Ok. We are officially off and headed up highway 95 to NYC. Did you catch the AP story this morning about the bus tour? If not, you can read it here.

And, by the way, the movement to change Wal-Mart is gaining amazing momentum today. First, Sen. Dorgan wrote a book where he talks about Wal-Mart shipping U.S. jobs to China and the grave danger that poses to American workers. Second, Sen. John Kerry spoke out about Wal-Mart and it's "unconscionable" failure to provide more than half of its employees with company health care. Third, former Sen. John Edwards has agreed to keynote our bus tour event in Pittsburgh on Friday. And, fourth, but maybe most significant, both Sen. Lieberman and Ned Lamont will be joining our bus in Connecticut on Wednesday.

Apparently, all Democrats can agree on the need for Wal-Mart to change and become a better business that lives up to the best in American values!

We'll keep you posted on more details as we go. For now, get on the bus, sign up for your city, and get your friends to join our fight for change!

Sen. Kerry's remarks today on Wal-Mart and health care.

"Companies like Wal-Mart have adopted a totally different strategy-use workers until they get sick, don’t cover them for check-ups, and then tell them they’re on their own. The nice person who greets you at Wal-Mart’s door is shown the door when illness strikes. Whether it’s because Wal-Mart hires part-time workers and doesn’t offer them insurance, or offers health care packages most workers there can’t possibly afford, passing along enormous costs to families and taxpayers, the bottom line is clear: at Wal-Mart, less than forty percent of the employees have health insurance. That’s 600,000 working Americans on their own. It’s unconscionable and it is unacceptable that five of the ten richest people in America are Wal-Mart stockholders from the same family-worth double-digit billions each--but they can’t find the money to secure health coverage for their own workers and their families.

Wal-Mart workers aren’t alone. Millions of Americans with full-time jobs end up without health insurance. No family should be left with their fingers crossed, hoping to dodge a bullet, afraid that bad news from their doctor will leave them bankrupt or without care.

America believes in real family values and lives them; this Administration just talks about family values but does little to actually value families. Think about it: 46 million Americans uninsured including eleven million children, six million more than when this president took office. Those six million are casualties of indifference and incompetence every bit as much as the hundreds of people who are losing their lives in Iraq every week. And to demand change we must resolve to take both of these moral issues to the ballot box this fall."

Our latest press release:

WAKEUPWALMART.COM LAUNCHES 2006 “CHANGE WAL-MART, CHANGE AMERICA” CROSS-COUNTRY BUS TOUR

NATIONWIDE EVENTS PLANNED WITH PROMINENT POLITICAL LEADERS AND COMMUNITY GROUPS FROM COAST-TO-COAST/ BUS TOUR TO VISIT 19 STATES, 35 CITIES, IN 35 DAYS

CAMPAIGN UNVEILS A NEW POWER POINT PRESENTATION TITLED “A COSTLY TRUTH” AT COMMUNITY MEETINGS/TOWNHALLS

Washington D.C. - WakeUpWalMart.com, America’s campaign to change Wal-Mart, is taking its national movement, and headquarters, on the road in a non-stop cross-country tour hitting 19 states, 35 cities, in 35 days. The nationwide bus tour, titled the “2006 Change Wal-Mart, Change America Tour,” is an unprecedented and exciting new move in the group’s campaign to change Wal-Mart into a responsible and moral employer.

The tour launches on August 1st in New York City and ends in Seattle on September 4th, Labor Day. During the tour, the WakeUpWalMart.com campaign will hold a series of events each day with supporters and political leaders to build public awareness about the need for Wal-Mart to change into a better corporate citizen. Some of the nation’s most prominent civic and political leaders will take part in the tour, including former Democratic Vice-Presidential Candidate and former U.S. Senator John Edwards, Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, Ohio U.S. Senate candidate Congressman Sherrod Brown, Maryland U.S. Senate candidates Congressman Ben Cardin and former NAACP President Kweisi Mfume, Connecticut U.S. Senate candidate Ned Lamont, Connecticut Governor candidate, John DeStefano, Ohio Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, Anna Burger, President of the Change-to-Win labor federation, and many others. Additional announcements concerning speakers and event details will be made ahead of each of the tour stops.

“Whether it is at community meetings of 20 people, town halls, busy public squares, metro stops or state fairs with thousands of people, we are taking our campaign to change Wal-Mart directly to the American people because we know by joining together we can change Wal-Mart and change America for the better,” said Paul Blank, campaign director for WakeUpWalMart.com.

On the “2006 Change Wal-Mart, Change America” bus tour WakeUpWalMart.com will be holding a series of events and actions all across America, including townhalls, community meetings, canvasses, as well as a summer membership drive at sporting events, state fairs, public squares, and at various Wal-Mart stores. In addition, as part of the 5-week tour, WakeUpWalMart.com will also release a new 30-second ad, titled “One Mission” that will air in cities across the country in coordination with the tour stops.

“From the East Coast, to America’s heartland to the West Coast, we are asking Americans to join the fight for a better America where workers have good paying jobs and affordable health benefits. Our goal is to unleash an exciting new grassroots movement to hold corporations accountable, empower the American people, and make Wal-Mart a responsible corporate citizen that provides affordable health care, pays a living wage, protects American jobs and reflects the best of our values,” added Blank.

The star of the “2006 Change Wal-Mart, Change America” tour is a 55-foot long bus (more like a monster billboard) nicknamed “Smiley.” The bus will be wrapped side-to-side and front-to-back in a patriotic American flag emblazoned with the group’s website, WakeUpWalMart.com, and the name of the tour, “2006 Change Wal-Mart, Change America Tour.” In addition, on each side of the bus, the central messages of the tour will be highlighted for all to see - including “Join America’s Fight for Health Care,” “Join America’s Fight for Good Jobs” and “Join the Fight for a Better America.”

A unique feature of the tour will be a new power point presentation which will be unveiled at various town halls and community meetings. The power point, modeled after Vice President Al Gore’s recent documentary is titled, “A Costly Truth,” and will serve as a powerful tool to educate the American public about why Wal-Mart needs to change, the national cost we are paying because of Wal-Mart’s business model, and how Wal-Mart threatens America’s middle class.

During the 35-day tour, the details and location for each day’s planned events will be made available at WakeUpWalMart.com in a special section which will chronicle the groups adventures and experiences, as well as provide a video blog, photo updates, and a journal of each day’s events and experiences.

Interesting editorial from the Sunday Times (UK).

On Wall Street: Dominic Rushe: What appalls Wal-Mart will improve America

AMERICANS used to say “What’s good for General Motors (GM) is good for America”. These days Wal-Mart is the corporate body against which the country’s health is most often measured.

The giant retailer is the largest single private employer in the US. It employs 1.7m people and accounts for $8.90 of every $100 spent in an American retail store. Last year Wal-Mart had sales of $316 billion (€250 billion). What affects Wal-Mart, affects America.

But unlike GM in its heyday, Wal-Mart is a divisive company. Millions love its low prices, millions hate the way it gets them.

Last week the company lost its fight against a proposal in Chicago to up the minimum wage that could have a significant impact on a move to raise the wage across America.

Read more about why Rushe believes, "What’s good for America may not be good for Wal-Mart" below the fold.

The measure requires retailers with more than $1 billion in annual sales and stores of at least 90,000 sq ft to pay workers at least $10 an hour in wages plus $3 in fringe benefits by mid-2010. The current minimum wage in Chicago’s state of Illinois is $6.50 an hour and the federal minimum is $5.15.

The median hourly wage for a retail salesperson in the Chicago metropolitan area in 2005 was $9.41, according to the US Department of Labour’s Bureau of Labour Statistics. So the proposal isn’t so far off base.

But Wal-Mart never gives up without a fight. The company is appealing (pause for laughter).

“This vote sadly puts politics ahead of Chicago’s working men and women. It sends a message that Chicago is closed for business, closed for development and closed for job creation,” said Wal-Mart.

But there are other cities with living wage laws including San Francisco and Washington. Both look pretty much open.

The Chicago bill is one of several that Wal-Mart and other large retailers are fighting across the country. So far none has passed into law. Earlier this month a federal judge struck down a Maryland ruling that increased the minimum wage.

The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA), a trade group that sued to overturn the Maryland law, is fighting to overturn a similar law passed by Suffolk County on Long Island, New York.

“The ordinance . . . is a clear disincentive for more than a dozen retailers impacted by it to locate or expand their operations in the city of Chicago,” the RILA president, Sandy Kennedy, said in a statement last week.This is not a worry shared by Wal-Mart rival Costco. The average hourly wage of employees of the warehouse club operator is $16. After three years a typical full-time Costco worker makes about $42,000. The company also picks up 92% of its workers’ health insurance.

Costco is the largest warehouse club operator in the US, beating the Wal-Mart-owned Sam’s Club into second place. A 2004 Business Week study found Costco employees sell 50% more per square foot of sales space, and contribute to profits almost 25% higher than Sam’s Club.

If he’s watching, and he is, Lee Scott, Wal-Mart’s chief executive seems unconvinced. In a speech last year, the world’s most powerful retailer characteristically tackled the GM analogy head on.

“Critics believe that Wal-Mart should play the role General Motors played after the second world war . . . [and] establish the post-world war middle class that the country is so proud of. The facts are that retailing doesn’t perform that role in the economy. Retailing doesn’t perform that role in any country,” he said.

That may have been true in the past, but as the country’s largest employer does Wal-Mart have the clout to destroy America’s middle class?

The tide may be turning against Scott. Republicans anxious about midterm elections and their unpopular president are warming to a rise in the minimum wage. The $5.15 minimum has not been raised since 1997 and a $2 increase is being considered. If passed it will further weaken Wal-Mart’s case.

What’s good for America may not be good for Wal-Mart.

From the Associated Press:

FDIC Puts 6-Month Halt on Approvals of Industrial Loan Corporations

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal bank regulators voted Friday to halt for six months any new approvals of the sort of industrial banks that Wal-Mart, Home Depot and 12 other companies are seeking to establish.

The directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. made a decision to impose the six-month moratorium on approving applications for the so-called industrial loan corporations, or ILCs. Nearly 100 members of Congress from both parties recently asked the FDIC to put into effect such a halt to give lawmakers a chance to consider legislation that would block commercial companies from owning ILCs.

[...]

The application of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, to establish an ILC in Utah has spurred opposition from banks, unions, lawmakers, and consumer and community organizations.

Wal-Mart insists that it has no plans to compete with community banks and has pledged to the FDIC to stay out of branch banking and consumer lending. Rather, the newly-chartered bank would be used to handle the 140 million credit, debit card and electronic check payments it processes each year, the company says.

From MarketWatch:

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, said Friday it didn't want to wait for Germany's economy to recover, agreeing to sell all 85 of its hypermarkets in the country to Metro AG.

Wal-Mart said it will record a $1 billion charge before taxes during the second quarter on the deal.

Neither Wal-Mart nor Metro disclosed deal terms, but because Metro's recording an undisclosed gain, it follows that the deal must have been "at a very low purchase price," said Carmen Hummel, a senior credit analyst at German bank HVB.

The 85 stores generated sales of around 2 billion euros ($2.5 billion) in 2005, Metro said.

Wal-Mart lost as much as $250 million a year from the German operations, according to published reports, though the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailing giant hasn't publicly broken out German results.

Wal-Mart's been facing difficulty competing against Metro and privately held Aldi in Germany. It's also struggled against Tesco in Britain.

"As we focus our efforts on where we can have the greatest impact on our growth and return on investment strategies, it has become increasingly clear that in Germany's business environment it would be difficult for us to obtain the scale and results we desire," said Michael Duke, Wal-Mart's vice chairman.

"This sale positions us to increase our focus on the markets where we can achieve our objectives," he said in a statement.

The sale comes amid a modest revival in Germany's economic fortunes. Business confidence in the country is near 15-year highs, boosted by continued strength from exports, its successful hosting of the World Cup and the popularity of its recently elected chancellor, Angela Merkel.

Dusseldorf-based Metro, the only retailer in the German DAX 30 index, said it will combine Wal-Mart's stores with that of its own Real brand to realize "significant" synergy effects.

Metro has 550 Real stores.

"With this acquisition we complement our store network and increase our power in the German market," said Hans-Joachim Koerber, chief executive. "Through the strengthening of our market presence we will generate noticeable synergy effects."

Metro rallied 2.4% in a slightly weaker German stock market.

Analysts were trying to sort through the implications with the dearth of information available.

"Wal-Mart has said that it expects to see a $1 billion write-off -- so that suggests the cash paid by Metro is negligible for these 700 million to 800 million euros of assets," said Andrew Fowler, a Merrill Lynch analyst.

He came up with the value of the Wal-Mart real estate based on what General Electric Co. agreed to pay for Casino-Guichard's Polish store real-estate portfolio earlier this month.

"However, we'd say there are clearly going to be considerable integration costs (closures, redundancies, refits) which could easily be hundreds of millions of euros," Fowler said.

Our latest press release:

Statement on the passage of the Chicago Living Wage Ordinance, by Paul Blank, campaign director of WakeUpWalMart.com:

"By passing the Chicago Living Wage Ordinance by a veto proof margin, the City Council sent a loud and powerful message to irresponsible companies, like Wal-Mart - it is time for you to change and become a more responsible corporate citizen.

We applaud these strong and civic-minded leaders who fought for and won a better life for so many Chicago workers and their families.

Now, as we move forward, we can only hope that irresponsible companies, like Wal-Mart, have heard the call for change. Once again, it is time for Wal-Mart, our nation’s largest employer, to realize that the American people want Wal-Mart to stop making excuses for why one of the richest companies in America can't provide affordable health care, pay a living wage, and reflect the best of American values."

Today, the Chicago City Council voted 35-14 in favor of a law that will provide living wages and health care benefits to workers in the city.

From the AP:

Chicago City Council OKs 'living wage'

CHICAGO - Brushing aside warnings from Wal-Mart, the City Council approved an ordinance Wednesday that makes Chicago the biggest city in the nation to require big-box retailers to pay a "living wage."

"It's trying to get the largest companies in America to pay decent wages," said Alderman Toni Preckwinkle.

The ordinance passed 35-14 after three hours of impassioned debate.

The measure requires mega-retailers with over $1 billion in annual sales and stores of at least 90,000 square feet to pay workers at least $10 an hour in wages plus $3 in fringe benefits by mid-2010. The current minimum wage in Illinois is $6.50 an hour and the federal minimum is $5.15.

Mayor Richard M. Daley and others warned the living wage proposal would drive jobs and desperately needed development from some of the city's poorest neighborhoods and lead giants like Wal-Mart to abandon the city.

Wal-Mart spokesman John Bisio said earlier that if the measure passed, "We'd redirect our focus on our suburban strategy and see how we could better serve our city of Chicago residents from suburban Chicagoland."

Chicago has been at the center of the debate about the wages at big retailers ever since the city's rejection of a proposal by Wal-Mart to open a store on the South Side prompted the company to open a store just outside the city limits.

From the Associated Press:

CHICAGO — When Wal-Mart opened a store just outside the city limits last winter, it proudly announced it received a record 25,000 job applications, nearly all of them from Chicagoans.

It was one of the first salvos in an escalating political and public-relations battle between Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and the City Council, which will consider a proposed ordinance Wednesday that would make Chicago the nation's largest city to require "big box" retailers to pay their workers more.

Mayor Richard M. Daley and others warn the "living wage" proposal will drive jobs and desperately needed development from some of the city's poorest neighborhoods.

Supporters contend Chicago should be a leader in setting standards for worker pay and benefits.

"We don't want any organization to come on into our communities and make money without treating our people fairly," said the Rev. Reginald Williams Jr., associate pastor for justice ministry at Trinity United Church of Christ on the city's South Side.

The church is part of a coalition of community and labor groups backing the proposed ordinance, which would require mega-retailers to pay their workers at least $10 an hour in wages plus $3 in fringe benefits by July 1, 2010. That is substantially higher than Illinois' $6.50 minimum wage and the federal minimum of $5.15.

The measure covers companies with more than $1 billion in annual sales and stores of at least 90,000 square feet.

From the LA Times:

URUMQI, China - In this remote region along the old Silk Road, Carrefour is on the march.

The Paris-based retailer has already opened two stores in Urumqi, one in the northern end where many ethnic Chinese live and another next to a mosque in the Muslim section populated by Uighurs. This fall, Carrefour will open a third mega-store in the city of 2 million, selling groceries alongside its other goods.

What about Wal-Mart Stores?

``I can't imagine they will come here,'' Christian Roquigny, who manages Carrefour's Uighur store, said as he walked past a golden-domed mosque.

Roquigny boasted that his store sold no pork and was certified as halal, or permissible under Islamic dietary law. Wal-Mart managers, he said, aren't given the same flexibility to adapt.

As the world's leading retailers battle for new markets around the globe, they are increasingly setting up in places like Urumqi, where Carrefour's average checkout total is just over $5.

Wal-Mart and Carrefour, the world's No. 1 and No. 2 retailers, have stepped up their expansion in China in recent years, virtually matching each other, store for store, in many locales.

Carrefour's operation in this western city demonstrates why the French company has raced ahead of its multinational rivals in the world's most-populous nation. By joining with Chinese partners, adapting to local culture and employing a supply chain that includes 18-wheel trucks and three-wheel bicycles, Carrefour has become the biggest foreign retailer operating in China.

It operates 79 stores in 32 Chinese cities compared with 60 locations in 30 cities for Wal-Mart. Last year, Carrefour's sales in China totaled $2.2 billion, compared with $1.2 billion for Wal-Mart, according to the Commerce Ministry in Beijing.

Wal-Mart is accelerating its store openings in China -- it plans to open at least 18 this year, six more than Carrefour -- and analysts are reluctant to bet against the Bentonville, Ark.-based discount retailer given its enormous resources. Its global sales last year reached $285 billion, triple that of Carrefour's. Wal-Mart bought $18 billion in goods from Chinese manufacturers last year.

But as a retailer in China, Wal-Mart is a small fish. Its strategy of offering tian tian ping jia, or ``everyday low prices,'' hasn't had a big effect on Chinese mom-and-pop shops that are used to cutthroat pricing. Wal-Mart has been unable to replicate its super-efficient logistics system in China largely because it lacks scale.

Even Wal-Mart's staunch anti-union stance is being challenged, ironically, in a country where unions have little power. Government-backed trade union officials in China have been trying to organize workers at foreign enterprises and have been especially critical of Wal-Mart's resistance to the idea.

Carrefour has more international experience than Wal-Mart. The French company operates in 29 countries, about double the number for Wal-Mart. Both chains have struggled in Asia, however, pulling out of countries such as South Korea. And despite their push in China, Chinese retailers dominate.

The more stores it can open, the better chance Wal-Mart can leverage its mass scale to squeeze prices lower and drive efficiencies in purchasing, inventory management and distribution.

From the Arizona Republic:

Wal-Mart has started the Hub, which bears some of the features of a My-Space-like social network, but appears to be essentially an advertising vehicle that encourages teens to create commercials for the retail chain and post them to the site. The Hub allows users to create pages and videos, somewhat like MySpace. It tells them to express "individuality," but screens their posts and doesn't allow them to e-mail each other. The site is running a contest for the best video submissions about how much the submitter likes Wal-Mart (schoolyourway.walmart.com).

The Hub is a big part of Wal-Mart's effort to appeal to fashion-conscious teens, but it's not clear how many "Hubsters" have joined. The pages and videos featured on the home page have a highly produced quality, leading one teenager to wonder on adage.com, "Are these real kids?"

What do you think? Is the Hub cool?

From the High Springs Herald (FL):

HIGH SPRINGS -- High Springs City Commissioners again have taken steps to challenge a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter in Alachua near the Interstate 75 interchange, saying that the site could potentially damage their city’s water supply if too few precautions are taken.

High Springs officials submitted a letter last Friday, July 14, challenging Wal-Mart’s stormwater permit through the Suwannee River Water Management District.

And if the water district officials do not accept that challenge, High Springs officials also are taking measures to bring the matter before the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings, a body that hears cases involving governmental entities.

Alachua County commissioners had challenged the permit just a week before but accepted an agreement with Wal-Mart officials who said they would participate in some practices that would decrease chances of damaging the water supply but would only consider participating in a comprehensive water study.

This study would ask Wal-Mart to test the water for quality and biological life before development, then on a regular basis afterward. Wal-Mart would not commit to the study, with officials saying they would only consider it in the future.

But High Springs officials decided at their July 13 meeting that that was not good enough.

“I don’t think this document goes anywhere near where it needs to go,” Commissioner Kirk Eppenstein said, referring to the Wal-Mart-County agreement. “It puts the level of participation solely at the discretion of the applicant.”

Mayor Byran Williams had previously issued letters on March 27 and June 23 expressing concerns about the site and asking the water district to use extra scrutiny when issuing permits for the site since it was particularly vulnerable to water issues.

But that permit was issued anyway after a public hearing on June 13, the same day that Tropical Storm Alberto hit the area.

Williams asserts in a July 14 letter that the original public hearing for the water permit was not sufficient because of the state of emergency at the time, plus the fact that High Springs officials were not notified of the meeting even though they had previously indicated their concern.

City Manager Jim Drumm echoed similar comments.

“The day they held their public hearing, all the emergency management personnel came out and said ‘stay home,’” City Manager Jim Drumm said. “…It’s a shame we weren’t invited to those discussions.”

If the Suwannee River Water Management District decides not to hold another public meeting, Drumm said, the city has already began the filing process for an administrative hearing through the state.

Such a hearing would be much like a court hearing, according to City Attorney Jim Pendland, and each side would present evidence to support their case.

One of the most important pieces of evidence supporting the idea that additional safeguards need to be in place, said Pete Butt, of Karst Environmental Services, is a set of dye tests that he managed last year.

In those tests, a series of colored dyes were released into Mill Creek Sink, which is near the proposed Wal-Mart, and found that after only 12 days, that dye had traveled six miles through the underwater cave system to Hornsby Spring in High Springs.

These results, Butt said, are conclusive evidence that underwater caves connect the area around Wal-Mart to water supplies in High Springs.

Without the proper safeguards to prevent runoff from Wal-Mart into the nearby sinkholes, Butt said, the aquifer water could begin to degrade.

Eppenstein said that this possible result is what makes the matter pertinent to High Springs.

“The goal is not what is going to be placed there, but how it will be placed there,” Eppenstein said. “Water and air do not have jurisdictional boundaries.”

And if the water did get contaminated, Drumm said, the city would have to initiate a purification system, which could take years.

In the meantime, he said, supplying water to residents could mean installing underground pipes to pump it from as far away as Lake City. This process would likely cost more than fees for an administrative hearing, he said.

“They (Wal-Mart) probably have deeper pockets, but then what will we do if our drinking water is contaminated,” he said. “…The cost (of pumping water) would be unbelievable.”

Williams submitted his latest letter to the water district July 14, and as of Wednesday, commissioners were still awaiting a response.

From American Rights at Work:

The Bush-appointed National Labor Relations Board is poised to issue decisions that could strip millions of workers of their right to have a union at work—all without holding public hearings.

On July 18, Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report"—a show satirizing Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor"—host Stephen Colbert took on the National Labor Relations Board and the potentially disastrous impact its rulings could have on workers.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Aside from $3-a-gallon gasoline and high utility bills, another factor shares the blame for Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s sluggish sales momentum: Wal-Mart itself.

The world's largest retailer by sales is attempting a sweeping makeover aimed at paring its inventory and labor costs while enticing affluent customers, some of whom now buy groceries in its stores, to spend more in other areas. As part of that effort, Wal-Mart will remodel nearly half its U.S. stores over the next year. Pulling this off will be no small feat for a retailer with more than $300 billion in annual sales. Even Chief Executive Lee Scott has acknowledged that missteps may occur.

The result of so much upheaval in many of Wal-Mart's 3,900 U.S. stores is additional pressure on the retailer's already-tepid sales gains, some analysts and investors say. That, coupled with Merrill Lynch's July 13 downgrade of the stock to "neutral" from "buy," has pushed the stock down about 9% so far this month. The price could fall further in coming months if sales actually decline, as some anticipate, and put pressure on earnings.

Click here to read the full article.

From the St. Petersburg Times:

During her lunch hour, Ellen Stanton walks stiffly back through aisles of discount clothes and frozen foods.

She wobbles into the employee break room on the artificial knee that makes her leg throb, on the foot rendered painful from diabetes.

She sits down and takes off her shoes. Hours on her feet greeting Wal-Mart shoppers take their toll.

Stanton worked almost her whole life, but she never thought she'd be working this long, at the age of 74.

She grew up one of 10 kids, the children of a coal miner in southwest Pennsylvania. They lived in the company town, slept across one bed in their two-bedroom company home, and shopped at the company store.

She married a steel mill worker and moved to Ohio. They lived in a house made of grape crates and tar paper until their 5-year-old son died of leukemia. The neighbors, to ease their sorrow, came over to build up the house in bricks.

She raised their four remaining children, babysitting and taking in laundry. After a divorce, she raised her children alone, working in grocery stores. One day she became manager, but managers of little grocery stores in Ohio steel mill towns don't get pension plans or 401(k) retirement accounts.

When she moved to Florida to follow her adult sons, she took a job slopping lunches at school cafeterias in Hillsborough County.

Then there was the 7-Eleven and, two years ago, the Wal-Mart Supercenter on Causeway Boulevard.

Stanton gets $1,100 a month from Social Security and $7.75 an hour at Wal-Mart, not enough to pay for rent, bills and all her prescription drugs, she says.

She moved in with her 44-year-old daughter, whose daughter Karla died several years ago from heart failure at the age of 21.

They share the $900 rent for the Valrico home, along with their sorrow. Many days, Stanton hides hers.

She's the one lifting her daughter out of depression, talking her out of panic attacks.

Her daughter worries about her mom's health, the frequent colds, the high blood-sugar levels, the fact that she doesn't have time to eat as often as she should on her occasional breaks.

That she sleeps so much.

Her daughter won't even go into her bedroom anymore to wake her up for work, afraid that Stanton haspassed away in her sleep.

At Wal-Mart, Stanton hides her frustration by heading to the restroom whenever she can, outside the gaze of the shoppers she must welcome.

She stands in front of strangers for hours repeating:

Hello.

Welcome to Wal-Mart.

Would you like a cart?

From the Associated Press:

In a first-time appearance on a live radio call-in show, Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott staunchly defended his company's labor relations and health care policies while taking telephone calls that included one from the head of a union-backed group campaigning against the nation's largest employer.

Scott spent more than a half-hour on Rev. Al Sharpton's syndicated talk show, which a company spokesman said was the first time he has ever been a show that takes live calls from listeners. The New York-based show airs live on stations in 16 cities from Boston to Seattle, according to its Web site.

A terse exchange developed with Paul Blank, who as campaign director of union-funded group WakeUpWalMart.com is one of Wal-Mart's most vociferous critics.

Blank urged Wal-Mart to work with his group to improve labor conditions and said Americans "can't understand why a company with $11 billion in annual profit doesn't want to pay its workers a living wage and provide them with affordable health care".

Scott dismissed Blank's arguments that too many Wal-Mart employees are uninsured, saying, "You can skew those numbers however you like to skew them."

Wal-Mart's newer low-premium health plans are attractive, Scott said, and the company is working with outside advisers to make Wal-Mart jobs "even better".

"We think it is our right to be selective on who we allow to participate in that process, and making sure that the people who do participate are the kind of people who do want Wal-Mart to be a better company," Scott said.

Wal-Mart accuses its union critics of aiming to ruin the company, while the critics say they want to improve it.

Sharpton praised Wal-Mart's moves in the past year to boost diversity but pressed Scott about criticism that it pays low wages, pushes people into part-time work and skimps on health benefits.

"It's not very difficult to respond to" that criticism, Scott said.

He said Wal-Mart has expanded lower-cost plans with premiums of $23 a month for its 1.3 million-plus employees. A majority of Wal-Mart workers are full-time, more than at most other major retailers, he said, and the company creates good-paying jobs while saving working families money with low prices.

"We believe that there ought to be affordable, accessible health care for everyone," he said, adding company insurance covers over 1 million Wal-Mart employees and family members.

Scott said Wal-Mart, which keeps unions out of its stores, has good relations between management and workers and an open-door policy for complaints that makes unions unnecessary.

Why does Wal-Mart insist on lying to the American public? When Dow Jones Newswire called Wal-Mart today to question the company on speaking out of both sides of its mouth, Wal-Mart’s spokesperson John Simley said, “we agree with an awful lot of what ‘Working Families’ does and what they stand for and we support it. But it’s not a mouthpiece for Wal-Mart.”

But, that is exactly what Wal-Mart’s right-wing, sham front group is – a mouthpiece for Wal-Mart. The group is funded by Wal-Mart, run by Wal-Mart and we are told by a good source the decision to launch the attacks on Arizona Attorney General Goddard and Democratic Gubernatorial candidate John DeStefano were greenlighted directly by a key Wal-Mart executive.

Are you kidding me, Wal-Mart? Stop lying and tell the truth.

From the Dow Jones Newswire:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s (WMT) growing public-relations machine has been sending a few mixed signals lately.

Earlier this month, Arizona's attorney general sued Wal-Mart for consumer fraud, accusing the world's largest retailer of consistently overcharging customers and failing to post prices on its shelves. Immediately after the lawsuit was filed July 6, Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley sounded a conciliatory note, saying the company was "committed to working with the attorney general to resolve this issue."

Last week, however, a Wal-Mart-funded group called "Working Families for Wal-Mart" took a distinctly different tone on its Web site, paidcritics.com.

In a blog entry, the group called Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard a "career politician and twice-failed candidate for governor," and quoted an editorial in a Phoenix-area newspaper that warned Goddard "better have his facts straight."

Looking to defend itself against union-backed critics that have attacked its labor practices, Wal-Mart is beefing up its public-relations efforts. The Bentonville, Ark., retailer isn't just hiring more corporate spokespeople. In addition to building a lobbying team in Washington, Wal-Mart over the past year has assembled a "war room" staffed with political campaign veterans. This week, the company hired a former nun who has helped mediate conflicts in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Wal-Mart has strong incentives to boost its media savvy. A 2004 study for Wal-Mart by McKinsey & Co. found that as much as 8% of Wal-Mart customers no longer shopped there because of "negative press they have heard." But for all of its growing sophistication, Wal-Mart has made a few awkward stumbles in its recent communications, and some feel they've been getting conflicting messages from the different arms of Wal-Mart's growing apparatus.

"I did find it surprising," Arizona Attorney General Goddard told Dow Jones Newswires, having learned of the blog posting last week. Occasionally in the past, Goddard said he has been hit with candid barbs from criminal defendants amid the genteel protests of their attorneys. But Goddard said he's never seen such a mixed public message from a corporate defendant.

It's not the only recent example of Wal-Mart getting its signals crossed. Last October, President and Chief Executive Lee Scott said in a speech to Wal-Mart executives and directors that Congress should "take a look at" increasing the federal minimum wage. Since then Wal-Mart, which employs more than 1.3 million people in the U.S., hasn't lobbied for an increase. When asked why late last month, Lee Culpepper, Wal-Mart's chief lobbyist in Washington, was quoted as saying that Scott was actually neutral on the minimum-wage issue.
"He said Congress should take a look at it," Culpepper told the Washington-based publication Roll Call. "If reporters want to report differently from that, I can't speak to that."

Shortly thereafter, however, Wal-Mart issued a written statement by Scott that the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour was indeed "out of date with the times."

Wal-Mart's multi-pronged strategy for public relations increasingly is beginning to resemble past efforts by other notably embattled corporations, said Adam Hanft, chief executive of Hanft Unlimited, a New York branding and marketing agency. Before many big oil companies "flipped and embraced that global warming was a threat," they had funded plenty of third-party "research" to the contrary. In addition to formidable lobbying efforts in Washington, Big Tobacco funded "free speech" organizations as it fought legal curbs on its advertising.

"All of these companies have tried to insulate themselves from criticism by creating third-party entities that have the appearance of independence," Hanft said. "But they're so transparent they come off as desperate. Anything that a proxy group is saying, you should be saying yourself."

Nu Wexler, a spokesman for Wal-Mart Watch - a gadfly group whose backers include the Sierra Club and the Service Employees International Union - said that while the group "Working Families for Wal-Mart" calls itself a "grassroots" organization, it's operated by executives from Edelman, a global public-relations firm hired by Wal-Mart last year.

"They're just outsourcing their mudslinging," Wexler said. Kevin Sheridan, a spokesman for Working Families For Wal-Mart, deferred to the company for a response.

Simley, the Wal-Mart spokesman, said that "we agree with an awful lot of what 'Working Families' does and what they stand for, and we support it. But it's not a mouthpiece for Wal-Mart."

He added that the company has "no position" on possible motivations behind the Arizona Attorney General's lawsuit. Likewise, Wal-Mart has no position on the group's recent blog entry that questioned the Attorney General's motivations, he said.

"We've had some discussion on it, but I can't say that anybody has any response at all," Simley said. "It is what it is."

The following statement is attributable to Paul Blank, campaign director for WakeUpWalMart.com:

“While deeply disappointed by the District Court’s decision, this decision does not change the fact that Wal-Mart doesn’t provide company health care to over half of its workers. The District Court’s decision, unfortunately, ignores the strong public support for requiring large, profitable corporations to pay their fair share for health care. Whether by legislation or by public pressure on Wal-Mart, the fight to provide better health care and to reduce Wal-Mart’s tax burden on American taxpayers will continue until the day Wal-Mart becomes a responsible employer.”

Today, Wal-Mart (www.paidcritics.com) is attacking the financial backer of the WakeUpWalMart.com campaign for giving 98% of its money to Democratic candidates. Why does Wal-Mart insist on attacking Democrats as part of its strategy to salvage its declining public image?

Maybe it's because the people running Wal-Mart's campaign have been involved with the Swift Boat ads, the illegal New Hampshire phone jam scandal for the Republican party and, allegedly, helped Tom Delay funnel money.

Or, maybe it is because Wal-Mart is a right-wing company that supports the wrong agenda for America. In the past year, Wal-Mart has lobbied to ship U.S. jobs overseas, against strengthening our nation's port security, against a living wage and against expanding health care for working families and children.

Which party's agenda does that sound like to you? No wonder Wal-Mart (and its affiliates) has given 81% of its political contributions to Republicans. It's time to hold corporations like Wal-Mart accountable for taking America in the wrong direction. Check out more info on www.abunchofgreedyrightwingliarswhoworkforwalmart.com.

P.S. By the way, the UFCW absolutely gives 98% of its money to Democrats, not because of party affiliation, but because those candidates support raising the minimum wage, protecting U.S. jobs, expanding health care for all, and an agenda that fights for middle class families. Wal-Mart, on the other hand, has given money to Senators like Rick Santorum (who voted to oppose raising the minimum wage) and even let the Senator ride around on their corporate jet.

From the Associated Press:

Activists say that, after a year's worth of Web-based Wal-Mart bashing, they're winning a public relations battle against the world's largest retailer. The company says, though, that every week 127 million shoppers endorse the way it does business...

Paidcritics.com was started last week by Working Families for Wal-Mart, a group funded primarily by Wal-Mart, to reveal "the real motives of the union leaders behind the campaign against Wal-Mart"...

In response, union-funded WakeUpWalMart.com started its own Web site Tuesday, http://www.abunchofgreedyrightwingliarswhoworkforwalmart.com, which attacks the retailer's public relations and lobbying figures.

"These great guys who love to stretch the truth (or what mom called liars) honed their special Wal-Mart skills on an array of right wing political campaigns," the web site reads.

Reputation management expert Steven Silvers said paidcritics.com was "a name-calling, nastily aggressive little Web site" that marked an escalation in Wal-Mart's battle with critics.

To read the entire article, click here.

Our latest press release:

WAKEUPWALMART.COM LAUNCHES NEW WEBSITE & CAMPAIGN AGAINST WAL-MART’S RIGHT WING ATTACK MACHINE

SENDS LETTER TO DEMOCRATIC MEMBERS OF CONGRESS ABOUT WAL-MART’S “SWIFT BOAT” STYLE ATTACKS

Washington D.C. - Today, WakeUpWalMart.com, America’s campaign to change Wal-Mart, launched a new website and political outreach campaign in response to Wal-Mart’s vicious “swift-boat” style attack website, paidcritics.com. WakeUpWalMart.com’s new website, www.ABunchOfGreedyRightWingLiarsWhoWorkForWalMart.com, outlines the deep and disturbing right-wing connections behind Wal-Mart’s attack machine and links some of Wal-Mart’s newly hired right-wing operatives to some of the most vicious political smear campaigns in American political history, including attacks on John Kerry in the 2004 election, CBS News, and attacks on Democrats in the 2000 Florida Recount.

Wal-Mart’s attack website, paidcritics.com, is an unprecedented and dangerous decision by a $300 billion dollar corporation. It is the first time in history that a corporation has set up, directly funded and openly managed a website whose sole purpose is to attack Democrats, WakeUpWalMart.com staff personally, and all parties who want Wal-Mart to become a better employer.

“Wal-Mart’s decision to spend millions of dollars hiring right-wing political operatives to attack Democrats and personally smear people who want health care for its workers is a shameful act of desperation. At the same time Wal-Mart is publicly trying to put a smiley face on its company, Wal-Mart has decided to unleash a ‘swift boat’ style attack on all of those people who want Wal-Mart to change for the better,” stated Paul Blank, campaign director for WakeUpWalMart.com.

The website, www.ABunchOfGreedyRightWingLiarsWhoWorkForWalMart.com will provide a detailed account of Wal-Mart’s right-wing conspiracy including ties to the most extreme element of the Republican Party, Tom Delay, George W. Bush, Karl Rove and John Ashcroft, a biographic summary of the key right-wing operatives involved in the Wal-Mart war room, and an accounting of Wal-Mart’s extensive political contributions to Republicans. In addition, the website will give the American people the opportunity to vote for their favorite Wal-Mart right-wing liar and view our latest TV ads on “Right Wing” TV - a new channel dedicated to exposing Wal-Mart’s right wing connections.

“If Wal-Mart thinks they can intimidate us with right-wing operatives who are willing to defend child labor abuses and oppose universal health care, Wal-Mart is sorely mistaken. We are not critics. We are a movement of Americans who are fighting for living wages, affordable health care, protecting U.S. jobs and holding corporations accountable for their behavior,” added Blank.

As part of the new counteroffensive, WakeUpWalMart.com also sent all of the Democratic Members of Congress a personal letter outlining Wal-Mart’s vicious attack campaign being run by the public relations firm Edelman. The letter highlights just how desperate Wal-Mart has become to attack Democrats, our campaign staff, progressive groups, and all those who strive to make Wal-Mart a more responsible company.

Click here to read a copy of the letter.

From the Baltimore Sun:

A Washington Post survey of Marylanders who said they were "absolutely certain" to vote this November asked: "Do you support or oppose the state legislature's decision to force Wal-Mart to spend more on employee health benefits?" Among the 902 randomly selected voters in the June survey, 21 percent said they opposed the law, 2 percent had no opinion and 77 percent said they supported it.

Seventy-seven percent.

It seems almost impossible to get 77 percent of any group to agree on anything controversial (although that was the percentage of Americans who, in a Fox News poll last fall, agreed that global warming is a real phenomenon and, in a CNN poll in April, favored allowing illegal immigrants who've been in the United States for five years to apply for citizenship.)

Whatever you're measuring, 77 percent is impressive. In the Wal-Mart matter, that's nearly eight out of 10 Marylanders saying: "You want to do business on this scale in our state, fine. Pay your fair share. We're all paying for people who don't have health insurance."

The General Assembly passed the Wal-Mart bill, the Republican governor vetoed it, and the Assembly upheld it with an override. Conservatives far and wide decried the measure as appallingly anti-business. The Post and The Sun editorialized against it. A retailers group has gone to federal court to challenge it.

The law forces employers with more than 10,000 workers to spend at least 8 percent of payroll on health care or contribute the difference to the state Medicaid fund. It's called the Wal-Mart bill because that mega-chain is the only Maryland employer affected by it. (Three other employers each have at least 10,000 workers and already pay their share or more.)

Click here to read the entire article.

From the Chronicle Herald:

CONSUMER pull has not been sufficient to get Wal-Mart into as many communities across North America as the retail giant would like. So, enter Plan B, a plan that Wal-Mart likes to consider a "good neighbour" plan.

In response to growing community unrest regarding the huge retailer and its potential harm to smaller, local businesses, many communities are saying Wal-Mart is not welcome. But money talks. So Wal-Mart’s new buy-in strategy just might lead to more opportunities.

Their strategy is quite simple. They plan to give money — a lot of money — to the local business community. First off, there is a $50,000 donation to the local chamber of commerce. That is nothing to sneeze at. Such business organizations are seldom well-funded, and there is much to be done on a shoestring. So it is hard to turn your nose up at such a fine, community-oriented incentive.

But that’s not all. Like an excited game show host, Wal-Mart is giving out even more money. They are offering up $1.5 million in grants to local businesses. These grants will include monies for financial assistance, advertising support and even training. But that’s not all. Even competing retailers will have access to these funds.

Clearly, Wal-Mart is giving a lot of money to the community; $1.5 million is nothing to scoff at, especially for small business. Just think what such an incentive could mean to the businesses in the community, especially those that exist in smaller municipalities without the resources to compete?

While Wal-Mart suddenly looks like a hero offering a helping hand to the businesses that are threatened by its arrival in town, the retail giant is really a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Stores that cannot compete with Wal-Mart will still not be competitive a year later, with or without all that money.

And Wal-Mart is not really giving all that much — at least not from Wal-Mart’s perspective. The largest retailer in North America celebrated more than $300 billion in sales last year, so $1.5 million is only about an average week’s sales to most stores.

But money does grease business wheels, and surely it will in this case. This campaign, which is more of a bribe to local business than a good-neighbour policy, is likely to bring more success to Wal-Mart expansion than several times that much money invested in consumer-based advertising. But the key to retail success for local competitors is not a grant program that throws money at smaller firms; it is finding a way to make such firms more competitive. Easy money tends to blind such firms who let greed overcome their common sense.

Some retail experts argue that Wal-Mart brings a lot of consumer traffic into an area, which affects the community by creating spinoff revenues for local businesses. If that was a common outcome, surely there would be communities lobbying Wal-Mart to bring its big-box style of retailing to their town, and the giant wouldn’t have to resort to paying its way into new communities.

There is a fundamental difference between retailers who can survive Wal-Mart’s competition and those which cannot. First of all, be realistic about competing on price. You can’t beat Wal-Mart’s prices on flagship items.

It is common knowledge that not all prices for all products are lower in a Wal-Mart store. But they don’t have to be. Consumers will seek out the flagship items at Wal-Mart, then buy other items there because it’s convenient for them to do so. Wal-Mart is also excellent at putting impulse items where they need to be, maximizing sales of products that were not planned purchases.

It you can’t compete on price, you can still compete in other areas of the marketing mix such as product quality and location. If you are already in business and have a sizable market in the local community, with high-quality products, you will not stand to lose as many customers as a store that doesn’t have that reputation.

Location is a plus for many local businesses, which are handier to the customer than travelling to another community, or a centralized retail centre, to go to Wal-Mart. But lower price can still be a critical draw.

Your market segment is the key to success. You need loyal customers, with loyalty programs to keep them coming back. You can spice up this approach with generous helpings of high-end customer service.
Perhaps you think that your particular service is immune to Wal-Mart’s attraction. Think again. If you are selling travel or photography services, eyeglasses, or hairstyling services, you will still face the retail giant in a competitive market. And if I were you, I would think very carefully before taking handouts from predators who really want my customers.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

The April 5 ruling by the Court of Appeal in Fresno upheld an ordinance enacted in 2004 by Turlock (Stanislaus County) that was backed by neighborhood supermarkets and labor unions. The court, setting a statewide precedent, said local governments can enact such restrictions to prevent the collapse of local businesses and resulting urban blight.

To read more about Turlock, click here.

From the New Jersey Times:

LAWRENCE -- "Would you like a Wal-Mart in your backyard?"

That was the question Gina Quinones asked members of the Lawrence Township Planning Board Screening Committee yesterday as she pointed a finger at each one of them and then turned her attention -- and her pointing finger -- to representatives of Wal-Mart.

She didn't get an answer.

A resident of Tiffany Woods, a housing development situated off Spruce Street near the 23.5-acre site proposed for a new Wal-Mart, Quinones was one of a very vocal group opposing the store for reasons that ranged from traffic to wage policies.

Dressed in a white T-shirt with the words "Wal-Mart Superstore" in an X-ed out circle, Quinones was applauded by about 50 residents who attended the informal meeting. Some were members of LET's Stop Wal-Mart, and about 40 of them demonstrated outside the township's senior center on East Darrah Lane before the meeting began.

Click here to read more.

From the Sunbeam:

PENNSVILLE TWP. -- The Pennsville Planning Board met again with Angeloni Development Monday night in the non-air conditioned auditorium at Pennsville Memorial High School to discuss the proposed Wal-Mart Super Center on Lighthouse Road and state highway 49.

The proposed development would include a Super Wal-Mart that would include a tire and lube service center, a garden center, a gas station along with an extra retail store to the north of the Wal-Mart. The project is proposed for a site just south of the current Wal-Mart.

About 60 residents were present to see the presentations on the proposal on Monday night. The number of residents in attendance dwindled from the meetings months before when the auditoriums in Pennsville Memorial High School and Central Park School were almost filled.

There was one group of residents present Monday who strongly opposed the super center by wearing anti Wal-Mart T-shirts. They met before the meeting in the parking lot to rally and show they are not in favor of the larger Wal-Mart.

Click here to read the full article.

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

A local businessman masterminded a scheme in the late 1990s to bring illegal immigrants to clean floors at Wal-Mart stores across the country.

Wal-Mart paid at least $82.2 million over three years to shell companies set up by businessman Christopher Walters, federal agents discovered. Walters' companies in turn paid subcontractors who hired illegal immigrants from countries stretching from Poland to Mongolia...

"Walters created these dummy corporations, but he did so at the direction of Wal-Mart," said Jeff Demerath, Walters' attorney.

Some former Wal-Mart janitors have filed a lawsuit claiming Wal-Mart committed racketeering offenses in its failure to pay the minimum wage and Social Security taxes to janitors, including illegal immigrants.

James Linsey, an attorney who is seeking to make the case a class action on behalf of many Wal-Mart janitors, said immigrant janitors were "were working seven nights a week, 364 days a year," and in some cases were locked inside stores while they worked overnight.

Press release from the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention and the National Crime Prevention Council:

Two Leading Prevention Groups Call for Action on Shoplifters

WASHINGTON, July 14 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Recent media coverage, highlighting Wal-Mart and other retailers' move away from the apprehension and prosecution of petty shoplifters, has two leading prevention groups calling for community action on shoplifting. The National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC), best known for McGruff the Crime Dog(r), and the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention (NASP) have joined forces to educate the public about the harmful effects of shoplifting on youth, families and communities and to offer community prevention alternatives to combat the shoplifting epidemic.

"While we understand the dilemma that retailers face when dealing with the retail theft epidemic and the burden it places on them, law enforcement and the courts, we must be careful not to open a Pandora's Box with policies and actions that appear to give tacit approval to petty theft, particularly to juveniles," said Caroline Kochman, Executive Director of NASP.

Shoplifting is one of the most prevalent and costly crimes in our nation. There are about 550,000 petty shoplifting incidents per day resulting in more than $10 billion worth of goods stolen from retailers annually. One in four youth admit to having shoplifted by the tine they are 12 to 16 years of age and fifty percent fewer children than in years past are receiving guidance from their parents as to why shoplifting is wrong.

NCPC and NASP will bring together key community stakeholders – - parents, schools, retailers, police, and criminal justice organizations -– to reverse the perception that shoplifting is "no big deal" or a "victimless" crime.

"Shoplifting is a crime that steals from all of us," said Alfonso E. Lenhardt, NCPC President and CEO. "Working together with NASP, we can educate parents, the community, and young people to ensure that all community residents have the moral compass to refrain from shoplifting. Crime prevention works best when the entire community is involved."

NASP and NCPC offer the retail community in particular a unique opportunity to be proactive community partners and do something positive with youthful offenders. By directing juveniles to complete a NASP shoplifting prevention program, retailers can effectively change the course of the youth's destructive behavior. Retailers do not necessarily have to prosecute every offender but they can help prevent one shoplifting incident as a teen from becoming a gateway to further offenses and criminal acts because they "got away with it."

Frank Abagnale, best-selling author and subject of "Catch Me if You Can" and an advocate of NASP prevention programs, says "I believe that punishment for fraud and recovery of stolen funds are so rare, that prevention is the only viable course of action. The same is true for shoplifting and retail theft, especially among youth. The precarious condition of character in our nation's youth coupled with the low priority put on dealing with shoplifting cases means that shoplifting and retail theft losses will continue to rise, as will corporate fraud and dishonesty, until we amend the thinking of our youth."

For more information, please visit the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention (NASP) at http://www.shopliftingprevention.org or the National Crime Prevention Council at http://www.ncpc.org.

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.

From the Associated Press:

SAN FRANCISCO - A San Joaquin Valley city's ordinance barring certain big-box retailers survived another legal challenge from Wal-Mart on Wednesday after the California Supreme Court declined to take the case.

The court did not say why it decided not to hear Wal-Mart's claim that the Turlock City Council exceeded its police powers and violated state environmental laws when it passed a 2004 zoning law that banned stores over 100,000 square feet that devoted at least 5 percent of their space to groceries.

Although the decision ended Wal-Mart's claim against the city in state court, the Arkansas-based retail chain still has a separate case in federal court arguing that the Turlock ordinance violates the equal protection and commerce clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

"We are still interested in doing business in Turlock because the marketing analysis indicates a strong demand for a Supercenter in Turlock," John Simley, a Wal-Mart spokesman said Wednesday.

The Supreme Court's decision to turn down the case was the fourth time a court had sided with the city. Last week, a U.S. District Court judge in Fresno ruled that Turlock's zoning law did not infringe on the company's constitutional rights. Both Simley and Rick Jarvis, a lawyer representing Turlock, said that if the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to hear the federal case on appeal, a ruling would set a precedent that could affect Wal-Mart's presence in nine Western states.

"All this litigation has resulted in is clear judicial authority that other cities can rely on to take the same track that Turlock has taken," Jarvis said.

Wal-Mart started talking with Turlock officials in 2002 about building a 225,000-square-foot Supercenter. The City Council passed the zoning ordinance after union leaders and grocery store representatives started lobbying against the proposed store.

Turlock is 85 miles southeast of San Francisco.

Our latest press release:

CONCERNED WORKERS QUESTION WAL-MART’S SHIFT FROM ‘ZERO-TOLERANCE’ TO ‘MORE PERMISSIVE’ ON SHOPLIFTING POLICY

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, WakeUpWalMart.com, as reported by the New York Times, revealed a new internal document which detailed Wal-Mart’s recent changes to the company’s shoplifting policies.

The new changes abandon Sam Walton’s policy of ‘zero-tolerance,’ in favor of a new policy which tells workers not to stop shoplifters for items under $25. The internal Wal-Mart policy document was given to WakeUpWalmart.com by a former Wal-Mart worker who is deeply concerned with the negative effect this policy will have on other Wal-Mart workers, the company, and the community.

According to the internal Wal-Mart document, the new shoplifting policy has changed from “Shoplifter Apprehensions” to “Investigation and Detention of Shoplifters.” In particular, the new shoplifting document explains to Wal-Mart workers that “the guidelines for prosecution of shoplifters have changed: the retail value of the merchandise recovered must exceed $25, and the suspected shoplifter must be at or between the ages of 18 and 65.”

The change in shoplifting policy is a dramatic departure from Sam Walton’s policies. Sam Walton believed shoplifting was “one of the biggest enemies of profitability in the retail business,” and even linked employee bonuses to reducing the shrinkage in each Wal-Mart store.

“Wal-Mart has truly forgotten where it came from. Instead of valuing workers, Wal-Mart is brutally restructuring the company by cutting hours for hundreds of thousands of loyal employees which is negatively impacting customer service and destroying worker morale. Now, Wal-Mart has gone one step further. Instead of addressing the serious issue of crime at Wal-Mart stores, Wal-Mart is abandoning Sam Walton’s zero tolerance and is now letting some shoplifters go,” said Paul Blank, campaign director for WakeUpWalMart.com.

The shift in Wal-Mart’s shoplifting policy follows widespread reports from Wal-Mart workers, many in the Loss Prevention Division, who have witnessed deep cuts, scheduling changes, and other restructuring at Wal-Mart stores. In fact, as reported in the New York Times, J.P. Suarez, Wal-Mart’s Loss Prevention director admits the company is making these changes as a cost-saving measure. As Suarez states “it was no longer efficient to prosecute petty shoplifters, ‘If I have somebody being paid $12 an hour processing a $5 theft, I have just lost money’,” he said. “I have also lost the time to catch somebody stealing $100 or an organized group stealing $3,000.”

Wal-Mart’s change in shoplifting policy also follows the well-publicized release by WakeUpWalMart.com of a study of police call incidents at Wal-Mart stores. The study, entitled “Is Wal-Mart Safe?” analyzed the official 2004 police incident reports (i.e. calls for police service) at 551 Wal-Mart store locations. According to the study, based on the number of reported police incidents for the sample, it is estimated police responded to nearly 1 million police incidents at Wal-Mart in 2004 costing taxpayers $77 million annually.

WakeUpWalMart.com is a national grassroots movement of 245,000 Americans who have joined together to change Wal-Mart into a responsible and moral corporation.

From the New York Times:

Wal-Mart refuses to carry smutty magazines. It will not sell compact discs with obscene lyrics. And when it catches customers shoplifting - even a pair of socks or a pack of cigarettes - it prosecutes them.

But now, in a rare display of limited permissiveness, Wal-Mart is letting thieves off the hook - at least in cases involving $25 or less.

According to internal documents, the company, the nation’s largest retailer and leading destination for shoplifting, will no longer prosecute first-time thieves unless they are between 18 and 65 and steal merchandise worth at least $25, putting the chain in line with the policies of many other
retailers.

Under the new policy, a shoplifter caught trying to swipe, say, a DVD of the movie “Basic Instinct 2” ($16.87) would receive a warning, but one caught walking out of the store with “E.R. - The Complete Fifth Season” ($32.87) would face arrest.

Wal-Mart said the change would allow it to focus on theft by professional shoplifters and its own employees, who together steal the bulk of merchandise from the chain every year, rather than the teenager who occasionally takes a candy bar from the checkout counter.

It may also serve to placate small-town police departments across the country who have protested what the company has called its zero-tolerance policy on shoplifting. Employees summoned officers whether a customer stole a $5 toy or a $5,000 television set - anything over $3, the company said.

At some of the chain’s giant 24-hour stores, the police make up to six arrests a day prompting a handful of departments to hire an additional officer just to deal with the extra workload.

“I had one guy tied up at Wal-Mart every day,” said Don Zofchak, chief of police in South Strabane Township, Pa., which has 9,000 residents and 16 officers. He said the higher threshold for prosecution “would help every community to deal with this.”

J. P. Suarez, who is in charge of asset protection at Wal-Mart, said it was no longer efficient to prosecute petty shoplifters. “If I have somebody being paid $12 an hour processing a $5 theft, I have just lost money,” he said. “I have also lost the time to catch somebody stealing $100 or an organized group stealing $3,000.”

The changes in Wal-Mart’s theft policy are described in 30 pages of documents that were provided to The New York Times by WakeUpWalMart.com, a group backed by unions that have tried to organize Wal-Mart workers in the United States.

The group said it received the document from a former employee at the chain who is unhappy with the new policy.

In interviews, several current and former Wal-Mart employees said the new shoplifting policy undermines their work and would, over time, encourage more shoplifting at the chain.

But Wal-Mart said it would closely track shoplifters it did not have arrested, and would ask that they be prosecuted after a second incident. (Under the new policy, it will also seek the prosecution of all suspected shoplifters who threaten violence or fail to produce identification, no matter how much they are trying to steal. Not carrying identification is a popular tactic among professional shoplifters to avoid arrest.)

“There is not a lot of margin for success for those intent on making a living stealing from us,” Mr. Suarez said. “We will put them in jail just as we always have.”

Still, the new policy, which became effective in March, is in many ways a striking departure from Wal-Mart traditions. In the past, the company has proudly defended its aggressive prosecution of shoplifters, saying it helps hold down prices.

“Other retailers might offset the cost of shoplifting with higher prices,” a spokeswoman said in a 2004 interview. “But we don’t do that.”

Indeed, Wal-Mart’s zero-tolerance policy can be traced to its founder, Sam Walton, who tied employee bonuses to low theft rates at stores. Stolen merchandise, he wrote in his autobiography published in 1992, the year he died, “is one of the biggest enemies of profitability in the retail business.”

Over all, American retailers lose more than $30 billion a year to theft, according to the National Retail Federation, a trade group.

In the book, “Sam Walton: Made in America,” Mr. Walton boasted that the amount of merchandise lost to theft at Wal-Mart was half that of the retailing industry’s average.

With the new policy, though, employees “are confused,” said a former
Wal-Mart employee who worked in the loss prevention department at a store outside San Jose, Calif..

“They want to stop shoplifters,” she said. “They want to do what they are trained to do.”

But if the shoplifter is under 18 or steals less than $25 worth of products, “they can’t do anything,” said the former employee, who left the company shortly after the new shoplifting policy was put into effect and spoke on condition of anonymity because she said she feared retribution.

Chris Kofinis, director of communications at WakeUpWalMart.com, said the policy “is a head-in-the-sand strategy that is far different than what Sam Walton would ever have wanted, and it’s not clear this is the best strategy for Wal-Mart workers.”

Mr. Suarez, the Wal-Mart executive, said there was “overwhelming” employee support for the new policy because it would more effectively deter theft.

Wal-Mart is not alone in giving shoplifters some leeway. Its new policy “is consistent with guidelines many retailers use,” said Joseph J. LaRocca, vice president for loss prevention at the National Retail Federation.

Retailers, he said, have learned that prosecuting small shoplifting cases “does not warrant the store resources or the judicial resources required, given the dollar amount that was stolen.”

In some cases, loss prevention executives said, retailers will prosecute only shoplifters who steal at least $50 or $100 worth of merchandise. The legal costs required for prosecution, they said, are simply too high. Stores must hire a lawyer for employees who become witnesses in a trial, for example, and pay workers overtime to appear in court.

Until now, they said, Wal-Mart was the exception. “They would arrest
somebody for stealing a pair of socks,” said Chief Zofchak in South Strabane Township. “I felt we were spending an inordinate amount of time just dealing with Wal-Mart.”

Since Wal-Mart enforced its new shoplifting policy, arrests have fallen at the store in Harrisville, Utah, according to authorities there. But the town’s chief of police, Maxwell Jackson, still prefers the original zero-tolerance rule.

“Once the word goes out that there is a dollar limit,” he said, “there will be more stealing.

New MSNBC poll on WalMart's new pledge to help protect the environment. Is Wal-Mart genuinely concerned with the environment or are they just concerned with their public image?

Click on the picture to take the survey!

Click here for our press release on Wal-Mart and environmental sustainability.

Our latest press release:

The following statement is attributable to Paul Blank, campaign director for WakeUpWalMart.com:

"We strongly support Vice President Al Gore in his national effort to bring the issue of environmental sustainability to the top of the American people's agenda and in his effort to make all companies, including Wal-Mart, more environmentally responsible.

While we are glad Wal-Mart is talking about environmental sustainability, Wal-Mart’s long record of inaction and empty rhetoric leaves us deeply skeptical about Wal-Mart’s true intentions. Unfortunately, as the American people have seen again and again, Wal-Mart has a consistent pattern of saying one thing and doing another. We can only hope that Wal-Mart's latest talk of becoming a more environmentally-friendly company is not just another public relations smoke screen in the company’s desperate attempt to salvage its public image.

As one of our nation's most distinguished leaders, we have no doubt Vice President Gore will use this opportunity to call on Wal-Mart to change and become a more responsible company in all areas of its business. We hope Vice President Gore will join with us in our national campaign effort to make Wal-Mart not just an environmentally-friendly, but an employee-friendly company as well.

In its current form, Wal-Mart's business model is unsustainable for America. By depressing wages, shipping U.S. jobs overseas, not providing affordable health care, violating child labor laws and being sued for discriminating against 1.6 million female employees, Wal-Mart’s record stands in direct contrast to the best of American values.

As we have said before, if Wal-Mart is truly sincere about changing for the better, Wal-Mart should accept our sincere offer to sit down with us, work together in positive way, and help create a new business model for the betterment of its employees, their families, and all of America."

######

Wal-Mart and Environmental Sustainability

Some of Wal-Mart’s Most Widely Publicized Sustainability Policies Are Actually Changes Made In Response to the EPA Citing the Company for Environmental Violations

For example:
• Wal-Mart’s press releases on its sustainability initiatives tout how the company will reduce idling on its trucking fleet to improve fuel efficiency. [http://www.walmartfacts.com]

But, Wal-Mart forgot to point out:
• In 2004, EPA inspectors caught the company letting its trucks idle for hours at a time, a violation of state and national laws. [Boston Globe, November 2, 2005]

• In November 2005, the EPA reported, “As part of a settlement for clean air violations, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will undertake a national effort to reduce diesel truck idling at its 4,000 facilities across the U.S.” [EPA Office of Public Affairs, November 1, 2005]

And Wal-Mart’s Business Model Counteracts Environmental Sustainability Because:

1) Wal-Mart Stores Increase Vehicular Traffic and, With It, Fuel Use and Air Pollution

• Researchers have looked at Wal-Mart as having the following impact on traffic and fossil fuel use: the size of Wal-Mart stores makes the company locate on the outskirts of towns and its entry causes smaller competitors in pedestrian-friendly areas to close. Shoppers wind up driving more often and/or farther and in more traffic. [Supercenters and the Transformation of the Bay Area Grocery Industry: Issues, Trends, and Impacts. Bay Area Economic Forum, 2004]

• A study of estimated additional driving costs of Supercenters in the San Francisco Bay area concluded that Wal-Mart’s entry into the area would lead to an additional 238 million vehicle miles traveled per year. [Supercenters and the Transformation of the Bay Area Grocery Industry: Issues, Trends, and Impacts. Bay Area Economic Forum, 2004]

• These extra miles traveled could cost communities in the Bay area up $ 256 million in additional costs such as infrastructure repair and environmental degradation.
[Supercenters and the Transformation of the Bay Area Grocery Industry: Issues, Trends, and Impacts. Bay Area Economic Forum, 2004]

2.) Wal-Mart Pushes Up Imports, Harming The Environment
• In 1995, Wal-Mart imported 6 percent of its total merchandise. In 2004, Wal-Mart imported 60 percent of its total merchandise. [Frontline 11/16/2004]

• Co-Op America concluded in 2006 that “Wal-Mart’s pursuit of cheap labor around the globe has exponentially increased the amount of fossil fuels needed to get the product onto a Wal-Mart shelf.” [“There Is No Place For Today’s Wal-Mart in a Sustainable Society,” Co-op America Quarterly, Spring 2006]

• Stacy Mitchell, a senior researcher at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance said in 2005 that the company's environmental initiatives "miss the bigger picture. What is truly sustainable is local sourcing. Of course we will always have trade, but sourcing locally cuts down dramatically on fuel and energy use." [Grist Magazine. November 30, 2005]

• Economists have found that it is not the case that other retailers would be as likely to import these goods: Wal-Mart’s huge size lets it spread out the costs of long-distance trade, such as fuel, over many more goods sold than what smaller competitors would be able to do. [Emek Basker and Pham Hoang Van, “Putting a Smiley Face on the Dragon: Wal-Mart as Catalyst to U.S.-China Trade,” Paper presented at the American Economics Association Conference 1/8/06]

3.) The Quality Of Wal-Mart's Products Harms The Environment
• Heather Rogers, author of Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage, is skeptical of Wal-Mart’s newfound environmentalism. "It is a distraction, because the real environmental impact comes from what Wal-Mart sells: cheap commodities that are designed to wear out quickly," she says. [Grist Magazine. November 30, 2005]

• Indeed, Bureau of Labor Statistics economist Patrick Jackman, who has extensively studied Wal-Mart, argues that the disposability of what Wal-Mart sells has a "double impact" on the environment: more raw materials must be extracted to replace the defunct products, while at the same time the discarded items are sent to polluting landfills. [Grist Magazine. November 30, 2005]

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart Has A Horrible Track Record Of Environmental Fines

• Between 2003 and 2005, state and federal environmental agencies fined Wal-Mart $5 million.

• In 2005, Wal-Mart reached a $1.15 million settlement with the State of Connecticut for allowing improperly stored pesticides and other chemicals to pollute streams. This was the largest such settlement in state history. [Hartford Courant, 8/16/05]

• In May 2004, Wal-Mart agreed to pay the largest settlement for storm water violations in EPA history. The United States sued Wal-Mart for violating the Clean Water Act in 9 states, calling for penalties of over $3.1 million and changes to Wal-Mart’s building practices. [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, May 12, 2004, U.S. v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 2004 WL 2370700]

• In 2004, Wal-Mart was fined $765,000 for violating Florida’s petroleum storage tank laws at its automobile service centers. Wal-Mart failed to register its fuel tanks, failed to install devices that prevent overflow, did not perform monthly monitoring, lacked current technologies, and blocked state inspectors. [Associated Press, 11/18/04]

• In Georgia, Wal-Mart was fined about $150,000 in 2004 for water contamination. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 2/10/05]

And Wal-Mart Is Charged With Violating Laws For Its Handling Of Hazardous Waste

In Wal-Mart’s Annual Report for 2006, the company disclosed that it faces multiple investigations for failing to follow environmental rules and regulations on hazardous waste.

• “The District Attorney for Solano County, California, has alleged that the Company’s store in Vacaville, California, failed to comply with certain California statutes regulating hazardous waste and hazardous materials handling practices. Specifically, the County is alleging that the Company improperly disposed of a limited amount of damaged or returned product containing dry granular fertilizer and pesticides on or about April 3, 2002. The parties are currently negotiating toward a resolution of this matter.” [Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., SEC Filing, Form 10-K, for fiscal year 2006]

• “The District Attorney for Orange County, California, has alleged that the Company’s store in Foothill Ranch, California, failed to comply with certain California statutes regulating hazardous waste and hazardous materials handling practices. Specifically, the County is alleging that the Company improperly disposed of a limited amount of damaged product containing dry granular pesticide on or about January 24, 2005. The parties are currently negotiating toward a resolution of this matter.” [Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., SEC Filing, Form 10-K, for fiscal year 2006]

• “On November 8, 2005, the Company received a grand jury subpoena from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, seeking documents and information relating to the Company’s receipt, transportation, handling, identification, recycling, treatment, storage and disposal of certain merchandise that constitutes hazardous materials or hazardous waste. The Company has been informed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California that it is a target of a criminal investigation into potential violations of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (“RCRA”), the Clean Water Act, and the Hazardous Materials Transportation Statute. [Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., SEC Filing, Form 10-K, for fiscal year 2006]

• The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of California has initiated its own investigation regarding the Company’s handling of hazardous materials and hazardous waste and the Company has received administrative document requests from the California Department of Toxic Substances Control requesting documents and information with respect to two of the Company’s distribution facilities. [Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., SEC Filin0g, Form 10-K, for fiscal year 2006]

From the Associated Press:

MONTREAL (AP) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. was only helping police and not endangering employees when it asked them to search for a possible bomb at one of the chain's stores, a company spokesman said Tuesday.

The manager of the St-Jean-sur-Richelieu outlet was alerted to a bomb threat last Thursday, said Yanik Deschenes, who confirmed that 40 sales clerks were asked to help find the device.

One young employee, who was apparently shaken by the incident, told her mother about it later. She complained to the store manager and the media.

Deschenes insisted nobody was forced to search the store about 60 kilometers (37 miles) east of Montreal.

"We will never put in jeopardy the security of our employees," he said in a telephone interview.

"Never, never, never (will) we force them to do such kinds of investigations. If this associate had said or all the associates had said 'We don't want to participate,' there would be no problem. They would have been able to leave the building without hesitation."

Deschenes said police told the manager the threatening call had been made to 911 from a pay phone outside the store. Deschenes would not speculate on motives but said the store is not having any labor trouble.

Police ordered customers out but then told employees to look for any suspicious packages. Police said they would take over if any devices were found.

Deschenes said the manager asked the police officer -- one of five present -- if he was sure he wanted employees to do the search.

"They thought this was the right procedure to do and we trust them," Deschenes said. "Our procedure is very clear, to collaborate with the police officer all the time so that's what we did."

Nothing was found in the search.

Police are still investigating the incident, as is the Quebec workplace health and safety board.

Police said the store didn't violate any laws and only had an obligation to evacuate the store if a suspicious object was found.

From Bloomberg:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. would have to abandon its bid to operate a bank under the provisions of a bill introduced yesterday in Congress.

Legislation proposed by US Representatives Barney Frank and Paul Gillmor would ban nonfinancial companies seeking charters from operating industrial banks and stop current industrial banks from expanding their services. The Newton Democrat and Ohio Republican are the senior members of the House Committee on Financial Services.

Wal-Mart and Home Depot Inc. are among 13 nonfinancial companies with bank applications pending, the lawmakers said. Opponents say companies that operate their own banks, known as industrial banks or industrial loan corporations, can't make disinterested lending decisions.

``There is ambiguity in banking policy, and retailers are exploiting a loophole," said Steve Adamske, a spokesman for Frank.

In Wal-Mart's case, banks fear the world's largest retailer would eventually open branches, threatening smaller competitors.

Wal-Mart has said it does not intend to get into retail banking and wants to use its bank to save on fees it now pays to third parties to process credit card, debit card, and check transactions.

``On behalf of its customers, Wal-Mart would be very disappointed if Congress eliminated its ability to obtain an ILC charter," spokeswoman Tara Raddohl said in an e-mail message today.

In the upcoming edition of the magazine Mother Jones, Economic Policy Institute economists Jared Bernstein and Josh Bivens write an intriguing op-ed on Wal-Mart's need to more fairly share its profits with its workers.

Their article comes in response to the recent debate surrounding the Chicago minimum wage ordinance. In the article, Bernstein and Bivens seek to address this fundamental question:

Can Wal-Mart do better by its workers and still profitably offer its trademark 'everyday low prices'?

Their answer is clear:

The $13 an hour total compensation cost mandated by the Chicago ordinance is roughly a 20 percent raise over what Wal-Mart claims to pay its employees. A raise of this size could be financed through a combination of Wal-Mart allowing its profit margin (after-tax profits divided by sales) to fall from its current 3.6 percent to 2.9 percent and by raising its prices 0.7 percent -- less than a penny on a $1 pair of socks.

In short, our findings suggest that Wal-Mart and Chicago can help each other. The store can expand its market share in a major American city while offering Chicago consumers low-priced goods. At the same time, it can more fairly share its profits with its workers, without sacrificing its price advantage.

Read the entire op-ed here.

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Wal-Mart's chief executive, Lee Scott, made news last October when he announced that Wal-Mart would support a minimum wage hike. Scott, who earned $18 million last year — or about $8,700 an hour — seemed to understand that working families living on the minimum wage won't be able to spend enough at Wal-Mart to sustain the company's recording-breaking profits.

The minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 an hour for nine years. It buys less today — less gas, less food, less medicine, less child care — than it has in 50 years. The federal minimum wage is so out of date that 21 states, including Wal-Mart's home state of Arkansas, have raised it rather than wait for Congress to act.

Supporters of a higher minimum wage cheered Wal-Mart's announcement. Some assumed that Wal-Mart would tap its team of top Washington lobbyists to help push through a modest raise for millions of working families. Given Wal-Mart's deep ties to the Bush administration and the steady streams of cash that Wal-Mart has pumped to Republican members of Congress, a higher minimum wage seemed imminent.

A new Economic Policy Institute study shows Wal-Mart could raise wages by $2,100 a year for its own workers and still make billions of dollars a year in profits.

But when it came to the recent effort to raise the minimum wage, leaders on Capitol Hill report that Wal-Mart was nowhere to be found.

The truth is that Wal-Mart had no intention of working to raise the minimum wage.

How about Wal-Mart's promise to join the debate to transform health care in the United States? Wal-Mart has rolled out its "new" health care plan several times in the last year to great fanfare. But faced with $1,000 deductibles and strict limits on coverage, half of Wal-Mart workers still have to rely on Medicaid or go elsewhere when they need to see a doctor. A Wal-Mart memo leaked to the press last year revealed that 46 percent of the children of Wal-Mart employees are uninsured or depend on taxpayer-funded health care programs.

The real Wal-Mart is the one that pays poverty wages to hundreds of thousands of its own workers and backs groups like the Retail Industry Leaders Association and American Legislative Exchange Council, which work day and night in Washington and in state Capitols around the country to keep wages down.

A hike in the minimum wage isn't something our families should have to dream about. But in the Wal-Mart economy, where employees of America's biggest company live just one paycheck or another illness away from disaster, it's still the stuff of dreams.

Wal-Mart's size and power bring with them a unique moral responsibility for the livelihoods of millions of workers and the needs of billions of consumers. We call on Wal-Mart to drop its public relations ploys and to make good on its promise to help raise the minimum wage.

The Food Business Review online writes "Wal-Mart: excuses, excuses, excuses."

US discount store Wal-Mart blame