Walmart in China

Walmart and "Made in China" are practically synonymous; Walmart imports some 70 percent of its merchandise from China. Walmart is now also rapidly becoming a major retail presence there, with close to two hundred Walmarts in more than a hundred Chinese cities. What happens when the world's biggest retailer and the world's biggest country do business with each other? In this book, a group of thirteen experts from several disciplines examine the symbiotic but strained relationship between these giants. The book shows how Walmart began cutting costs by bypassing its American suppliers and sourcing directly from Asia and how Walmart's sheer size has trumped all other multinationals in squeezing procurement prices and, as a by-product, driving down Chinese workers’ wages. China is also an inviting frontier for Walmart’s global superstore expansion. As China's middle class grows, the chain's Western image and affordable goods have become popular. Walmart's Arkansas headquarters exports to the Chinese stores a unique corporate culture and management ideology, which oddly enough are reminiscent of Mao-era Chinese techniques for promoting loyalty. Three chapters separately detail the lives of a Walmart store manager, a lower-level store supervisor, and a cashier. Another chapter focuses on employees' wages, "voluntary" overtime, and the stores' strict labor discipline. In 2006, the official Chinese trade union targeted Walmart, which is antilabor in its home country, and succeeded in setting up union branches in all the stores. Walmart in China reveals the surprising outcome.

Anita Chan's newly edited book, Walmart in China, is one of the best academic works on Chinese labor in recent years..As one of the finest scholarly works generated from international cooperation, this book opens at least two important areas for further exploration. First, labor relations in Walmart stores are worth further ethnographic exploration. Second, it would be interesting to study the evolving role of trade unions since the CCP-led state has emphasized trade union reform and wage bargaining from 2010., The authors demonstrate how the sheer scale of Walmart intimidates suppliers into accepting tight lead times, leading to illegally long working hours, an increase in outsourcing, and an atmosphere of insecurity and powerlessness at almost all levels in the supply chain.... Chan and her fellow contributors provide labour activists with considerable food for thought, and—who knows—maybe even a few sleepless nights for some of the most committed antitrade union executives on the planet., The book provides a multidimensional analysis of Walmartization in China.... The essays show some optimism for the future of Walmart's labour movement, with critical suggestions provided for key parties., The book's contributors used cloak-and-dagger fieldwork skills to provide a sharp picture of labor conditions at Walmart’s suppliers and in its Chinese stores. They show that the company’s Ethical Standards Program has done little to prevent sweatshop-like abuses among its suppliers. On the other hand, its store employees have taken easily to the corporate culture, whose Christian- and rural-inflected ethos meshes with Chinese traditions of moral exhortation, mutual surveillance, and the pursuit of personal ambition through collective service., This is a skillfully crafted account of the phenomenon known as the Walmartization of China. All the chapters are nicely woven together in a cohesive whole, a rare feat and noteworthy achievement. It is informative, insightful, and so very timely. I would strongly recommend it to anyone who wants to understand theglobal supply chain and how the growing dominance of retailing over manufacturing is shaping the world we live in. It will appeal to a wide audience, ranging from academics, managers, and businesspeople to anyone that has ever come into contact with Walmart.

Anita Chan is Research Professor at the China Research Centre of the University of Technology, Sydney. She is the author of China's Workers under Assault: The Exploitation of Labor in a Globalizing Economy and Children of Mao: Personality Development and Political Activism in the Red Guard Generation and coauthor of Chen Village: Revolution to Globalization.