Case Analysis

According to the Council on Ethics� recommendation of 15 November 2005 �An extensive body of material indicates that Wal-Mart consistently and systematically employs minors in contravention of international rules, that working conditions at many of its suppliers are dangerous or health-hazardous, that workers are pressured into working overtime without compensation, that the company systematically discriminates against women in pay, that all attempts to unionise by the company�s employees are stopped, that employees are in a number of cases unreasonably punished and locked in, along with a number of other circumstances��.

The Council�s assessments encompass Wal-Mart�s business operations in the USA and Canada, and at its suppliers in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Lesotho, Kenya, Uganda, Namibia, Malawi, Madagascar, Swaziland, Bangladesh, China and Indonesia.

The Council on Ethics summarises its recommendation as follows: �What makes this case special is the sum total of ethical norm violations, both in the company�s own business operations and in the supplier chain. It appears to be a systematic and planned practice on the part of the company to hover at, or cross, the bounds of what are accepted norms for the work environment. Many of the violations are serious, most appear to be systematic, and altogether they form a picture of a company whose overall activity displays a lack of willingness to countervail violations of norms in its business operations.�

The Council, through Norges Bank (Bank of Norway - the central bank), wrote to Wal-Mart on 14 September 2005 inviting them to comment on the allegations of complicity in violations of human rights and labour rights. Wal-Mart did not respond to this letter.

The Ministry of Finance has dialogued with Norges Bank on the possibilities for exercising ownership rights as an instrument vis-�-vis Wal-Mart. In a letter of 6 January this year Norges Bank wrote that it would like to exercise its ownership...