Walmart

Norway dumps Wal-Mart

The Norwegian Government Pension Fund, currently worth about $250 billion, is one of the biggest pension funds in the world. Earlier this year the fund's Council on Ethics advised it to sell $430 million worth of stock held in Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Wal-Mart de Mexico and Freeport McMoran Copper & Gold Inc. The Council on Ethics claimed that 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", and that attempts to organise workers into unions are stopped.

Its research on Freeport found that the company, which operates one of the world's largest copper mines on the Indonesian half of the island of New Guinea, uses a natural river to dispose of 230,000 tonnes of mine waste a day. The Council found the environmental damage caused by the company's operations to be "extensive, long-term and irreversible...with considerable negative consequences for the indigenous peoples residing in the area".

When approached by the Norwegian finance ministry neither company chose to provide evidence refuting the allegations and fund sold NOK2.5 billion of Wal-Mart stock and NOK116 million of Freeport stock. The fund has previously dumped stock in companies involved with nuclear weapons and land mines including Boeing, Honeywell International and Northrop Grumman. According to officials, the clean-up campaign has only just begun and the fund's portfolio of 3,500 overseas companies is being screened for further companies involved in human rights abuses and environmental damage.

This article appeared in the Ethical Consumer magazine - January/February 2007

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