pig iron used to produce steel that ends up in theirvehicles. That's right – slave labour in the 21st Century.
But it's not just Leo and Brad. There is culpability here for allof us, but I want to focus on corporations and environmentalgroups.
Corporations are still largely reactive on social issues. For morethan a decade, labour and social responsibility advocateshighlighted abusive working conditions of global suppliersproviding goods for Gap, Nike, Wndal-Mart a other corporate icons.Despite evidence that similar conditions existed in otherindustrial sectors, Corporate America continued to basically turn adeaf ear. National Labor Committee research touched off allegationsback in 1996 that Kathie Lee Gifford's clothing line sold atWal-Mart was made under sweatshop conditions, resulting inworldwide front-page headlines, the involvement of then-LaborSecretary Robert Reich and a presidential commission to improvesupply chain working conditions.
Other sectors such as electronics largely ignored this loud warningsignal until they too were implicated following activist researchin 2004. Suddenly, a few months later, the electronics industry gotreligion and developed a common code of conduct for their supplychain that is only now being seriously implemented.
The largest and most well funded US environmental groups focus toonarrowly on the environmental implications of broad social issues.It's hard to find substantive concern about worker safety in theagendas of the Natural Resources Defense Council or EnvironmentalDefense Fund (EDF), two heavyweight groups helping Wal-Mart fulfillits green agenda. They should be concerned about worker exposure tocadmium leading to kidney failure at Chinese battery factoriesserving the US market, or lead solder inhaled by workers inThailand who make components for computers or video games.Protecting the health of supply chain workers should be a prominentpart of their agenda.
Yes, it's great that Wal-Mart has made a raft of commitments toreduce waste and increase energy efficiency, but many of thosepromises have worker safety implications the environmental groupsand company seem willing to ignore. The strategy involves using thesize and influence of Wal-Mart's buying power to green its supplychain. It sounds good until you factor in the business realities.
EDF says it will "focus on creating a Green Company Programmeto improve environmental performance at the 30,000 Chinesefactories that supply Wal-Mart and on building a purchasing systemthat rewards suppliers with environmentally preferableproducts."But who is going to pay for this and what's theincentive to act?
Domestic and foreign Wal-Mart suppliers often act out of fear, notgoodwill. Fast Company has profiled domestic suppliers like Vlasicpickles and Huffy bicycles, both of which suffered from thecompany's relentless low pricing demands. It's a considerably moredifficult expectation that thousands of suppliers in China will gosolar or clean up wastewater discharged while making low-pricedgoods for US consumers. It's hard to imagine these suppliersgreening through some kind of reward system without a fundamentaltransformation of the low pricing model.
How will EDF and Wal-Mart coax suppliers into paying for clean upwhen they are already being squeezed by the company's buyers toproduce goods at rock bottom rates that perpetuate abusive workingconditions? In January, CEO Lee Scott discussed greening thecompany's supply chain and said the company "will favour– and in some cases, even pay more – for suppliers thatmeet our standards and share our commitment to quality andsustainability."
This implies the capital costs of cleaning up will be borne bysuppliers. If that is all the company can offer, it is not going towork. Wal-Mart often expects suppliers to cut prices annually orrisk losing contracts, according to Fast Company magazine. What ifa factory owner in China can bear the cost to retrofit factoriesbut Wal-Mart decides to pull the contract and source from Vietnamthe next year because labour is cheaper?
The take-no-prisoners business model comes up smack against thelaudable desire to clean up factories. Alexandra Harney's new book, The China Price , profiles an unusual factory owner in China who refuses to letWal-Mart executives into his facility, because he feels they areonly interested in getting the lowest price.
Is it too much to expect Wal-Mart to deal with labour and greenissues at once? US industry was able to deal with these issuessimultaneously when production was domestic; companies have thesame responsibility to ensure that the conditions under which theirgoods are made in a global supply chain are in compliance withlabour and environmental laws. It is appalling that US companieshave pursued the global outsourcing of labour without insistingthat our hard-won rules of workplace safety and fairness be appliedto suppliers. And we all play a role: mainstream investorsdemanding perpetually high earnings and consumers demanding lowprices place huge pressures on companies trying to play by therules.
So before we wax poetic about solar panels in the way we have forthe Prius, remember that solar production involves some nastystuff. The Washington Post recently reported that a supplier to solar panel provider SuntechPower dumps poisonous silicon tetrachloride, a byproduct ofpolysilicon manufacturing, onto fields in Henan Province in Chinarather than recycling it. Residents report that nearby crops arefailing and air emissions from the facility make it hard tobreathe.
Memo to self-styled green venture capitalists: Could we please seethe line items in your budget for ensuring worker health and safetywhen your solar start-up scales up and moves production to Asia? Ismanagement staff paying attention? How often are factoriesinspected? Are you willing to invest in safety for the human beingsin your supply chain?
The bottom line: For CSR and the green technology juggernaut tohave real credibility, companies must insist on best environmentalpractices in the rush to new energy solutions, equal considerationfor the well-being of workers by enforcing best labour practices,and public disclosure of progress on both fronts.
Conrad MacKerron is director of the corporate social responsibilityprogram at As You Sow Foundation , which uses dialogue and shareholder advocacy to promote bettersocial and environmenta l policies at publicly traded companies. Heis author of "Business in the Rainforests: Corporations,Deforestation and Sustainability" and a former WashingtonBureau chief for Chemical Week.

This article first appeared at Greenbiz.com Tags: National-labor-committee , Csr , Supply-chain , Workers-rights