Karthik Shekhar, who is coor­di­nat­ing UNI’s activ­i­ties in India on FDI and mul­ti-brand retail said, ​“Here in Del­hi all the mar­kets are closed and thou­sands are on the streets. They are strong­ly opposed to the Cabinet’s deci­sion and are mak­ing feel­ings known, espe­cial­ly their dis­trust of Walmart.”

In Shim­la, the cap­i­tal of Himachal Pradesh, over 6000 traders have closed their shops. Over 100,000 whole­salers, retail­ers and small traders in Mum­bai joined in the All-India strike action. Else­where in Maha­rash­tra retail­ers did not open their shops and it was a sim­i­lar sto­ry in Thane, Pune, Nag­pur and oth­er major cities and towns

Over 50 mil­lion small traders across India have put down their shut­ters as part of strike action aimed at get­ting the India gov­ern­ment to review its decision.

The mar­ket­place has always been at the heart of India – exu­ber­ant bazaars brim­ming with local hawk­ers and tra­di­tion­al wares and foods. But the country’s old-fash­ioned mar­kets may soon be eclipsed by the tow­er­ing ​“free mar­ket” of glob­al­iza­tion, as multi­na­tion­al super­stores push the gov­ern­ment to open the gates.

UNI Glob­al Union and its affil­i­at­ed unions in India, which rep­re­sent hun­dreds of thou­sands work­ers in the ser­vice sec­tors, are unit­ed in their oppo­si­tion to the deci­sion giv­ing a green light to the multi­na­tion­als with­out prop­er safeguards…. We believe that the com­pa­nies that respect glob­al labour stan­dards will con­tin­ue to respect them in India. But Wal­mart, and oth­ers who refuse to agree glob­al stan­dards, raise a seri­ous con­cern that, absent the right con­trols, the unfet­tered entry of Wal­mart to the Indi­an mar­ket could have dev­as­tat­ing effects upon numer­ous stakeholders.

The poten­tial Wal-Mar­ti­za­tion of India isn’t the company’s first attempt to cap­ture the world’s ​“emerg­ing mar­kets.” Wal-Mart has oper­at­ed in Chi­na for years, inge­nious­ly exploit­ing the Chi­nese both as a vast source of cheap man­u­fac­tur­ing labor and as a vast mar­ket for cheap Wal-Mart products.

Last year South Africa was swept up in a sim­i­lar con­tro­ver­sy over Wal-Mart ​‘s bid to set up shop through its African ​“part­ner” Mass­mart. In a major protest cam­paign, labor activists issued var­i­ous con­di­tions for access to South African con­sumers, includ­ing fair labor stan­dards and a com­mit­ment to invest in ​“devel­op­ing local agri­cul­ture, food pro­cess­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing.” Labor activists have also waged a legal chal­lenge to the deal and pushed for stronger gov­ern­ment guide­lines for cor­po­ra­tions to sup­port local jobs and small busi­ness­es. Though Wal-Mart’s economies of scale are hard for any strug­gling econ­o­my to resist, South Africans demon­strate that labor can lever­age col­lec­tive resis­tance against cor­po­rate hegemony.

The franchise’s Indi­an incar­na­tion, Bhar­ti-Wal­mart, faces a dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal land­scape. India doesn’t have the unique labor mil­i­tan­cy of South Africa. Mean­while it suf­fers from a thread­bare sup­ply-chain infra­struc­ture, which pro­vides an open­ing for multi­na­tion­als to meet swelling con­sumer demand.

And some have hailed retail mas­si­fi­ca­tion as a boon for India’s aspir­ing mid­dle class–yes, the legions of con­sumers who hunger for bright­ly-lit aisles stuffed with every imag­in­able mass-pro­duced good. The cor­po­ra­ti­za­tion of Indi­a’s retail sec­tor may be an inevitable byprod­uct of its over­all devel­op­ment agen­da, based on fren­zied mod­ern­iza­tion along­side har­row­ing social inequality.

But Wal-Mart’s rep­u­ta­tion for erod­ing eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty for Amer­i­can work­ers pro­vides an object les­son for poor­er coun­tries that are now dri­ving toward west­ern-style con­sumerism. (UNI notes Wal-Mart’s his­to­ry of union-bust­ing at U.S. stores as a sign that the com­pa­ny will be espe­cial­ly resis­tant on issues of work­ers’ rights in India).

So, if the expan­sion of multi­na­tion­al retail­ers is unavoid­able in the glob­al south, can civ­il soci­ety work to effec­tive­ly reg­u­late these cor­po­ra­tions? UNI’s cam­paign par­al­lels the actions of Wal-Mart watch­dogs in the U.S., which focus on mon­i­tor­ing labor prac­tices and rais­ing com­mu­ni­ties’ aware­ness of cor­po­rate mis­deeds. There’s an acknowl­edge­ment that even if the big box hege­mo­ny can’t be dis­man­tled alto­geth­er, activists can still agi­tate to hold the com­pa­ny account­able wher­ev­er it oper­ates and lim­it its eco­nom­ic grasp.

Jen­nifer Sta­ple­ton of the Unit­ed Food and Com­mer­cial Work­ers’ Mak­ing Change at Wal­mart cam­paign told ITT that the coun­tries that Wal-Mart is cur­rent­ly stalk­ing ought to look at how work­ers have fared in the coun­try of origin:

Wal­mart already has a his­to­ry of exploit­ing work­ers around the world, includ­ing the Unit­ed States, Chi­na, and Mex­i­co. The com­pa­ny also has a record of putting small­er com­pa­nies out of busi­ness and gen­er­al­ly wreck­ing hav­oc on local economies…. The Indi­an gov­ern­ment should reeval­u­ate their deci­sion to allow Wal­mart to do busi­ness in their coun­try. At the very least, the par­lia­ment needs to pass enforce­able stan­dards that will safe­guard work­ers, small busi­ness own­ers, and the envi­ron­ment. Sim­ply allow­ing Wal­mart to oper­ate as it has in oth­er coun­tries is unacceptable.

In recent years the Indi­an econ­o­my has become famous for leapfrog­ging ahead in the ​“devel­op­ment” race, cap­i­tal­iz­ing on the newest tech­nolo­gies as well as a mas­sive cheap labor sup­ply. Now, as mega-retail clos­es in on Indi­a’s mar­kets, work­ers, local shop­keep­ers, and com­mu­ni­ty groups can try to get ahead of the game in a dif­fer­ent way: using the hind­sight of Wal-Mart’s lega­cy around the world to ensure that the worst excess­es of glob­al­iza­tion stop at India’s doorstep.