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Walmart is coming under increased scrutiny for its ties to a garment factory in Dhaka where 112 workers were trapped and killed in a fire in late November 2012. The company, which buys $1 billion in clothing a year from Bangladesh, initially tried to deny any connection.

Swedish company H&M, the world's second-largest clothing retailer, is under pressure to cut ties with supplier South Korea-based Daewoo International and others that purchase cotton from Uzbekistan, where the government allegedly forces children and adults to harvest the white fiber for little or no pay.

Clothing chain retailer Forever 21 has been sued by the U.S. government for ignoring a subpoena requesting information on how much the company's suppliers pays the workers who make its clothes. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the salaries are well under the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

A decision by the Indian government to allow foreign multinationals to invest in the country's $500 billion retail market is expected to spell the death knell for thousands of small, family-owned shops and even threatens street hawkers, who have supplied local neighborhoods for generations.

Eduardo Castro-Wright, the former CEO of Walmart Stores USA, has been accused of orchestrating a $24 million bribery scheme to expand the company's presence in Mexico between 2002 and 2005. The alleged scheme involved a series of payoffs to Mexican city governments, according to an investigation by the New York Times

Is Walmart going green? Mike Duke, the company's CEO, says in a new 126 page report that the company is becoming more sustainable and responsible while "building meaningful, long-term change." Activists disagree. Walmart's "environmental impact has only grown over the last seven years" they say in a counter-report.

Adidas, the German sportswear company, is making Olympics uniforms for the UK team at sweatshops in Tangerang city, near the main international airport of Jakarta, Indonesia. Young female workers are paid 5,000 rupiah (54 cents) an hour for a 65 hour work week, according to revelations made in the Independent newspaper.

A growing group of chain-store corporations that cater to America's poor with cheap goods are classifying workers as managers. By categorizing employees as salaried managers these dollar stores avoid paying overtime wages that the Fair Labor Standards Act mandates for hourly workers.

It's not just that the police didn't get the joke, it's that they don't get that they the new era of political protest, one adapted to our post-modern times. There was no one person or group who could call off "their people," because the tens of thousands who came out to protest the Free Trade Area of the Americas are part of a movement that doesn't have a leader, a center, or even an agreed-upon name.

Originally posted on July 24 at http://dirtdiggersdigest.org/archives/703.

It's manufactured in China, shipped thousands of miles overseas, made with plastic and could take years to decompose. It's also the hot "green" giveaway of the moment: the reusable shopping bag.

As the biggest beast in the jungle, Tesco has been accused of monopolisation, exploitation and bullying anyone who dares to stand in its way. It has become a lightning rod for every critic of corporate power, homogenised high streets and the malign influence of multinationals in the developing world.

But after waging an aggressive public relations campaign against Wal-Mart for three years, the company's full-time, union-backed critics, who once vowed never to let up, are lowering their pitchforks.

Pharmacy-benefits manager Express Scripts Inc. agreed Tuesday to pay $9.5 million to settle allegations that the company asked doctors to switch drugs primarily to get bigger rebates from pharmaceutical companies.

Wal-Mart Stores has put out a press release
patting itself on the back for promising the equivalent of about
$430,000 for disaster relief and reconstruction for the area of China
hit by a massive earthquake this week. The gesture was laudable but the
amount was less than impressive.

Worried about a repetition in Italy of the violent protests that occurred at a European Union meeting in Sweden last weekend, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said today that he wanted to open a dialogue with demonstrators who are planning to march at the Group of 8 summit meeting in Genoa next month.