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Lisa is in Buenos Aires, Argentina for the UNI Walmart Global Union Alliance meeting. Here is her account:



26 June 2013 Day Three



Today is my last day in Buenos Aires



09:00 Meeting with the UNI Global Alliance members continues. Each country representative of the Alliance, in their turn, explains to the plenary their activities and plan of action to keep the buzz on Walmart’s labour malpractices. The members of Our Walmart in the US are adamant: the Alliance’s concerted effort can only generate a positive impact for the global campaign! United in this fight for putting a halt to indecent working conditions can only make us stronger. Many workers where Walmart operate worldwide are refused the right to organise. Only together we will win this fight. They thank UNI for forming the Walmart Global Alliance, a successful step and an integral part of the US campaign. A petition to be submitted to Walmart management is circulated to the plenary to stop the recent illegal retaliation and dismissal of workers who dared to stand up for their rights. Each of UNI’s Commerce affiliates agree to adopt one of the ten fired workers and to take their story to the workers and management as well as holding support actions.



12:00 Lunch



14:00 We hear Nick Rudikoff’s intervention on Walmart’s supply chain. There are 1.4 million Walmart employees in the US and 2.2 million Walmart in total around the world. But if we include all of the suppliers in warehouses, in trucking and in manufacturing, we could imagine that there can easily be another one million workers who are directly involved in making Walmart’s business work. Workers in domestic and international supply chain are our campaign’s natural allies. Nick reminds the audience of the tragic Bangladesh story and that Walmart worldwide count more than one hundred thousand suppliers and contractors, especially for importing goods. The main reason for using such a complex chain is to maximise deals with minimum costs. We learn that 80 per cent of all Walmart brands are made in China, Cambodia, Chile, and Bangladesh. Walmart’s revenue exceeds double the revenues of French Carrefour and UK Tesco put together, with some 446 billion USD yearly.



What I hear is just greed, greed, and again greed with exploitation going all the way down the chain onto worker's shoulders. The essence of our campaign is to hold the company accountable for its supply chain and put a stop to such exploitation.



Nick’s excellent intervention enthused many of the participants who commit to do more, reach out further and get the impact needed for change.



16:00 I thank every single participant as I say goodbye and head off to the airport.



There has a been a lot going on this week. My journey finishes here and so does my mission with UNI Global Union. The past two years running such campaign has been a very rich experience. I am not sure what I will miss more, travelling around the world to spread the word on Walmart’s failings or meeting with all these motivated workers, hearing their stories and building on their experience!



Tomorrow is another day but for the time being I am left with pride and gratefulness for having contributed to such a successful global campaign. The show must go on!