From Newsweek (HT BoingBoing):
Wal-Mart is Mexico’s largest private-sector employer in the nation
today, with nearly 150,000 local residents on its payroll. An
additional 19,000 youngsters between the ages of 14 and 16 work after
school in hundreds of Wal-Mart stores, mostly as grocery baggers,
throughout Mexico—and none of them receives a red cent in wages or
fringe benefits. The company doesn’t try to conceal this practice: its
62 Superama supermarkets display blue signs with white letters that
tell shoppers: OUR VOLUNTEER PACKERS COLLECT NO SALARY, ONLY THE
GRATUITY THAT YOU GIVE THEM. SUPERAMA THANKS YOU FOR YOUR
UNDERSTANDING. The use of unsalaried youths is legal in Mexico because
the kids are said to be “volunteering” their services to Wal-Mart and
are therefore not subject to the requirements and regulations that
would otherwise apply under the country’s labor laws. But some
officials south of the U.S. border nonetheless view the practice as
regrettable, if not downright exploitative. “These kids should receive
a salary,” says Labor Undersecretary Patricia Espinosa Torres. “If you
ask me, I don’t think these kids should be working, but there are
cultural and social circumstances [in Mexico] rooted in poverty and
scarcity.”