On Tuesday, most PBS stations will be showing Frontline's Is Wal-Mart Good For America? The entire program will also be available online on Friday.
There also will be a report on Marketplace Tuesday on public radio
The program focuses on the pressure the companies which supply Wal-Mart are under to lower their prices which often means moving their factories overseas or losing sales.
Correspondent Hedrick Smith travels to Wal-Mart's HQ in Bentonville, Arkansas where many major companies have set up offices to sell to the country's largest company.
They interview Jon Lehman, a former Wal-Mart store manages who now is trying to organize workers at the company for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.
He describes their opening price point strategy where low cost items are advertised, "It’s the heart of Wal-Mart’s pricing strategy. Wal-Mart puts tremendous amount of planning, organization and thinking into what their opening price points are gonna be, based on last year’s sales; based on customer requests... It’s to get you in. You look at that, and you think, “Wow! What a great price.” Then they gotcha, because you walk about ten more feet, and you see the item you really want in that same category. Then you buy that item. But it’s not gonna be, probably, the lowest price in town. "
Frontline visits Shenzhen, China which has grown from a village to a city of seven million people with what will soon be the world's third largest port over the last 20 years. Some 80 percent of Wal-Mart's 6,000 suppliers are in China. Wages in manyy of the factories supplying Wal-Mart there range from 25 to 50 cents an hour.
There's a lot more in the show and there'll be a lot of background material on the Frontline website.
Store Wars is another documentary on Wal-Mart
Also see the transcripts of earlier reports on Wal-Mart on NOW with Bill Moyers
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Article comments
1 - MrPC
CNBC is also airing a 2 hr doc right now called "The Age of Wal-Mart." Very interesting neutral doc...this one tonight should be good too.
2 - Mac Diva
Thanks for posting this in a timely manner, Steve. (I'm always seeing suggestions on blogs after the show has run.) This is the kind of television I watch.