Just a few minutes ago, Cleo Forward, a current Wal-Mart support manager in Dallas, Texas, called on Wal-Mart to change its anti-family policies and start putting America's families first at a powerful press conference.

Here is some of what Cleo said:

Wal-Mart said I have a "duty of loyalty" to the company and that I cannot speak out. But what about my "duty of loyalty" to the 1.4 million Wal-Mart Associates who built this company, and are suffering under Wal-Mart's new anti-family policies? What about my "duty of loyalty" to tell the truth to the American people?"

Cleo is not alone. All over the country, Wal-Mart employees are calling on Wal-Mart to change for the better this Holiday season. And, for the first time, 3 brave Wal-Mart Associates are taking to the airwaves to tell the American people directly why Wal-Mart needs to change.

Our latest TV Ad, "Never," features Wal-Mart workers Cynthia Murray, Ramiro Gonzales and Charmaine Givens.

In her BusinessWeek article "What's With Wal-Mart's Sales Woes?" Pallavi Gogoi writes about Wal-Mart's reputation crisis.

One question on the minds of some retail experts: Is Wal-Mart's reputation hurting sales? After all, last year consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found that 2% to 8% of the company's customers have stopped shopping there "because of negative press they have heard." And that was before the negative publicity campaigns by two of its most vociferous opponents—union-funded groups Wal-Mart Watch and WakeUpWalmart.com. This year both groups have ramped up their attacks on Wal-Mart, calling on the company to provide a "living wage and affordable health care" for employees...

Still, Wal-Mart has struggled to keep negative headlines out of the news. Last month, Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and former Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate Senator John Edwards teamed up with WakeUpWalmart.com to call on the retailer to become a better employer. Those calls officially launched a six-week campaign titled "Hope for the Holidays," in which the watchdog group plans to build public pressure on Wal-Mart to change what the group calls the discounter's "anti-family business practices with its strict attendance policies and its salary caps."

From Fortune Magazine:

It's the week before Thanksgiving, and Chris Kofinis, the never-at-a-loss-for-words communications director for Wake Up Wal-Mart, is going through his organization's secret holiday campaign plan.

We're in his drab, windowless office in downtown Washington, D.C., surrounded by handmade posters, press clippings and assorted flip charts full of ideas and scheduling details. "You know, I probably shouldn't be doing this," he says as his cell phone rings. "If this got out, it would screw everything up. Wal-Mart would know too much."

The PowerPoint presentation entitled "Hope for the Holidays" details how the 12-year-old union-backed group plans to rattle Wal-Mart's carefully crafted image precisely when Americans are frequenting the mega-retailer most. It includes a ten-part timeline for attacking the company from mid-October through the end of the year.

The week before Christmas, for example, the group plans a mini-campaign titled "America, Pray for Wal-Mart to Change." It calls for reaching out to religious leaders and groups, targeted media buys and candlelight vigils in front of the stores, with families and children asking for health care. It's topped off by a national day of prayer.

"When you frame it as a family values and faith issue, almost all of Wal-Mart's core customers pay attention," Kofinis says. Another week the group plans to frame its campaign as a women's issue. "That's the whole idea behind what we do: We try to come up with innovative and creative ways to reach out to as many different demographic groups as possible."

Generate headlines, spin the news, trash your opponent. If this sounds like a presidential campaign, you're not too far off. Oh, and just as in The Boys on the Bus, these political junkies take few vacations, get little weekend rest and dating - well, that's for civilians.

In many ways, not much has changed since they were with the Howard Dean, Wesley Clark and John Kerry presidential campaigns. Only this time they think they're backing a winner. Even better, their candidate doesn't have to win - Wal-Mart (Charts) just has to lose. "If we want to talk about what kind of America we want for our children," says Kofinis, "we've got to talk about what is the responsibility of companies like Wal-Mart."

David vs. Goliath
Plenty of companies complain they get bad press. But Kofinis and Paul Blank, the group's campaign director, are part of what is quite possibly the most relentless public relations assault ever launched against a company.

Simply put, Wal-Mart cannot do anything right in the eyes of these groups. When Wal-Mart lowers prescription drug costs, it "needlessly exaggerated" the scope of the plan. New environmental policies? "A publicity stunt." Even CEO Lee Scott's vacation raised "serious questions."

Wake Up Wal-Mart and another union-backed group, Wal-Mart Watch, spend just a few million dollars a year in contrast to Wal-Mart's $1.6 billion advertising budget. But thanks to the explosion of news outlets and modern Internet campaigning, the opportunities to point out the retailer's misdeeds - often through internally leaked documents - are limitless. (Imagine if Standard Oil muckraker Ida Tarbell had had a blog.)

Kofinis and Blank are liberals - but say they aren't radicals out to destroy Wal-Mart. Kofinis, 37, who grew up outside Toronto and recently became an American citizen, was a political science professor at Cal State Northridge before he was drafted to help run General Clark's campaign.

And Blank, a New Jersey native who began his political career at 12 as a volunteer for Senator Bill Bradley, graduated from Exeter and Duke, then went to work in politics, most recently as the political director for Howard Dean's campaign.

It's difficult to gauge what effect their efforts have had on Wal-Mart's bottom line. "Our customers see these attacks as part of a tired and failing campaign," says Wal-Mart spokeswoman Sarah Clark. "We have 127 million customers who visit our stores each week. We think that in itself tells the whole story."

That's true - and those customers have saved billions. Still, Wal-Mart's stock is down 30 percent since 2000. Same-store sales growth has slowed to 1.5 percent in the third quarter, compared with 4.6 percent at Target (Charts). And opposition to stores in urban areas is as high as ever. With all that going on, the PR offensive, which was spurred by a 2004 grocery workers strike in California that the unions blamed on Wal-Mart, certainly can't be helping.

The demands
But what does Wake Up Wal-Mart want, exactly? It depends on whom you ask. Kofinis and Blank say their aim is to drum up enough public awareness about the company's practices, so it's forced to treat workers better, which will in turn make smaller companies follow suit. (Target is much smaller than Wal-Mart and doesn't sell nearly as many groceries, which explains why they aren't, well & a target.)

Wal-Mart "made $11.2 billion in profits last year," says Kofinis. "If they took even a few billion of that and used it to pay better wages and provide more affordable health care, they could change their public image overnight. They would be a model employer."

But ask the union leaders - the people who pay the bills - the same question, and additional motives emerge. "Success would be if Wal-Mart would bring their working standards up to what we consider decent," says Joseph Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, who founded Wake Up Wal-Mart. "We just don't think they are going to do that without a union."

"The average Wal-Mart worker will have to work 1,000 years to make what Lee Scott made last year," Kofinis bellows in front of 27 people holding small mechanical dials. It's a rainy Sunday evening in Bedford, N.H., and Kofinis is "live-dialing" a focus group to pinpoint the messages that resonate most with voters. He's got a winner - the focus group attendees are twisting their knobs furiously, registering an 80 percent approval rating for his message, something most politicians would kill for.

Then Republican strategist Frank Luntz (famous for helping Newt Gingrich forge his Contract With America) takes a turn. He's been brought in to analyze the focus group, and when he tests classic Wal-Mart rebuttals, including how much the company saves consumers, he bombs, scoring a Dukakis-like 30 percent.

Labor issues
The guys are elated: they'll use this research to help convince politicians on both sides of the aisle to make Wal-Mart an issue on the campaign trail. Luntz's takeaway: "Everyone in that room thinks Wal-Mart is a legitimate issue in '08."

That's the whole idea, says the UFCW's Hansen, a former meat cutter who took over the union in 2004. That year the UFCW barely survived the crippling grocery strike in California, which came about after Wal-Mart announced it was moving its grocery-carrying "Supercenters" into the state. Traditional chains used that threat to play hardball with their unions, slashing benefits and precipitating the strike.

The UFCW had already spent more than a decade trying to unionize Wal-Mart with no success. (When they signed up meat cutters in Texas, for example, the company centralized all meatpacking for that region; when they organized one Canadian store, Wal-Mart simply shut it down.) Now it was war.

In January 2005, Hansen approached Howard Dean's former political director, the then 29-year-old Blank. The question was simple: Could he replicate the populist groundswell that the Dean campaign embodied against a single corporation? "I thought about it for a little while," Blank says. "Then it hit me: This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change America through one company."

Around the same time, Andy Stern, the chief of the Service Employees International Union, hatched a similar plan. He called it Wal-Mart Watch and designed it more as a watchdog research organization than a take-it-to-the-streets campaign. Run by Democratic operative Andrew Grossman, its $4.6 million budget comes primarily from Stern's union, with help from groups like the Sierra Club.

Grassroots campaigning
Blank's group, which receives all its money from the UFCW, modeled itself after the Dean and Clark campaigns. One of the first things it did was to set up a snappy Web site where supporters could enter their zip code to find nearby Wal-Marts and then get involved in pickets, informational house parties or letter-writing blitzes.

With campaigns like "Love Mom, Not Wal-Mart," and "All I Want for Christmas Is Health Care for Mommy," the group says it has signed up more than 287,000 supporters.

Last summer they took their message on the road. With an old bus painted red, white and blue, they held rallies, press conferences and town hall meetings in 35 cities in 35 days. The eight staffers slept on the bus; there were few showers and far too many meals at Denny's. "By the middle of the tour, the bus wasn't smelling so good," says Kofinis.

Not that their office is deluxe either. The quarters are cramped, the carpet is green, and workdays can go as late as midnight working the phones, lobbying Capitol Hill and talking with Wal-Mart employees.

Staffers have become experts at leaking Wal-Mart documents to the press. Recently they exposed an unpublicized salary cap that was part of a much-publicized Wal-Mart pay raise.

Rival Wal-Mart Watch found the single most embarrassing document: a leaked memo from Wal-Mart's VP of benefits that recommended, among other things, discouraging unhealthy people from working at Wal-Mart.

Political pressures
Lately several A-list politicians have spoken out for the cause. Wake-Up Wal-Mart's holiday-campaign kickoff conference call featured Senators John Edwards and Barack Obama. "Wal-Mart is making enormous profits, and yet it has chosen to go with low wages and diminished benefits," Obama told listeners.

Wal-Mart isn't the first American company to face such withering attacks. Standard Oil's dominance provoked widespread public outcry around the turn of the 20th century. Henry Ford's labor practices came under intense criticism in the late 1930s. In recent years Nike (Charts) and Gap (Charts) faced scrutiny for what critics said were sweatshop conditions at its overseas factories.

Each company eventually yielded, says Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at University of California at Santa Barbara and editor of "Wal-Mart: The Face of 21st-Century Capitalism." Standard Oil fell to new antitrust laws. Ford (Charts) unionized, and Nike and Gap opened their factories to inspection. "If history is any guide, Wal-Mart will eventually have to do the same," he says. "No company can withstand this kind of criticism forever."

Clark, Wal-Mart's spokeswoman, says that although the company recently changed its environmental policies with the help of various activist groups, it doesn't plan to meet with any union-backed groups.

"Wal-Mart creates tens of thousands of jobs every year, we offer associates health plans for as little as $23 a month, and we're good stewards of the environment," says Clark. "Americans view Wal-Mart as a good neighbor, a good place to work, and a good place to shop."

Still, a confidential 2004 report prepared by McKinsey & Co. for Wal-Mart, and made public by Wal-Mart Watch, found that 2 to 8 percent of Wal-Mart consumers surveyed have ceased shopping at the chain because of "negative press they have heard."

And Wal-Mart hasn't taken the attacks lying down. Last year the company, which has historically had a tiny PR department, hired Edelman, one of the world's largest public relations firms. After setting up a "war room" in Bentonville, one of Edelman's first projects was to help organize a pro-Wal-Mart grass-roots organization called Working Families for Wal-Mart. But its leader, Andrew Young, the first African-American U.S. ambassador to the UN, was quickly forced to resign after making anti-Semitic and anti-Korean comments.

Then, in October, Wal-Mart Watch exposed another independent-looking site, Wal-Marting Across America, a travelogue by "Jim and Laura," as being company-funded. (Edelman referred all questions to Wal-Mart.)

With both sides locked in a standoff, will the activists ever get the retailer to make concessions? Live to see Wal-Mart workers unionized? Nobody knows. But the longer Wal-Mart stonewalls, the more time the unions have to influence public opinion. "I can't let it end until somehow Lee Scott and Joe Hansen figure out a way to end it," says the UFCW's Hansen. "I don't see that happening anytime soon."

Kofinis agrees. "Wal-Mart could easily change. They just don't want to," he says. "That's what gives this campaign power." It's also what keeps Kofinis's phone ringing off the hook. Back in his office, feet up on his desk, he's taking call after call, his voice becoming louder with each successive point.

It's CNN: "Don't think I can do it today unless you send a camera crew over." The Associated Press: "Did those workers I sent you pan out?" But he has the best response for the Wall Street Journal, which wants a comment on Wal-Mart's new high-powered head of corporate affairs and government relations, Leslie Dach: "Last time I checked, he wouldn't have a job if it weren't for our campaign."

He stops, turns my way, and chuckles: "That's pretty good, right?"

This weekend, Wal-Mart announced it anticipates November same store sales to drop 0.1%. Wal-Mart had previously disappointed Wall Street with an estimate of flat same store sales for the month.

From Bloomberg:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, said November sales at U.S. stores open at least a year fell 0.1 percent, the worst performance in more than a decade as the holiday selling season got under way.

Wal-Mart marked down toys, electronics, appliances and groceries while cutting prices on generic drugs in 38 U.S. states. Chief Executive Officer H. Lee Scott told analysts in October he expected sales to improve as holiday merchandise went on sale and gasoline prices fell. Wal-Mart had forecast unchanged same-store sales for November.

Wal-Mart's sales are slumping as retailers enter a quarter that accounts for almost one-third of annual profits...

This Friday, November 24, known throughout America as “Black Friday,” WakeUpWalMart.com volunteers will be "waking up" and fanning out all across the country so that more Americans learn the truth this holiday season - Wal-Mart hurts hard-working families every single day.

For the second year in a row, our supporters will take part in our grassroots Black Friday events, passing out our newest flyer at stores and public places all across the country.

Join other supporters across the country this Friday.

Don’t let Grandma’s turkey, stuffing, and yams weigh you down. This Friday, work off that Thanksgiving meal by distributing our "Black Friday, Black Eye" flyer to Wal-Mart shoppers for a few hours.

From today's AP article "Conservative Plan to Protest Wal-Mart."

Long under fire from the left, Wal-Mart is now a target of Christian conservatives urging shoppers to boycott the huge retailer's post-Thanksgiving sales because of its low-key outreach to some gay-rights organizations.

One group, the American Family Association, is asking supporters to stay away from Wal-Mart on Friday and Saturday - two of the busiest shopping days of the year. Another group, Operation Save America, plans prayer-and-preaching rallies outside many Wal-Mart stores on Friday.

The corporate actions that triggered the protests were little different from those taken by scores of major companies in recent years - Wal-Mart paid $25,000 this summer to become a member of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and donated $60,000 to Out and Equal, which promotes gay-rights advances in the workplace.

Paul Blank, campaign director for WakeUpWalMart.com, sent a letter Tuesday to Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott urging the company not to cede to the boycott.

"We not only look forward to Wal-Mart remaining steadfast in its support for equal rights, but to the coming day when Wal-Mart will do what is truly right - become a better employer," Blank wrote.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer: "Wal-Mart Finds a Frosty Reception."

While knocking on more than 2,000 doors during his campaign for Berlin Borough Council this fall, Stephen Clyde encountered one question over and over.

It wasn't about property taxes or immigration or gay marriage.

Voters wanted to know: What was his position on Wal-Mart?

"Wal-Mart acted as a catalyst to ignite people's passion," said Clyde, a Democrat who ousted a Republican incumbent.

He attributes his victory, in part, to his vocal stance against the company's plan to put a 217,062-square-foot supercenter in the Camden County borough.

"It had a major impact," Clyde said.

Vehement community opposition to Wal-Mart's proposed Berlin store at the intersection of Berlin Cross-Keys and Watsontown-New Freedom Roads comes as the mammoth retailer faces growing national criticism from an increasingly well-organized opposition.

WakeUpWalMart.com, one of two national union-backed groups founded last year, last week enlisted two Democratic heavyweights, Sen. Barack Obama (D., Ill.) and former Sen. John Edwards (D., N.C.), to help launch its "Hope for the Holidays" campaign - one of the group's many initiatives to target the nonunion company, which it accuses of exploiting workers, transferring health-care costs onto taxpayers and crushing small businesses.

In the New York magazine, James Cramer writes about Wal-Mart's business woes in "Attention Wal-Mart Shoppers."

In the article, Cramer analyzes Wal-Mart's "flagging business fortunes," its "dismal financial performance," and its "horridly underperforming stock."

Despite the dismal financial performance, which has produced a horridly underperforming stock that has flatlined for seven years now, Wal-Mart’s management is in total denial. Almost every month, CEO Lee Scott starts afresh with an optimistic prediction of how the next five weeks will go. Then routinely, at the end of almost every month, the company misses its projections. The worst part is, no one seems the least embarrassed by this performance, least of all Scott himself. Going into October, Wal-Mart predicted 2 to 4 percent sales growth. Then, in early October, the company lowered its projection to 1.3 percent. When it finished the month, Wal-Mart turned out to have gained only half of one percent. This at a moment when almost every other major retailer was meeting or exceeding its higher targets.

Wal-Mart’s still thinking that all is well, and that only Wall Street doesn’t understand the greatness of the chain. Funny, Wall Street actually respects Wal-Mart more than it should — it’s Main Street that’s deserting the place in droves.

Bowing to pressure from Wal-Mart Associates and WakeUpWalMart.com, Wal-Mart has made some changes to its anti-worker, anti-family attendance policy, which was implemented in October.

From the Associated Press:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has softened its stance on its attendance policy only weeks after the nation's largest private employer implemented changes that made hourly workers more accountable for excessive unexcused absences...

Dana Rezaie, a Wal-Mart worker who was on the WakeUpWalMart.com conference call said she was "disgusted" with the new attendance policy. Still, while the latest steps to improve the policy were "small," it shows that "we can make changes that will make us all happy."

Read the entire press release here to learn all about the changes to the attendance policy.

Associates demand that Wal-Mart reverse the many recent anti-worker, anti-family policies and will be holding a second national Associates' conference call next Wednesday, November 22nd.

Last night's grassroots strategy conference calls were an incredible success. Senators Barack Obama and John Edwards joined us to lend their voices to the growing chorus calling on Wal-Mart to change the way it treats its hardworking employees. We launched our holiday campaign, which you can read more about and join here. Be sure and check back regularly as it will be continuously updated as the holiday season progresses.

There is an AP article about the call:

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama praised a union-led campaign to change working conditions at Wal-Mart, telling activists Wednesday that their efforts were part of a needed, broader debate about jobs and economic opportunity in America.

The Illinois senator, weighing in on the increasingly politicized debate over Wal-Mart, told a conference call with the union-backed group WakeUpWalMart.com there was a "moral responsibility to stand up and fight" for a better economic future with adequate wages, health care and retirement benefits.

You can read the rest of the AP story here.

There is also a Business Week article:

In a much-publicized event on Nov. 15, Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and former Senator John Edwards (D.-N.C.) lent their voices and their political clout to the effort to pressure Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), the world's largest retailer, to change its workplace practices. The two participated in evening conference calls with Wal-Mart workers, organized by the union-funded group WakeUpWalMart.com. The conference calls officially launched a six-week campaign titled "Hope for the Holidays," during which the watchdog group plans to push for changes at Wal-Mart.

Obama, a possible Democratic presidential candidate for 2008, was the first to weigh in, in a call that started at 7 p.m. EST. "Unlike the manufacturers who are under enormous competitive pressure from global low-cost producers, Wal-Mart is making enormous profits and yet it has chosen to go with low wages and diminished benefits," he said. "The battle to engage Wal-Mart and force them to examine their corporate values and policies is absolutely vital to America today."

A Living Wage

Obama spoke for less than 10 minutes, and much of the call was taken up by members of WakeUpWalMart.com. The group was set up by the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union, which has tried to organize the company's workers—without success. The Hope for the Holidays campaign is designed to change what the group calls Wal-Mart's "anti-family business practices" and persuade the company to provide a "living wage and affordable health care" to employees. "With great wealth comes great responsibility," says Chris Kofinis, spokesman for WakeUpWalMart.com. "As one of the world's most powerful economic forces and one of the most profitable companies, Wal-Mart has the responsibility to improve the lives of its workers."

Wal-Mart, which has seen numerous attacks by politicians in the past, was restrained in its response to the event. "We are disappointed that Senators Obama and Edwards have chosen to participate in a politically motivated event," says David Tovar, spokesman at Wal-Mart. "Wal-Mart creates jobs for Americans, reduces costs of health care with its $4 generic drugs, and is a leader on environmental sustainability." The company says it is on the side of working Americans, providing more than 1 million with jobs and offering more products at affordable prices than any other retailer.

The calls come just as the holiday shopping season is kicking into high gear. Wal-Mart has vowed to lead its industry in cutting prices as it tries to boost sales. On Nov. 14, the company reported third-quarter sales that were shy of analysts' expectations, although profits were at the high end of Wall Street forecasts (see BusinessWeek.com, 11/14/06, "Wal-Mart: Back to Basics for the Holidays").

Democrats Appeal to Workers

The Obama-Edwards conference calls are a clear sign that, with the ascendancy of Democrats in Washington, political pressure on Wal-Mart is on the rise. Other Democrats have appeared in rallies that call for Wal-Mart to change. And in a column in The Wall Street Journal on Nov. 15, Democratic Senator-elect Jim Webb (D-Va.) laments that tax codes protect the rich and American corporations. "The average CEO of a sizeable corporation makes more than $10 million a year, while the minimum wage for workers amounts to about $10,000 a year, and has not been raised in nearly a decade," Webb wrote.

Labor unions, of course, have long been allied with Democrats, and they now believe that their voices will be heard by politicians with power. However, the Democrats appear to be appealing to a broader audience of workers, not just those in unions. They're appealing to the many employees who feel like they're being pinched between low pay and escalating costs for things like health care.

"Folks on Wall Street, and people in the top 1% of the income bracket are getting more and more of the productive resources," said Obama, "while ordinary folks are finding themselves systematically in jobs where they don't find adequate wages, no health-care benefits, and no significant form of retirement security. It's not like the economy took a hit. We are grappling with this trend even as the U.S. economy has been going gangbusters and corporate profits have gone up astronomically."

Not Playing Favorites

Though it has historically been closer to Republicans, Wal-Mart has been trying to court politicians from both parties. While it has donated 69% of its federal political contributions to Republicans and 31% to Democrats, it recently hired Leslie Dach, a Democratic operative and former political adviser to Al Gore, as head of its government relations and corporate communications. It has also stepped up its political contributions to politicians of both parties at the state and local levels (see BusinessWeek.com, 9/28/06, "Wal-Mart Doesn't Discount Politicians").

The current campaign against Wal-Mart particularly targets the company's new round of workplace restrictions—wage caps, cutting the number of hours with a corresponding cut in wages, compelling part-time workers to be available for shifts around the clock, and a stringent attendance policy. Along with these changes, Wal-Mart is looking to transform its workforce from 20% part-time to 40% part-time. Some employees say that the company wants to push out full-time and unhealthy employees because they are too expensive for the company to retain (see BusinessWeek.com, 10/17/06, "Wal-Mart Workers Walk Out").

The politicians are offering Wal-Mart advice, along with their criticism. Obama pointed to Wal-Mart's rival Costco (COST), where the average pay is 60% higher and health-care benefits are provided to more than 80% of its employees, compared to less than half at Wal-Mart. Obama said Wal-Mart workers and supporters should work together to change its policies: "We have a history in this country of ordinary people doing extraordinary things when they work together."

This post is a discussion thread for those who would like to ask questions or comment during our conference calls with Barack Obama and John Edwards.

Add a comment to this entry with your questions and we'll respond during the call.

Update: We just finished the call with Senator Obama. Thanks to so many of you for joining the call from across the country.

Seantor Edwards will join us at 10:00 PM EST. All you have to do to get the information for the call-in is to sign up here.

The Associated Press reported today that outgoing Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee set up gift registries for friends to buy housewarming gifts for the first couple as they move from the governor's mansion into a private residence. Did the Huckabees register with their state's largest business, Wal-Mart, which Huckabee has repeatedly lauded? No. Instead, they registered at Wal-Mart's archrival Target.

This is the same Huckabee, you will remember, who said at Wal-Mart's media day, that, "We're very proud that Wal-Mart is headquartered here..."

Apparently Huckabee's not quite proud enough to shop there.

This Wednesday, November 15, WakeUpWalMart.com supporters from across the country are joining together on two national grassroots strategy conference calls.

On the first call, at 7:00 PM EST, Senator Barack Obama will be our special guest speaker. On the 10:00 PM EST call, Senator John Edwards will join us. (We are having two calls so that hard-working supporters from the east to the west coast can join after work).

The calls will help launch our exciting 2006 Holiday Campaign strategy. Join us as we continue to bring together a diverse coalition of Americans fighting for health care, good jobs and a better future.

In a recent op-ed, economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman discussed his concern about the increasing divergence in pay between CEOs and workers. Krugman noted, "In the 1960's and 1970's, C.E.O.'s of the largest firms were paid, on average, about 40 times as much as the average worker," while more recently, "executive pay soared, rising to 367 times the average worker's pay by the early years of this decade."

While Krugman argues that executive compensation is one evidence of "the epidemic of corporate misgovernance revealed four years ago by the Enron and WorldCom scandals" that has yet to be dealt with, it is also a part of the explanation of why, as CEO pay increases, regular workers are falling behind even further.

Which brings us back to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart president Lee Scott was paid $19 million in 2005, while their average full-time worker was paid $10.11, a statistic they trumpet regularly in press releases and on their website. If you multiply this figure by the 34 hours a week that full time Associates put in on average, you see that full-time workers average $17,874 per year.

So Lee Scott's $19 million is not 40 times or even 367 times what his average employee makes. It's a whopping 1,062 times the salary of the average full-time Wal-Mart Associate. And that disconnect might help explain why Scott sees no problem with such vicious store policy changes like cutting hours, capping wages, and forcing the few Associates who can afford health care into high deductible plans, or why Scott has no idea "what specifically a living wage is."

This coming Wednesday, we are hosting a national strategy conference call for all WakeUpWalMart.com supporters. We will be reviewing Wal-Mart's latest anti-family policies, previewing our upcoming Holiday Campaign and listening to your thoughts on the campaign.

RSVP for the call today.

Since we have supporters all across the country, we'll have two calls - one at 7 PM EST and one at 10 PM EST. You can join either call.

We'll be announcing our special guest speakers on Monday.

Some of our local chapters are hosting house parties or just bringing some friends over for the call. Feel free to do the same.

We'll be taking your comments and suggestions live on the call, but if you want to make sure we hear from you, you can email pre-call questions and comments to field@wakeupwalmart.com. It's time to roll out our next nationwide coordinated campaign.

Can't wait to hear from our house party group in Alaska, our great volunteer group in St. Louis, our friends in Florida, and you.

From the New York Times:

Last year, opponents of Wal-Mart — including neighborhood, labor and small-business groups — helped persuade a real estate developer to drop one of the company’s stores from a planned mall in Queens. In August, opponents again helped thwart plans for a Wal-Mart at the southern tip of Staten Island.

Now, the Bronx has emerged as the latest battleground over attempts by Wal-Mart to open its first store in New York City. Leaders of the anti-Wal-Mart campaign have been forming alliances with Bronx community groups and politicians as well as holding town hall meetings to plan their attack and energize their ranks.

At Our Lady of Refuge Roman Catholic Church in the Bedford Park section of the Bronx, where for decades parishioners have rallied to denounce neighborhood drug dealers, people gathered last summer to demonstrate against an enemy that deals in digital cameras, toasters, shower curtains and thousands of other products.

But for the most part, they are fighting a ghost: Wal-Mart has not officially announced any intentions to build in the Bronx, and no one is certain where, when and even if it will try to open a store in the borough.

“The effort here is to head them off at the pass,” said Richard Lipsky, director of the Neighborhood Retail Alliance, an advocacy group representing more than 10,000 city supermarkets, bodegas, greengrocers and restaurants that helped lead the recent fights against Wal-Mart on Staten Island and in Rego Park, Queens.

Just the possibility of Wal-Mart moving in has already galvanized opponents, who began meeting in the Bronx in June and who say they need to be well organized to take on the nation’s biggest retailer.

One of the challenges for Wal-Mart critics, though, has been maintaining a sense of urgency against a perceived threat is, for now, but a rumor.

“What’s harder in any of these situations is organizing folks around a theory,” Mr. Lipsky said. “What made it easier to organize in Staten Island is people knew the store was being planted over there.”

Adding to the uncertainty, a local newspaper, The Bronx Press-Review, reported in September that Wal-Mart was planning to locate a store in one of the biggest commercial spaces in the borough, the Bay Plaza shopping center near Co-op City.

But Wal-Mart remained vague about its plans. Philip H. Serghini, a senior public affairs manager for Wal-Mart Stores, said in a statement that Wal-Mart was reviewing potential sites throughout the city. Asked specifically about the Bay Plaza site, Mr. Serghini responded: “Wal-Mart continues to consider its options in all five boroughs.”

The coalition forming in the Bronx includes members of Local 1500 of the United Food and Commercial Workers union and community groups like the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition. The coalition’s work is sometimes serious (lobbying members of the City Council from the Bronx) and sometimes not (performing for audiences as the Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir).

The coalition’s members believe that Wal-Mart represents capitalism run amok, reaping billions of dollars in profits while snuffing out smaller family-owned businesses and offering workers low-wage nonunion jobs.

“The Bronx needs jobs,” said Patrick Purcell, director of organizing for Local 1500 and coordinator of Wal-Mart Free NYC, which was formed in response to Wal-Mart’s attempts to open a store in Rego Park. “Just because the Bronx is trying to develop itself economically does not mean that it needs any job. It needs good jobs. It needs responsible employers.”

Even as the Bronx undergoes an economic revitalization, it continues to struggle with high rates of poverty, unemployment and crime. Opponents of Wal-Mart have had a hard time convincing some in the Bronx that a borough with the state’s highest unemployment rate and the nation’s poorest Congressional district would be better off without a Wal-Mart. The average wage for full-time Wal-Mart workers in the state is $10.17 an hour, the company said. The minimum wage in the state is $6.75.

In a Quinnipiac University poll taken in January, 64 percent of Bronx residents said they supported the opening of Wal-Mart stores in the city, and 27 percent opposed it.

The borough president, Adolfo Carrión Jr., has said that though he is not trying to woo Wal-Mart, he is not interested in turning it or any other company away, either.

“Anyone who’s interested in doing business in the Bronx I will listen to and hear their pitch,” Mr. Carrión has said.

Other elected officials, like City Councilman Joel Rivera, have also staked out a neutral stance.

“I’m of the belief that we have to spur economic development, but at the same time it has to be responsible economic development,” said Mr. Rivera. Wal-Mart officials would need to be willing to negotiate on wages, health care benefits and other labor issues before he could welcome the store, he said.

Other Bronx elected officials remain firmly opposed, citing Wal-Mart’s labor practices and impact on small businesses.

Activists are emboldened by two behind-the-scenes victories in the Bronx. Earlier this year, the developer turning the old Bronx Terminal Market into a shopping mall specifically agreed not to lease space to Wal-Mart.

And the request for proposals for the redevelopment of the giant Kingsbridge Armory, issued in September by the city’s Economic Development Corporation, discourages suburban-style big-box stores.

As the campaign against it continues in the Bronx, Wal-Mart has tried to build a higher profile in the borough, subtly and not so subtly.

Last year, Wal-Mart paid for large ads in several Bronx newspapers. “In the Bronx,” the ad read, “you can watch the Yankees beat Boston, spend the day at the Botanical Garden, visit the Bronx Zoo, and do just about anything. The only thing missing is every day low prices.”

The company was also a sponsor of the Latin Grammy Awards, held at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 2, and the banners promoting the show that hung in the South Bronx featured Wal-Mart prominently.

Wal-Mart officials say a new store would create about 300 jobs and generate about $5 million in tax revenue for the city. Last year, New York City residents spent about $128 million at Wal-Mart stores in New Jersey and Connecticut, and in Westchester County and on Long Island in New York, the company said.

“We don’t think a small group of special interests should be able to stifle consumer choice and force the residents of the borough — 72 percent of whom want Wal-Mart in their neighborhood — to shop somewhere else,” Mr. Serghini of Wal-Mart said.

Under the radar of the national elections, Wal-mart was also heavily involved in a few local elections on Tuesday. Like the national picture, voters rejected Wal-Mart's anti-family, anti-worker agenda.

In Antioch, California Wal-Mart's Independent Expenditure spent over $50,000 on fliers and phone banks for City Council candidate Manny Soliz (they desperately want to expand their store to a 24-hour Supercenter in Antioch and knew Soliz would look past their anti-worker agenda).

Soliz lost the election after community opposition to Wal-Mart's attempt to, as many local elected officials and citizens put it, "buy the Antioch City Council."

Don Freitas, who was re-elected mayor, said he was glad voters were not swayed by the Arkansas retailing giant.

"The public really distinguished," Freitas said. "They resented the fact that Wal-Mart was trying to say, 'We want these three candidates elected as your mayor and your council members,' and the people said no."

As U.S. Congressman George Miller put it,

They have every right to get involved in a campaign, but there's a specific matter hanging before the City Council . . . it certainly appears that it's an effort to ensure the outcome of that vote. It's a very heavy handed way to do politics...

Konrad Yakabuski writes in Canada's Globe and Mail about what's wrong with Wal-Mart's business model. Yakabuski covers a broad range of problems, including Wal-Mart's "miserable" October sales and its expected zero same-store sales growth for November. But, he puts particular focus on Wal-Mart's efforts to cut costs with measures hurting their most loyal, long-time associates.

Wal-Mart's associates have had enough of these anti-worker, anti-family policies. Recently, workers across the country have launched a nationwide petition drive calling on Lee Scott to give thanks to all employees and reverse these policies by Thanksgiving Day.

You can read excerpts from Yakabuski's article below the fold.

Wal-Mart's October results were miserable, with U.S. sales at stores open at least a year rising a sickly 0.5 per cent, compared with 3.9 per cent at Target, 8.1 per cent at J.C. Penney and 7.7 per cent at Federated Department Stores. Wal-Mart blamed the slump partly on clothes that were too trendy for its customers. But instead of trying to woo the kind of shoppers who buy skinny jeans, it simply got rid of the skinny jeans -- giving them another reason to go to Target.

It's not just shoppers who are bailing; shareholders are, too. In fact, Wal-Mart's stock has been a dog for years and is down one-quarter since 2001.

Wal-Mart is now predicting zero same-store sales growth for November, which would be its worst performance in a decade. To avert a truly catastrophic Christmas season, it has slashed prices on 100 toys and 100 electronic items, hoping these promotions spur traffic into other departments, too.

Relying on this kind of logic to boost the bottom line forces Wal-Mart to resort to almost any tactic to reduce costs, from (knowingly or not) sourcing clothes made by children in a Bangladesh sweatshop (as a Radio-Canada investigation revealed this year) to letting "pricey" workers know they need not apply.

Beginning in January, new Wal-Mart employees in the United States will be offered a health-insurance plan with low premiums but a whopping $1,000 (U.S) deductible. Critics allege the plan, which would become the standard Wal-Mart insurance given high employee turnover, is meant to discourage any job applicant apt to actually need regular health care. The Wal-Mart move inevitably puts pressure on other retailers to follow suit.

Wal-Mart has discovered other tactics to root out costly employees, according to internal company memos obtained by Wake Up Wal-Mart, a group sponsored by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union. The Beast of Bentonville -- as Arkansas-based Wal-Mart is known -- is implementing pay caps and demanding that all existing employees, regardless of seniority, make themselves available to work night shifts. (Almost half of Wal-Mart's U.S. stores are open 24 hours.) Many workers who have refused have found their overall hours slashed. The shift to using more part-timers -- Wal-Mart reportedly aims to increase their numbers to 40 per cent of its 1.3 million U.S. workers from 25 per cent -- also lowers health insurance costs.

"Given the impact of tenure on wages and benefits, the cost of an associate with seven years of tenure is almost 55 per cent more than the cost of an associate with one year of tenure, yet there is no difference in his or her productivity," Wal-Mart senior executive Susan Chambers last year told the company's directors in a memo obtained by Wake Up Wal-Mart. ". . . The shift to more part-time associates will lower Wal-Mart's health care enrolment."

Despite Wal-Mart’s last minute donations to support its anti-family, anti-employee agenda, the American people gave a strong rebuke to the Bush/Wal-Mart right wing agenda.

Just take a look at a few of the candidates who received last-minute funding from Wal-Mart and lost:

- In October, Wal-Mart gave $10,000 to Tom Kean, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in New Jersey. Bob Menendez, the Democratic candidate, defeated Kean.

- In October, Wal-Mart gave $5,000 to Michael Steele, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Maryland. Congressman Ben Cardin, the Democratic candidate who joined the WakeUpWalMart.com national bus tour, defeated Steele.

- In October, Wal-Mart gave $2,500 to Senator Mike DeWine, the incumbent Republican Senator in Ohio. Congressman Sherrod Brown, the Democratic candidate who joined the WakeUpWalMart.com national bus tour, defeated DeWine.

These are just a few examples where the American people won and big corporations like Wal-Mart lost.

If this election proves nothing else, it is the fact that the American people want change, they want corporations to be held accountable and they want an agenda that protects American jobs, fights for health care for all and gives workers the respect and dignity that they deserve.

Today is your chance to show Wal-Mart that you have had enough of its extremist agenda and support for anti-family policies. You have the power to send a strong message to Wal-Mart that it is time for change. Vote today to help change America and turn the frown upside down.

From shipping U.S. jobs overseas to lobbying against a living wage, Wal-Mart has shown time and again that it will support whomever and whatever policies further its interests, no matter how much they hurt the American people and its own associates.

Check out our latest TV ad and then head to the polls to vote for change.

At the same time that Wal-Mart has been supporting this extremist agenda, they have instituted the most draconian, anti-associate policies to date. Backlash among associates towards these anti-family policies has been incredible, from taking to the streets in protest to holding the first ever national conference call for associates to discuss these changes.

In response to these outrageous new policies, Wal-Mart associates are spearheading a new, national petition drive calling on CEO Lee Scott to give thanks to his employees and reverse these anti-associate, anti-family policies by Thanksgiving Day, November 23rd.

After you vote for change and to turn the frown upside down today, sign and download the petition, and find out more about the Wal-Mart associates' movement, here:
http://www.WalMartWorkersofAmerica.com

In "Midterm Elections: Following the Money," Women's Wear Daily writes about "Fashion and retail industry companies and executives pour[ing] thousands of dollars into key races before the midterm elections."

Wal-Mart Stores’ PAC, which gave $2.49 million to state and federal lawmakers in the 2005-2006 election cycle, made two late campaign contributions, among its dozens of others, to Republicans in tough races, according to the most recent FEC report.

The world’s largest retailer donated $5,000 to Rep. Thomas Reynolds of New York, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, who is in a close race against Jack Davis, an industrialist and millionaire who criticized Reynolds for “outsourcing American jobs” and supporting free trade.

Wal-Mart also backed Tom Kean Jr., who is in a neck-and-neck contest in New Jersey against Sen. Robert Menendez, a Democrat who favors stronger protections for workers and increasing the minimum wage and opposes “overly broad trade agreements that send jobs overseas.”

Wal-Mart gave $5,000 to Kean, whom retail groups see as a more pro-business, pro-trade candidate...

These contributions are pretty much in line with Wal-Mart's pattern of giving to right-wing candidates who opposed an increase in the minimum wage and opposed other pro-working family issues.

Like most things these days, Wal-Mart says one thing and does another. Make sure you vote Tuesday to hold Wal-Mart accountable and help change America for the better.

Tired of Wal-Mart's anti-worker policies and in the wake of the announcement of numerous new anti-family policies, Wal-Mart employees from across the country took part in the first ever national conference call for associates yesterday.

The local newspaper near Wal-Mart's headquarters, The Arkansas Morning News, covered the call, noting that, "Wal-Mart...took it on the chin again Thursday during a teleconference in which employees vented their anger against the company over its new policy changes."

The article mentions the petition that Wal-Mart associates have started, calling on Wal-Mart to implement a series of changes and reverse these anti-worker, anti-family policies. Associates can sign the petition online and download copies to distribute among fellow associates.

From The Morning News:

Wal-Mart, still smarting from recent public relations fiascoes and disappointing store sales, took it on the chin again Thursday during a teleconference in which employees vented their anger against the company over its new policy changes.

The call was held by Wake-Up Wal-Mart in Washington, a union-backed group waging its own campaign against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Two callers who identified themselves as Wal-Mart employees were Ramiro Gonzales of El Paso, Texas and Susan Smith of Ponca City, Okla.

Both Gonzales and Smith criticized Wal-Mart for its new wage-cap and absentee policies. By putting caps on some employee's wages, "We have nothing to look forward to," said Gonzales, who has worked for the company six years.

Smith also alleged that if employees do not confirm to Wal-Mart's new scheduling policy, workers have been "threatened" with wage cuts.

"Wal-Mart is definitely going over the line in many things," said Smith, a 14-year employee.

Paul Blank, director of Wake-Up Wal-Mart, said calls to his organization from Wal-Mart employees have "skyrocketed" since the company implemented its new policies. He also claimed the retailer has some more changes coming next year, including doing away with profit sharing and offering severance packages to longtime employees who will have their wages cut if they don't sign, he said.

Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar said there is "absolutely no truth" to Blank's claim.

"This is another example of how Paul Blank and union leaders are spreading misinformation about Wal-Mart," Tovar said.

As far as the teleconference itself, Tovar said Wal-Mart hoped Blank and the others would discuss the jobs the company creates each year and the low-cost health care it offers employees.

"We regularly receive thousands of applicants for the few hundred jobs we create with each new store because people know we offer valuable job opportunities and highly competitive wages and benefits," Tovar said.

One former Wal-Mart employee who didn't take part in Thursday's conference is Lisa Hammond of Newton, Kan. She was an assistant manager for Wal-Mart who quit her job over alleged harassment and discrimination by her supervisor.

Hammond, in an e-mail to The Morning News, disputed a recent comment made by a Wal-Mart spokeswoman that the company doesn't have an "open availability" policy for its employees.

"While they do not have a written policy requiring 24/7 availability, they absolutely require managers to 'strongly encourage' open (availability) from associates and will openly tell associates that their hours will be cut unless they open it up," Hammond said. "It's pretty much blackmail, and there's no secret about that."

Hammond, who worked for the company two years, said she went up the chain of command to complain about her mistreatment but nothing was done. Hammond has set up her own Web site, called walmartassistantspeaks.com, outlining her case.

Tovar said it was Wal-Mart's policy not to comment on the circumstances of an ex-employee's departure.

Amy Leone has worked for Wal-Mart 15 years and is a claims employee at a store in Waterloo, N.Y. She told The Morning News in a telephone interview that she does feel Wal-Mart is trying to get rid of its long-term employees by putting in wage caps.

"I've been pro-Wal-Mart since I've worked there and I do get good pay and benefits. But it feels like the whole focus of the company is changing," she said.

Ron Galloway also has criticized Wal-Mart for its new wage-cap policy, and he counts himself a supporter of the company. Galloway, who is based in Atlanta, produced the 2005 documentary called "Why Wal-Mart Works and Why That Drives Some People Crazy" in which he interviewed several employees who praised their employer.

Galloway recently resigned from Working Families for Wal-Mart, which is funded by Wal-Mart, after one of the employees he interviewed for his documentary told him she had her wages capped by the company. For Galloway, it was the "last straw," he said.

"I'm still pro-Wal-Mart, and I made that clear (in a recent speech). But I think it's just wrong to make long-term employees suffer," he said. "Clearly, this is an attrition program."

Mike Duke, vice chairman of Wal-Mart International, said during a recent analysts conference, that how a company treats its employees affects how they will treat the customer. Analyst Patricia Edwards, of Wentworth, Hauser and Violich in Seattle, agreed.

"If you look at some of the best companies out there in the retail experience that Wal-Mart wants to have, Nordstrom, Costco and Starbucks are all renowned for how well they treat their employees who, in turn, treat the customer well. If you're trying to attract that upper-income shopper, they're used to a different shopping experience, and Wal-Mart right now isn't at its best," Edwards said.

Blank on Thursday encouraged callers and other Wal-Mart employees to draw up petitions to send to the company's headquarters.

We just got off our first ever national conference call with Wal-Mart associates from across the country. It was amazing to hear the courage and determination of associates from Texas to Maryland to Illinois to Arkansas.

Today, Wal-Mart associates are starting to sign a petition calling on Wal-Mart to implement the following changes and reverse a series of ant-family policies. Associates are calling on Wal-Mart to:

- End Wal-Mart’s “Open Availability” Policy [also known as peak-time or demand scheduling] that has caused chaos in the lives of our 1.39 million Associates and their families;
- Institute “Family Friendly Scheduling” that provides stable work schedules and permits Associates to have normal lives and spend time with their children;
- Reverse Wal-Mart’s “New Attendance Policy” that punishes Associates who need to take a day off to care for a sick child or family member;
- End Wal-Mart’s “New Salary Caps” and allow hard-working Associates to be rewarded for their loyalty, not punished.

Wal-Mart associates can sign the petition online and Download file download the petition to pass around to other associates.

We'll send out some of the transcripts from the call tomorrow when we get a chance to breathe. Our phones are ringing off the hook right now with requests for the petition.

The Associated Press just published an article on Wal-Mart's new punitive attendance policy, the latest example of Wal-Mart's anti-worker, anti-family policies.

In response to this and numerous other anti-worker policies, Wal-Mart workers from across the country will be taking part in the first-ever national conference call for Associates today. For more information and to sign up go to http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/wwa/conference.html.

From The Associated Press:

At Wal-Mart these days, snowy weather is no longer an excuse for lateness. It had better be a natural disaster like a hurricane or blizzard. And being 10 minutes or more tardy for work three times will earn you a demerit. Too many of those could get you fired.

It's all part of a revised attendance policy implemented earlier this fall that makes Wal-Mart Stores Inc. hourly workers more accountable for excessive unexcused absences and formalizes such penalties.

The new rules already are drawing fire from critics who claim they are the latest attempt by the nation's largest private employer to weed out unhealthy and costly long-term workers as it seeks to cut labor costs.

John Simley, spokesman for Wal-Mart, calls the charges by labor-backed groups "invalid" and said the changes are an enhancement of the company's prior policy.

"We are formalizing and enforcing the policy to ensure greater consistency and to minimize subjectivity," he said.

"It is designed to produce a better work environment and a better shopping environment. The result is better communication and a better shopping experience," he said.

Documents furnished to The Associated Press by union-backed WakeUpWalmart.com show that employees must call an 800 number to report all absences and tardiness by an hour before the scheduled start time. They also have to call their manager with the confirmation code they received when calling the hot line number. In the past, employees got permission directly from their store managers.

"After a year of adopting antifamily policy after antifamily policy, Wal-Mart adds further insult to injury by adopting a new restrictive attendance policy that treats hard-working associates like children while penalizing them if, God forbid, they face a child or friend with a medical emergency," said Chris Kofinis, a spokesman at WakeUpWalmart.com.

The group is set to hold its first-ever national conference call with Wal-Mart employees and civil rights leaders Thursday to discuss the latest move as well as other recent labor changes.

In September, Wal-Mart said it will stop offering traditional low-deductible health plans for new hires next year in favor of low-premium plans with higher deductibles. Wal-Mart has maintained that the move will put more health care money and choices in the hands of its more than 1.3 million U.S. workers, but union-backed Wal-Mart critics claim it is pushing the rising costs of health care onto its workers.

Wal-Mart has also received heat from critics for implementing caps on its seven hourly pay grades. Employees who are at or above the cap will not have their pay cut, but they can only get a raise by moving to a higher-paid category.

Wal-Mart isn't the only major corporation grappling with how to cut down on no-shows; unscheduled absenteeism has climbed to its highest level since 1999, according to results released last week of an annual nationwide survey of 326 human resource executives in U.S. companies and organizations.

The survey, conducted for CCH Inc. by the Harris Interactive consulting firm, put the U.S. absenteeism rate at 2.5 percent in 2006, up from 2.3 percent a year ago and the highest since seven years ago when it was 2.7 percent. The survey found that personal illness makes up for only 35 percent of unscheduled absences, with the rest due to family issues, personal needs, stress and an entitlement mentality.

But Pamela Wolf, a workplace analyst at CCH, believes that Wal-Mart's absentee control program seems to be bucking the trend among major corporations to embrace work-life programs that are "designed to recruit and retain workers."

"This doesn't seem to be introducing flexibility to its employees," Wolf said, after being briefed on Wal-Mart's new policy.

Dan Butler, vice president of operations at the National Retail Federation, defended stricter attendance policies like Wal-Mart's, saying "if you don't have controls in place to hold employees accountable, you can't guarantee a certain level of service."

But some Wal-Mart employees, whose names were furnished by WakeUpWal-Mart.com, said in interviews that the new policy is too rigid.

The new policy reduces the number of unapproved absences allowed to three from the previous four during a rolling six-month period. Employees who have more than three unapproved absences will be disciplined; seven will result in termination, according to the documents. Simley said under the old policy, employees were terminated after six unapproved absences.

The new policy appears more rigid when it comes to authorized absences. In the past, general bad weather would suffice as an authorized excuse; now it has to be a natural disaster like a hurricane or blizzard. Wal-Mart is now defining tardiness more rigidly as beginning work 10 minutes or more after the scheduled start time, which results in an incomplete shift. Three incomplete shifts add up to one unauthorized absence.

Simley argued that the new policy is more flexible. Before, employees could have been marked down as tardy for being a just few minutes late for work, he said.

Under the revised policy, Wal-Mart is encouraging employees who are sick for more than three days to apply for unpaid leave of absence under the Family Medical Leave Act.

"They always said family comes first; now, are they coming last?" asked Cynthia Murray,a Hyattsville, Md., resident, who works in the fitting room of a Wal-Mart store in Laurel, Md.

One of the changes that Murray is upset about is that Wal-Mart now counts leaving work early to pick up a sick child as a strike against you. Simley argued that Wal-Mart always counted that as an unauthorized absence.

Mike Turner, who resigned three weeks ago as assistant manager of a Wal-Mart store in Crosby, Tex., said he was briefed about the changes by his bosses earlier this fall. He said that under the old policy, managers would approve excuses on a case-by-case basis, but the 800 number eliminates such "human interaction."

"I believe in being fair," he said, noting he personally approved plenty of situations that made a worker late like flooding or a car breaking down. "What can you tell a good associate that you are going to discipline because of a system that goes against human interaction?" he asked.

In an article last week in the local newspaper near Wal-Mart’s corporate headquarters, Anita French (one of the reporters who covers Wal-Mart) wrote a story entitled “Wal-Mart Explains Policies.”

The story talks about Wal-Mart’s new policy changes which have outraged so many of its employees and ultimately led to a store rebellion by over 200 Wal-Mart Associates in a Wal-Mart store in Hialeah Gardens, Florida.

In response, we are holding the first-ever national conference call for Associates. You can sign up for the call at: http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/wwa/conference.html.

But, more importantly, the comments posted below Anita’s story. They are fascinating and provide a real window into the human impact of Wal-Mart’s decisions and why what we are doing in this campaign is so important to Wal-Mart Associates, all hard-working families and America.

Here is the link to the comments:

http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2006/10/22/business/102206wmflights.txt