South Africa won’t allow American Corporate Policy, Republican Doctrine, to Enable Race to Bottom for Wal-Mart.

The GOP “frame,” or image, built around Obama run counter to the real corporate friendly, neo-liberal presidents free market leanings. Both are on the same page when it comes to no national economic strategy.

But other countries are not so fiscally irresponsible, and they’re succeeding. ThinkProgress:

To complete its acquisition of Massmart, a chain of retail stores in South Africa, Walmart struck a deal that must seem extraordinary to the company’s American employees. To win government approval of the acquisition, Walmart made concessions to a South African labor union, agreeing to avoid worker layoffs, honor existing union contracts, and use local suppliers. In Brazil, Argentina, China, the United Kingdom, and now South Africa, some Walmart employees are organized. In China, Walmart is required by law to recognize union membership, and in Mexico, 18 percent of its workers are organized. British labor leaders describe their dealings with Walmart as “honest,” and in Argentina, organized employees make as much as 40 percent more than employees at retailer’s major competitors.“We have a local philosophy,” Wal-Mart International Chief Executive Doug McMillon recently told reporters. “It’s our intention to demonstrate that we are a great corporate citizen.” In Brazil and Argentina, meanwhile, Walmart says it allows workers to unionize because “that’s what the associates want”: “We recognize those rights,” said John Peter “J.P.” Suarez , senior vice president of international business development at Walmart. “In that market, that’s what the associates want, and that’s the prevailing practice.”

But in American:

Former Walmart Executive Vice President John Tate, who also served on its board, once said, “Labor unions are nothing but blood-sucking parasites living off the productive labor of people who work for a living.” 

But here’s the most ironic part of our economic misfortune:

Luckily for Walmart’s American employees, they have a useful ally in, of all places, South Africa. According to the Washington Post, the union that will represent Walmart workers in South Africa went to bat for the company’s American employees during its own negotiations. “You can’t say you violate the right to freedom of association because the culture in that country supports it,” Mduduzi Mbongwe, a South African union representative, said of Walmart’s approach to American unions. “We don’t accept such an argument.”

But we in America do, sadly.