From the Wall Street Journal:
A group primarily funded by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has gone on the offensive against the giant retailer's critics.Working Families for Wal-Mart, a group that Wal-Mart formed in December to counter a barrage of criticism generated by union-backed groups, silently launched a Web site this month with the unusual aim of discrediting those critics. The site, paidcritics.com, was formally announced on the Working Families's Web site this afternoon following inquiries from The Wall Street Journal.
Paidcritics.com levels most of its criticism at WakeUpWalMart.com, an anti-Wal-Mart group backed by the United Food and Commercial Workers union. It is one of two groups launched last year -- the other being Wal-Mart Watch, backed by the Service Employees International Union -- to criticize Wal-Mart's labor practices, among other things.
The new website points out "hypocrisy" in the union group's public criticisms of Wal-Mart, "heavy-handed tactics" that unions use in politics and other arenas and their "extreme, not mainstream" political leanings. The site also features a "paid critic of the week," an apparent answer to the Wal-Mart Watch Person of the Week on that group's Web site routinely highlighting a Wal-Mart critic in the news.Kevin Sheridan, spokesman for Working Families for Wal-Mart, said paidcritics.com was started "to let people know about the real motives of the union leaders behind the campaign against Wal-Mart."
Mr. Sheridan added that the union-backed groups "are attacking the wrong company… Union leaders should focus on standing up for working families rather than attacking a company that serves working families in this country and around the world."
WakeUpWalMart.com spokesman Chris Kofinis, the subject of two postings on paidcritics.com, said his group soon will counter with its own website outlining the Republican strategists working on political and media issues for Wal-Mart.
"It's so sad that to see Wal-Mart, a $300 billion dollar company with [slowing sales growth] and a terrible public image, fund another in-the-gutter publicity stunt to attack the very people who want to change Wal-Mart and America for the better," Mr. Kofinis said.
Posted by Silvia - July 14, 2006 10:07 AM - Hard to Believe