America's Union Movement (AFL-CIO)
Protest Wal-Mart Child Labour
Write CEO Lee Scott to say you won't buy school supplies from Wal-Mart.
from America's Union Movement (AFL-CIO)
Dateline: Friday, July 22, 2005
Connecticut just fined Wal-Mart for child labour law violations. And in January, Wal-Mart agreed to pay $134 540 after being cited for child labour violations in Connecticut, Arkansas and New Hampshire.
Really, that's not the kind of place we want to shop for our children's back-to-school supplies, is it?
This is a great opportunity to send a strong message to Wal-Mart and start the children in your life on the way to activism. Help them write letters, by August 1, to Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott telling him why their families won't buy school supplies from Wal-Mart this year. Here are some unpleasant facts about Wal-Mart they can use as they write their letters:
Several states have found Wal-Mart workers younger than 18 operating dangerous equipment, such as chain saws.
Wal-Mart has racked up huge fines for child labour law violations. The rich company reportedly makes children younger than 18 work through their meal breaks, work very late and even work during school hours. Several states have found Wal-Mart workers younger than 18 operating dangerous equipment, such as chain saws, and working in dangerous areas like trash compactors. (The New York Times, 1/13/04; The Associated Press, 2/18/05; The Hartford Courant, 6/18/05)
Wal-Mart pays poverty-level wages and fails to provide affordable health insurance to more than 600 000 employees. That means Wal-Mart workers and their families have a hard time paying the bills and getting the health care they need. (Wal-Mart annual reports; Business Week, 10/2/03)
Wal-Mart has a shameful record of paying women less than men and discriminating against moms. Wal-Mart paid full-time male employees $5000 more than women on average in 2001. Some 1.6 million women are eligible to join a class-action lawsuit charging Wal-Mart with discrimination. (Richard Drogin, PhD, 2/03; Los Angeles Times, 12/30/04)
Wal-Mart sells products made by young people in other countries who work in horrible conditions over long hours for little money doing dangerous jobs. In Africa, workers who make clothing for Wal-Mart are forced to put in too many hours, are yelled at by their bosses, are not paid enough to take care of their families and can't even take breaks to use the bathroom. Wal-Mart refused to investigate stories that shoes and jeans from Asia were being made by workers in forced labour camps. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 11/14/04; China Labor Watch, the National Labor Committee and Clean Clothes Campaign reports)
Wal-Mart can afford to do better. Wal-Mart, America's largest private employer, raked in $10 billion in profits last year. CEO Lee Scott landed nearly $23 million in total compensation last year alone. Wal-Mart has no excuse for its behavior.
Help your children write letters telling Scott his company is hurting families, communities and children here and around the world, and that's why your family won't be shopping for back-to-school supplies at Wal-Mart this year. Please send the letters to:
Lee Scott
C/O Wal-Mart Campaign
AFL-CIO
815 16th St, NW
Washington DC 20006
We'll see that Scott gets the message loud and clear.
Thank you for working to stop the Wal-Mart-ing of America's jobs and for getting the children involved.
Link to story at AFL-CIO in the U.S.A. click here
Don't Spank - Canadian Paediatric Society
Effective discipline for children
Reaffirmed: February 1, 2014
Principal author(s)
P Nieman, S Shea; Canadian Paediatric Society, Community Paediatrics Committee
Paediatric Child Health 2004;9(1):37-41
The word discipline means to impart knowledge and skill - to teach. However, it is often equated with punishment and control. There is a great deal of controversy about the appropriate ways to discipline children, and parents are often confused about effective ways to set limits and instill self-control in their child.
In medical and secular literature, there is great diversity of opinion about the short-term and long-term effects of various disciplinary methods, especially the use of disciplinary spanking. This statement reviews the issues concerning childhood discipline and offers practical guidelines for physicians to use in counselling parents about effective discipline.
The Canadian Paediatric Society recommends that physicians take an anticipatory approach to discipline, including asking questions about techniques used in the home. Physicians should actively counsel parents about discipline and should strongly discourage the use of spanking.
Spanking May Lead to Aggression Later in Life
ABC TV, USA
07 February, 2012
Physical punishment of children, such as spanking, is increasingly linked with long-term adverse consequences, researchers wrote.
An analysis of research conducted since the 1990 adoption of the UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child suggests that no studies have found positive consequences of physical punishment, according to Joan Durrant of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, and Ron Ensom of the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa.
While some studies have found little effect either way, most research has uncovered a range of negative outcomes, including increased aggression and later delinquency, Durrant and Ensom wrote online in CMAJ.
The clinical implication, they suggested, is that doctors who are familiar with the research can help parents find more constructive ways of providing discipline.
"In doing so, physicians strengthen child well-being and parent-child relationships at the population level," they wrote.
They noted that as recently as 1992, physical punishment of children was widely accepted, thought of as distinct from abuse, and considered "appropriate" as a way of eliciting desired behavior.
But research under way at that time was beginning to draw links between physical punishment and aggression in childhood, later delinquency, and spousal assault.
The Supreme Court of Canada -
Cour suprême du Canada
Corporal Punishment of Children Decision
Alyson Schafer on Spanking and Corporal Punishment of Children
Alyson Schafer is a psychotherapist and one of Canada's leading parenting experts. She's the author of the best-selling "Breaking the Good Mom Myth" (Wiley, 2006) and host of TV's The Parenting Show a live call-in show in Toronto, Ontario.
The media relies on Alyson's comments and opinions. you can find her interviewed and quoted extensively in such publications as Cosmopolitan, Readers' Digest, Canadian Living, Today's Parents, and Canadian Families.
You can read Alyson's thoughts.
Parenting style can change child behaviour
CTV.ca News Staff, February 21, 2005
Parents who are punitive tend to have aggressive children. But a new survey suggests that when parenting practices change, a child's behaviour also changes.
The results of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) suggests children show higher levels of aggression, are more anxious and less altruistic when parents have a more punitive parenting style.