Voices
cutting corners on safety, wages
and environmental stewardship.
In 2004 and 2005, I visited
scores of factories making a range
of goods for Walmart in southern
China, from baby strollers to cabinets for stereo speakers. Seemingly every factory that had a direct
contract to produce for Walmart
appeared gleaming, well-lit and
new, indistinguishable from industrial facilities in the U.S.,
Japan and Germany. They maintained logs inspected by the auditors who visited.
But the people running such
factories often confided that they
saw no way to avoid farming out
some tasks to less-regulated facilities, and typically without Walmart
knowing about it. That was the only
way they could make what Walmart
wanted at the price Walmart was
willing to pay, they said.
Inside Walmart’s global procurement center in Shenzhen, agents
from factories throughout China sat
in plastic chairs, waiting to meet
with buyers for the largest retailer
on earth. They sat alongside representatives from their competitors.
When the agents got their turn
to sit face to face with a Walmart
representative, they found that the
conversation was far from a nego-
PETER S.
GOODMAN
HUFFINGTON
05.