Not a super market

Wal-Mart, says director Robert Greenwald in this understandably ill-tempered but striking documentary, is the world's largest, richest and meanest corporation now that Enron has fled the scene.

The hypermarket, which owns Asda in Britain, employs 1,200,000 "associates" in America, at an average wage of $9 and 70 cents an hour, despite its huge profits.

Many of them can't afford the company's healthcare plan and when they do overtime to augment their skimpy salaries, managers often cross the extra hours off their pay cheques.

One employee says that when she receives her money, she cashes the cheque at Wal-Mart and spends it all right there on the week's groceries.

Another complains that women and black Americans are not encouraged to apply for jobs in management.

Added to that, there are surveillance cameras everywhere, not only to stop thieving but to prevent any malcontents from trying to unionise.

In one place where surveillance would be useful, in the car parks, there are no cameras, and well-above average incidents of criminal damage.

In his quest to expose Wal-Mart, Greenwald even travels to China to show sweatshops churning out goods which the supermarket then sells at a huge profit.

All this, if as true as it appears to be from the evidence of former associates and managers, would be enough to condemn the company in most people's eyes, whatever the high-ups say when addressing employees at upbeat, morale-boosting jamborees.

But Greenwald hasn't done yet. He complains that hundreds of small businesses across America have been rendered obsolete by the arrival of Wal-Mart in their areas, and that Asda is in the process of doing the same to local shops and markets in Britain and Germany.