Progressive Christians Uniting

Wal-Mart and Garden Grove: Standing in Unity

Perhaps you’ve heard the news…Wal-Mart wants to build a 177,000 square foot Super Center in Garden Grove…smack dab in the middle of a community known for small, family-owned businesses. As someone who has lived in a Wal-Mart community for many years, I know first-hand that unless this corporation changes their employment practices, the introduction of Wal-Mart to a neighborhood essentially guarantees that small businesses will vanish. This, in my opinion, is a virtual travesty and is simply immoral and unethical.

Now I’m about as frugal as anyone, so, of course, when Wal-Mart came to Foothill Ranch (where I live), I ran as fast as I could to see for myself the “falling prices.” But I quickly realized that the low prices came at a much higher cost. It meant that the little pharmacy where I filled my daughters’ prescriptions couldn’t compete. Within months of Wal-Mart opening, this small business-owner, who probably put the bulk of his life-savings into starting a business in a new community, hung up a “Going Out of Business” sign. I was devastated for him.

But I really wasn’t convinced Wal-Mart’s employment practices were utterly destructive until the grocery store strike/lock-out of three years ago.

Prompted by the grocery chains feeling the pressure to compete with non-union Wal-Mart…a company that pays low wages and provides little or no health insurance to its employees, service workers from grocery stores throughout Southern California were walking picket lines in an attempt to maintain their current wage and benefit packages.

Feeling a sense of solidarity with people who have served me at my local Ralphs for many, many years, I decided to walk the lines with them. I brought them food and drinks as often as possible, and wrote letters to my neighbors and to the editors of our newspapers in support of the employees’ desire to be paid a living wage and to have access to affordable healthcare.

As people of faith, no matter what our religious tradition, one thing we can affirm together is that all employers should “put families first” and operate their businesses in a way that assures that employees can afford to buy food and put a roof over their heads.

According to organizations such as Wal-Mart Watch and Wake Up Walmart, this corporation does not ensure that its employees are paid a competitive, living wage.

The Main Street Coalition, comprised of Garden Grove residents, community leaders, faith groups, unions/labor organizations and other concerned citizens, have come together in a unified effort to ask Wal-Mart to change their employment practices. Committed to “Preserving Garden Grove’s Quality of Life,” the Main Street Coalition is asking Wal-Mart to change it’s employment practices, and should they refuse, the group is prepared to take a stand against the building of a Wal-Mart Super Center in the city.

Thursday night at 7:00 P.M., the Main Street Coalition invites you to join them in an Interfaith Candlelight Vigil praying for Wal-Mart to change. The event will take place at the corner of Brookhurst and Chapman in Garden Grove, at the proposed site of the Wal-Mart Super Center (the old Von’s Pavillions).

Representatives from Progressive Christians Uniting, as well as leaders from other faith traditions, will join together in this coordinated effort to urge Wal-Mart, America’s largest employer (with 1.39 million employees and $11.3 billion in profits) to do what is right and “put families first” this holiday season.

Please make the time on Thursday evening to join with other community leaders and people of faith and make known your commitment to economic justice.

It is the Main Street Coalition’s sincere “Hope for the Holidays” that Wal-Mart will change for the better, do what is morally and ethically right, honor the teachings of faith leaders, and reflect the best of American values.

For more information about this event, please contact of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice.

Posted under: Happening in the World, Orange County