Oh yeah.. they're REALLY helping.
Two examples of what I said:
Carolina Mills is a 75-year-old company that supplies thread, yarn, and textile finishing to apparel-makers—half of which supply Wal-Mart. But since 2000, Carolina Mills' customers have begun to find imported clothing sold so cheaply at Wal-Mart, that Carolina Mills could not compete even if they paid their workers nothing!
Since 2000, Carolina Mills has shrunk from 17 factories to 7, and from 2,600 employees to 1,200.
Steve Dobbins, the CEO of Carolina Mills, told the December issue of Fast-Company magazine: "People ask, 'How can it be bad for things to come into the U.S. cheaply? How can it be bad to have a bargain at Wal-Mart?' But you can't buy anything if you're not employed. We are shopping ourselves out of jobs" (emphasis added).
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Lovable Garments, which was founded in 1926, had, by the 1990s, become the sixth-largest producer of women's lingerie in the United States, employing 700 workers. Wal-Mart became the biggest purchaser of Lovable's goods; in 1995, Wal-Mart demanded that Lovable slash its prices to compete with cheap imports.
When Lovable indicated it could not do that, Wal-Mart illegally reneged on its contract, and outsourced the lingerie production to Ibero-America, Asia, and China. Without the Wal-Mart market, in 1998 Lovable had to close its American manufacturing facilities and fire the workers.
Stated Frank Garson, who was then Lovable's president, "Their actions to pulverize people are unnecessary. Wal-Mart chewed us up and spit us out."
