Post by crudo on Mar 21, 2006 2:15:22 GMT -5
Rolling Back on Wal-Mart: Ripon Responds to Super Stores
By crudo of D.A.A.A. Collective
Two DAAA, (Direct Action Anti-Authoritarians), Collective members went to a local Ripon park several weeks ago to enjoy some time with their children to discover that a local group, Ripon Cares, was organizing a protest march against a proposed Wal-Mart Superstore. The central valley has been a hot bed of local opposition to Wal-Mart in the last couple of years. Many central valley cars can been seen with anti-Wal-Mart stickers, and film showings of the recent documentary, “The High Cost of Low Prices”, has been shown several times in the past year. Currently, Wal-Mart is in court, trying to get a store into Turlock, (a town close to Modesto), but the city still holds a ban on it building in the community(1). Also, people in Merced, (located 40 minutes south of Modesto/Ripon), have formed a group to oppose Wal-Mark stores in their areas, and are calling themselves, MARG, or Merced Alliance for Responsible Growth (2). While at least from my perspective, the Wal-Mart opposition in Turlock has been largely through the city council and city government, and the organizing being done by MARG largely that of established liberal and leftist groups, the organizing being done by Ripon Cares has largely been that of people from Ripon that have organically come to oppose the stores. While I will be critical of some of positions of Ripon Cares (3) in this short piece, we here at the DAAA Collective always stand in solidarity with working class and oppressed people self-organizing in autonomous avenues of social struggle.
Wal-Mart makes close to 35 million dollars per hour (4), and even makes up 10% of China’s GDP, (Gross Domestic Product) (5). With all of this money coming in, it’s also hard to believe that Wal-Mart on average pays their workers only $18,000 a year, (6), and also gets over 4 billion dollars in U.S. government subsidies. Wal-Mart pays so little, that often states, (through tax payers), end up paying in food stamps, health care, and other services, just to help Wal-Mart workers survive. Wal-Mart employs over 1.2 million people in the US alone, and still fail to provide heath-insurance for more than half of them (7). Wal-Mart stores also of course drive up the costs of roads and other city utilities, increase urban sprawl and smog, and also drive out locally owned businesses. Wal-Mart counters all of this by stating that they are simply existing within the market, and being competitive, and that they also pay and give out health-care to their workers at the same rates or better as other large retail corporations.
In this sense, Wal-Mart is right that they are competitive, and it would be foolish to push for better working conditions at Wal-Mart just so other stores would follow suit. However, it should be noted that other large corporations have used Wal-Mart as an excuse to drive wages down, cut benefits, and push for the elimination of things that workers have worked to hold on to. The influence that Wal-Mart has over the current market is a perfect reason to resist it, and to point to it’s systemic exploitation of workers, the environment, and communities, to further an anti-capitalist project. Largely, these challenges to working people have gone on without much of a fight, case in point being the Southern California Grocery strikes, which ended with labor leaders excepting a two tear system, in which new hires got less benefits than older workers. Hierarchal unions by and large have been more interested in pushing policy and integrating into the machinery of capitalism, than fighting it’s realities. While youth and workers in France militantly resist the market of capital, here in America we still remain passive.
Opposition to the box stores, (Wal-Mart stores with grocery sections), in Ripon largely has come from a desire to keep Ripon the small town that it always has been, and to keep businesses locally owned. While this of course it an admirable goal, and better than the more corporate alternative, it of course rests in the logic that some forms of capitalism are good, while others are bad. Also, ultimately the existence of agricultural based communities like Ripon rest on the usage of immigrant and exploited labor, and it is from this exploited labor that these communities thrive. While many people attack the abuses of Wal-Mart and other conglomerates of capital, they often fail to see the racist foundations, (as well as sexist, etc), that our ‘home-grown’ capitalism is fostered upon. Also, it is through city councils, deals with developers from outside the community, and economic forces and institutions in the various cities, that allow various elites to get these things into our cities. Until workers and communities control the means of production for their own benefit as a community, and reject these various institutions of class society, these problems will continue to happen.
Having said that, when the DAAA Collective marched in solidarity with about 40-50 other people in Ripon, (which was a pretty large size for that small town of 13,000), it was great to see a wide range of people, young and old, unionized and not, brown and white, anarchists and un-affiliated protestors, hitting the streets to get the word out. Many local stores had anti-Wal-Mart signs, and many drivers by honked their horns. The next week, a picture of the protest, (DAAA Collective banner reading, “Wal-Mart: Anti-Union, Anti-Worker, Anti-Community”), appeared on the front page of the Ripon Record (8). According to the newspaper, Wal-Mart has announced that after the protest, they will not be opening the store on the same area where they had originally hoped, (in the heart of Ripon’s main street). While the protest probably had an affect, they were also probably swayed by calls, ongoing organizing, and various meetings that groups have been conducting, (although largely this has been aimed at pressuring the city council). This does not mean that a Wal-Mart will not be built in Ripon, although the spokesperson said that Wal-Mart is planning on building the store slightly outside of Ripon, in a section of corporate sprawl that includes a Starbucks, and other corporate tripe.
As anarchists who seek to not only maximize the class struggle against hierarchal and capitalist relationships, but to also increase decentralized and self-organization of resistance, we seek to include ourselves in this struggle against Wal-Mart. In doing so however, we come at it from a perspective of anti-capitalism, and also internationalism and solidarity with all workers who are exploited, alienated, and in struggle against capital. We are excited by this new turn of events, and hope to continue to add our voice not only in solidarity against Wal-Mart with other local residents, but also for a radical critique of capitalism in general. Their peace is a lie, underneath this sprawling concrete lies the class war of modern capital. For autonomous organization and maximum class struggle.
DAAA Collective
www.modanarcho.tk
modanarcho@yahoo.com
Call Us!: 1 866 457 4230
1.) reclaimdemocracy.org/walmart/turlock_ban_upheld.html
2.) www.modbee.com/business/story/11877634p-12649069c.html
3.) www.riponcares.com/4471.html
4.) Ripon Cares Fact Sheet
5.) Ripon Cares Fact Sheet
6.) Ripon Cares Fact Sheet
7.) walmarthingych.com/img/downloads/healthcare.pdf
8.) www.riponrecordnews.com/page1.pdf
By crudo of D.A.A.A. Collective
Two DAAA, (Direct Action Anti-Authoritarians), Collective members went to a local Ripon park several weeks ago to enjoy some time with their children to discover that a local group, Ripon Cares, was organizing a protest march against a proposed Wal-Mart Superstore. The central valley has been a hot bed of local opposition to Wal-Mart in the last couple of years. Many central valley cars can been seen with anti-Wal-Mart stickers, and film showings of the recent documentary, “The High Cost of Low Prices”, has been shown several times in the past year. Currently, Wal-Mart is in court, trying to get a store into Turlock, (a town close to Modesto), but the city still holds a ban on it building in the community(1). Also, people in Merced, (located 40 minutes south of Modesto/Ripon), have formed a group to oppose Wal-Mark stores in their areas, and are calling themselves, MARG, or Merced Alliance for Responsible Growth (2). While at least from my perspective, the Wal-Mart opposition in Turlock has been largely through the city council and city government, and the organizing being done by MARG largely that of established liberal and leftist groups, the organizing being done by Ripon Cares has largely been that of people from Ripon that have organically come to oppose the stores. While I will be critical of some of positions of Ripon Cares (3) in this short piece, we here at the DAAA Collective always stand in solidarity with working class and oppressed people self-organizing in autonomous avenues of social struggle.
Wal-Mart makes close to 35 million dollars per hour (4), and even makes up 10% of China’s GDP, (Gross Domestic Product) (5). With all of this money coming in, it’s also hard to believe that Wal-Mart on average pays their workers only $18,000 a year, (6), and also gets over 4 billion dollars in U.S. government subsidies. Wal-Mart pays so little, that often states, (through tax payers), end up paying in food stamps, health care, and other services, just to help Wal-Mart workers survive. Wal-Mart employs over 1.2 million people in the US alone, and still fail to provide heath-insurance for more than half of them (7). Wal-Mart stores also of course drive up the costs of roads and other city utilities, increase urban sprawl and smog, and also drive out locally owned businesses. Wal-Mart counters all of this by stating that they are simply existing within the market, and being competitive, and that they also pay and give out health-care to their workers at the same rates or better as other large retail corporations.
In this sense, Wal-Mart is right that they are competitive, and it would be foolish to push for better working conditions at Wal-Mart just so other stores would follow suit. However, it should be noted that other large corporations have used Wal-Mart as an excuse to drive wages down, cut benefits, and push for the elimination of things that workers have worked to hold on to. The influence that Wal-Mart has over the current market is a perfect reason to resist it, and to point to it’s systemic exploitation of workers, the environment, and communities, to further an anti-capitalist project. Largely, these challenges to working people have gone on without much of a fight, case in point being the Southern California Grocery strikes, which ended with labor leaders excepting a two tear system, in which new hires got less benefits than older workers. Hierarchal unions by and large have been more interested in pushing policy and integrating into the machinery of capitalism, than fighting it’s realities. While youth and workers in France militantly resist the market of capital, here in America we still remain passive.
Opposition to the box stores, (Wal-Mart stores with grocery sections), in Ripon largely has come from a desire to keep Ripon the small town that it always has been, and to keep businesses locally owned. While this of course it an admirable goal, and better than the more corporate alternative, it of course rests in the logic that some forms of capitalism are good, while others are bad. Also, ultimately the existence of agricultural based communities like Ripon rest on the usage of immigrant and exploited labor, and it is from this exploited labor that these communities thrive. While many people attack the abuses of Wal-Mart and other conglomerates of capital, they often fail to see the racist foundations, (as well as sexist, etc), that our ‘home-grown’ capitalism is fostered upon. Also, it is through city councils, deals with developers from outside the community, and economic forces and institutions in the various cities, that allow various elites to get these things into our cities. Until workers and communities control the means of production for their own benefit as a community, and reject these various institutions of class society, these problems will continue to happen.
Having said that, when the DAAA Collective marched in solidarity with about 40-50 other people in Ripon, (which was a pretty large size for that small town of 13,000), it was great to see a wide range of people, young and old, unionized and not, brown and white, anarchists and un-affiliated protestors, hitting the streets to get the word out. Many local stores had anti-Wal-Mart signs, and many drivers by honked their horns. The next week, a picture of the protest, (DAAA Collective banner reading, “Wal-Mart: Anti-Union, Anti-Worker, Anti-Community”), appeared on the front page of the Ripon Record (8). According to the newspaper, Wal-Mart has announced that after the protest, they will not be opening the store on the same area where they had originally hoped, (in the heart of Ripon’s main street). While the protest probably had an affect, they were also probably swayed by calls, ongoing organizing, and various meetings that groups have been conducting, (although largely this has been aimed at pressuring the city council). This does not mean that a Wal-Mart will not be built in Ripon, although the spokesperson said that Wal-Mart is planning on building the store slightly outside of Ripon, in a section of corporate sprawl that includes a Starbucks, and other corporate tripe.
As anarchists who seek to not only maximize the class struggle against hierarchal and capitalist relationships, but to also increase decentralized and self-organization of resistance, we seek to include ourselves in this struggle against Wal-Mart. In doing so however, we come at it from a perspective of anti-capitalism, and also internationalism and solidarity with all workers who are exploited, alienated, and in struggle against capital. We are excited by this new turn of events, and hope to continue to add our voice not only in solidarity against Wal-Mart with other local residents, but also for a radical critique of capitalism in general. Their peace is a lie, underneath this sprawling concrete lies the class war of modern capital. For autonomous organization and maximum class struggle.
DAAA Collective
www.modanarcho.tk
modanarcho@yahoo.com
Call Us!: 1 866 457 4230
1.) reclaimdemocracy.org/walmart/turlock_ban_upheld.html
2.) www.modbee.com/business/story/11877634p-12649069c.html
3.) www.riponcares.com/4471.html
4.) Ripon Cares Fact Sheet
5.) Ripon Cares Fact Sheet
6.) Ripon Cares Fact Sheet
7.) walmarthingych.com/img/downloads/healthcare.pdf
8.) www.riponrecordnews.com/page1.pdf