Contacts: Meghan Scott, UFCW: 202-721-8014 Michelle Ringuette, SEIU: 202-730-7234

Wal-Mart Watch Joins WakeUpWalmart.com to Hold America’s Largest Private Employer Accountable for Promises Made

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Today, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) announced that Wal-Mart Watch has joined with WakeUpWalMart.com to form one organization to maximize the ability for Walmart workers to win a voice on the job and bring change to the entire retail industry.

“We find ourselves at a critical moment in our country – working families are struggling to make ends meet, while corporations like Walmart continue to reap record profits,” said UFCW President Joe Hansen. “Walmart workers across America are standing up and demanding change, and the UFCW is standing with them to achieve the health care and labor law reforms that will restore and expand the middle class. The UFCW is the labor union for retail workers and we will not let Walmart, as the world’s largest retailer, shirk its responsibility to the 1.4 million employees who work for the company.”

“As Walmart workers continue to speak out to transform their jobs, we believe they are best served by a single organization dedicated to supporting Walmart workers and holding the retail giant accountable for its actions,” said SEIU President Andy Stern. “Walmart has made a lot of promises to working families, and we plan to hold them accountable for making those changes.”

Walmart earns $34,880 in profit every minute, yet only 50 percent of Walmart workers are covered by the company's health care plan, because Walmart premiums and deductibles are unaffordable. Workers' schedules -- and therefore wages -- are shrinking, and when workers stand up and demand changes, they are confronted with special squad of "attitude" enforcers straight from company headquarters in Bentonville. If workers persist in standing up, they are shown the door.

“We are ready for change, and feel that if we stand together, we can change this company for the better from the inside,” said Cynthia Murray, an associate from Laurel, MD. “We work too hard to be pushed aside so that company executives can add a few million dollars to their bonuses this year.”

In April, thousands of Walmart’s 1.4 million associates across the country united to launch Walmart Workers for Change, the largest effort ever by Walmart workers to demand a voice on the job. Workers in more than 100 stores in 15 states across the country have already joined together. This historic action led to the decision by Wal-Mart Watch to unite its strength with WakeUpWalMart.com.

Joining with WakeUpWalMart.com will:

• Unite hundreds of thousands of activists both online and in neighborhoods across the country to support Walmart workers with one collective voice.
  
• Allow President Obama and Members of Congress to unite with a newly strengthened group invested in transforming the world’s largest retailer.
  
• Create a stronger partner for Walmart Workers for Change, the Walmart workers leading the campaign to create good jobs at Walmart from the inside.
  
• Strengthen efforts to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which will allow Walmart workers to form unions free from harassment and intimidation; and ensure passage of real and meaningful healthcare reform that holds employers like Walmart accountable.

###

The UFCW represents 1.3 million workers, 250,000 in the meatpacking and poultry industries. UFCW members also work in the health care, garment, chemical, distillery and retail industries.

With 2.1 million members in Canada, the United States and Puerto Rico, SEIU is the fastest-growing union in the Americas. Focused on uniting workers in healthcare, public services and property services, SEIU members are winning better wages, healthcare and more secure jobs for our communities, while uniting their strength with their counterparts around the world to help ensure that workers—not just corporations and CEOs—benefit from today's global economy.

Remember when Walmart tried to restrict usage of the ubiquitous yellow smiley face? Well, the company's legal team is it again.

Walmart has filed an injunction against a website critical of its Canadian business practices, and their "legal basis" will outrage you. Walmart wants to stop WalmartWorkersCanada.ca from using the word "Wal-Mart" either "alone or with other words... in a color scheme of blue, white and gold." Even more ridiculous, the company wants to restrict the usage of circular shapes on the group's website!

If Walmart has its way, "an oval, circular or semi-circular design" will be off limits to groups critical of its business practices. We're sure you agree--this is simply too bizarre for words.

You can take a stand against Walmart's censorship threat. It takes just a few seconds to put the pressure on Walmart to respect freedom of expression.

Tell Walmart to respect free speech: sign our petition today

If we let Walmart set the standard for free speech online, there is no telling where the company's absurd demands will end. Can you imagine a world where Walmart has exlusive rights to blue, white, gold, and abstract geometrical shapes? Rest assured that Walmart can.

Please take a moment to show your solidarity for the activists at WalmartWorkersCanada.ca. Sign our petition today, and don't forget to show your support online by hosting a banner on Facebook, MySpace, or your blog.

Help stop Walmart's war against the freedom of expression online

Thanks for all that you do,

The Team,
WakeUpWalMart.com

Walmart has always been pretty shady when it comes to labor, both here, with its union busting and wage and hour violations, and abroad, with its flagrant use of sweatshops and its refusal to do anything about it.

And now we have even more evidence that Walmart exploits workers around the world. Check out China Labor Watch's Press release below, then go read their report (pdf) and their open letter to Mike Duke (PDF). It's worth a look!

China Labor Watch: Labor Violations, Bogus Standards in Wal-Mart's Chinese Supply Chain

NEW YORK, July 27 -- Facing consumer scrutiny, Walmart has established corporate responsibility standards, enforced through factory audits. Yet despite rising production costs, Walmart has not increased prices it pays for goods. As a result, factories exploit and cheat on environmental commitments. During Walmart inspections, records are hidden and workers are forced to lie about conditions. Like Wal-Mart's standards, these inspections are a PR performance.

China Labor Watch has published a report on its long-term investigation of Wal-Mart's Chinese supply chain. The report is based on CLW's investigations from April to June 2009 of Walmart suppliers Huasheng Packaging Factory and Hantai Shoe Factory.

Violations at Huasheng include:

-Elaborate system to cheat Walmart audits.
-Some workers make only $0.51/hour, 60% of the minimum wage.
-Poor working conditions: workers inhale large amounts of paper particles and other debris.
-Twelve workers live together in cramped dorms.
-Workers not paid overtime wages.
-During busy season, workday is 11 hours or 77 hours per week, and overtime is mandatory.
-CLW first investigated Hantai Shoe Factory in July 2008. Although

Walmart pledged that it would address violations, no public update materialized. CLW's follow-up reveals new violations, and old problems have also persisted. Violations include:

-Overtime only paid up to Wal-Mart's limits. When overtime surpasses the limit, extra wages are not paid until the following month.
-Workers forced to lie to Walmart inspectors.
-5 hours overtime daily. If workers request not to work overtime once, they will be denied any overtime for a month.
-Disguised layoffs to avoid paying severance payments to workers.
Workers are abused by management or switched to undesirable jobs until they quit voluntarily.

As the world's largest retailer, Walmart has the responsibility and ability to implement basic standards. CLW Executive Director, Li Qiang, stated, "Wal-Mart's Social Responsibility standards are merely a public relations gimmick and have not actually been implemented; they are a cost-free way to improve public perceptions of Wal-Mart."

Although Chinese workers lack recourse against abuses suffered in Wal-Mart's supply chain, the world can condemn Wal-Mart's unethical behavior.

The China-U.S. Economic and Strategic Dialogue, which opened in Washington today, will focus on economic, environmental and security cooperation. CLW calls on senior officials of both governments to encourage multinational companies to improve labor conditions and promote effective implementation of China's Labor Contract Law.

Visit www.chinalaborwatch.org or call 212-247-2212.

Walmart is about to settle yet another of their copious (63 to be exact) lawsuits. Back in December, Walmart announced that it would settle a large number of the cases filed against them by employees for forcing them to work off the clock through lunch and other breaks. While this case, involving 88,000 employees in Washington state will settle for $35 million, Walmart will eventually pay out $640 million for 63 cases. Of course that is still a pittance, especially for Walmart who is still raking in billions. The workers who brought this case against Walmart will each receive $10,000, which is great, but the rest of the employees affected will get as little as $50 and no more than $950. That doesn't sound like it is even enough to cover back pay. The real issue, though, is that Walmart broke the law, but instead of facing the consequences, they are getting away with paying a relatively small sum.

Here's a piece of the article from the Associated Press via Law.com:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has agreed to pay up to $35 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of 88,000 workers at Washington state stores who were forced to skip meal and rest breaks or work off the clock.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer and lawyers for the workers jointly announced Wednesday that a King County Superior Court judge has given final approval to the deal.

...The settlement also requires Wal-Mart to continue steps it has taken to prevent wage and hour violations at its 50 stores and Sam's Clubs in Washington, Terrell said.

Walmart made headlines this month when it announced its support for an employer mandate for health care. The company's Fantasy Department (public relations) waxed eloquently in a joint-memo about its desire for "fair and broad" health coverage for all.

Then came the reality check.

A few weeks after Walmart's announcement, the company eliminated their Preferred Brand Name Drug Benefits Plan. Instead, Walmart is pushing their employees to use generic "alternatives" from its selection of $4 generics instead of name brand drugs they've come to rely on. I think it's important for people to understand the problems inherent in this move.

Alternatives are not equivalents

In some situations, generics are a great way to cut costs. But for many patients, brand name drugs are the only way to go. Often, well known drugs have important characteristics that their generic "alternatives" have yet to clone.

Arthrotec, for example, reduces a patients chances of getting an ulcer relative to standard NSAID generics. Another example, Ambien CR, is time released to help users sleep through the night, a property generics don't have. Both Arthrotec and Ambien CR have been axed from Walmart's list of covered prescription drugs.

Several Walmart generics are sourced from a highly disreputable corporation: Ranbaxy

Last month we released a report detailing potentially dangerous malfeasance by a key Walmart pharmaceutical supplier. Ranbaxy's Paonta Sahib plant has been called out by the FDA and DOJ for negligence which may have introduced "subpotent, superpotent, or adulterated" drugs into the American market.

Walmart still imports generic drugs from Ranbaxy.

In fact, several drugs on Walmart's new Formulary Alternative Guide are manufactured by Ranbaxy--these drugs include Amoxicillin, Cefpodoxime, Cephalexin, Fenofibrate, and others.

Simply put, it's highly irresponsible for Walmart push for broader adoption of its $4 generic program while sourcing from such a disreputable manufacturer.

Take action

We're looking for whistle blowers. If you're an employee who has been affected by Walmart's latest round of benefits cuts, please take a moment to tell your story.

Walmart is (rather transparently) touting these new benefit cuts as a cost-saver for working families. Well, cheaper isn't always better. We think it's important for consumers to know that, while Bentonville talks a good game, Walmart is still up to its old tricks.

The retail industry's trusty "bait and switch" is a strategy we always see during major retail events like Black Friday and the back to school blitz. The workings of this scheme are simple: slash prices (perhaps below cost) on an attractive item, promote the savings, and ensure the item is in limited stock. Legions of shoppers will arrive looking for your item: simply let a few enjoy the savings while directing the vast majority to more expensive alternatives.

It's a quick and easy way to increase traffic during those competitive shopping events. It's also incredibly deceptive and duplicitous. Perhaps worse, there are always media outlets happy to hype the "enormous savings."

Take Walmart's latest offering: a $298 laptop promotion to entice back to school shoppers. A quick trip to Google shows that over 400 articles gushing over the cheap computer. But, was it too good to be true?

Walmart admitted its supplies of the cheap Compaq were limited. In fact, according to Slashgear, you can expect some stores to have just ten of the items in stock. With mass promotion in addition to high seasonal traffic, your chances of being one of the lucky 10 shoppers to snag the $298 laptop would have been slim, to say the least. The chances are much better that thousands of shoppers went home empty handed after wasting their time seeking a sold-out item.

Were you searching for the elusive $298 laptop? Drop us a line.

The next time you see an online media outlet hyping a bait and switch, call them out in the comments section!

Walmart, hard at work tarnishing its image, has apparently decided to replace its store brand green beans with French haute cuisine.

Maybe they should have told Chasity Erbaugh first. The Texas woman was shocked to find a large frog peering from her frozen beans, with glazed eyes and a lolling yellow tongue. "That's a frog!" she said. "Or worse than that, it's part of a frog - 75% of it. They didn't even give me the frog legs with it."

Something seems rotten with the state of Walmart's green beans. You might remember another story involving Walmart and legume-loving vermin from awhile back: Marianne Watson's tale of the decapitated mouse head in her Walmart-brand frozen veggies. Check out the full story for a refresher.

Brenda Elrod with the Northeast Texas Public Health District attempts to explain the phenomenon away:

"When you're washing field vegetables, you're going to get certain little pieces and parts, but we certainly don't want something so large you can identify what it is."

I prefer to identify my rodent and amphibian bits before I eat them. Maybe that's just personal preference. In any case, the FDA is now investigating the frog incident.

Story credits go to KLTV Texas, where you can watch the entire news clip online.

It's no secret that plenty of companies are trying to cash in on the "organic" food market, (I put organic in quotes due to recent news developments) however many consumers still prefer to buy local produce at farmer's markets.

Traditionally, farmer's markets have been praised not just for fresh products, but for the benefit of local business. According to The Chicagoist, Walmart is now trying to push forward their own "farmer's market" in the middle class Chatham neighborhood. The "Fresh Farmer's Market" will be held at the location at which Walmart hopes to open their store.

Not surprisingly, the produce Walmart intends to sell isn't exactly local.

...Few of the growers listed [by Walmart] would qualify to participate in an official Chicago Farmer’s Market. For example, Westcott Orchards (or "Westcott Agri Products") boasts about their "strategic relationships with quality growers and processors around the globe" and informs potential buyers that they "source 'new crop' fruit products from as far away as New Zealand, Chile, South Africa and Australia to ensure our customers have fresh fruit on a year round basis." While they also have an orchard in Minnesota, this is hardly a small, local farm. Similarly, Bushman's Potatoes offers "year-round potato and onion availability" and ships from their "vast acres across the U.S," including sites in California, Florida and yes, Michigan and Wisconsin. They include a link to Dole on their website. And forget about organic certification.

Dole at a farmer's market? I wonder when Walmart will get Lebron James to play at my cousin's high school basketball game. Walmart is infamous for being detrimental to local business, and it seems as if their reconciling attempt is a fake... as usual.

As part of its "Project impact" initiative, Walmart is removing "underperforming" products from its shelves to create cleaner, less cluttered aisles that the retailer hopes will appeal to a new generation of bargain hunters.

Conveniently, Project Impact coincides with another strategic push by Walmart: a new move for larger slices of its suppliers' marketing budgets. Basically, Walmart is telling its suppliers: purchase more co-branded consumer ads, more advertising on Walmart.com, and more in-store adverts or join the cut list.

According to AdAge.com, for a large supplier like Proctor and Gamble, avoiding the "cut list" could divert billions of advertising dollars right into Walmart's ever-expanding marketing budget.

Some might call it monopsonistic privilege, others industrial blackmail, but if you think Walmart lacks the gall to play hard-ball with its suppliers, think again. From AdAge.com:

One case increasingly talked about in industry circles is Walmart's recent reversal of its decision to delist Arm & Hammer liquid laundry detergent from close to 90% of its U.S. stores.

Walmart eliminated most of the brand's distribution this spring despite Church & Dwight Co. hiking its marketing support for the brand to record levels last year. But people familiar with the matter say Walmart determined it didn't need both Arm & Hammer and Henkel's Purex in most of its stores. Both are value brands with similar consumer propositions and prices, and Purex had a higher market share at Walmart.

In recent weeks, however, Arm & Hammer liquid detergent began reappearing at all the stores it disappeared from a few months earlier. That coincided with the brand making appearances in Walmart's circular and TV ads earlier this month -- appearances that suppliers say are included in a catalog of options with price tags attached.

It hardly seems legal (or moral) but clearly Walmart is capable of leveraging its economic clout to bend suppliers to its every whim. The real question: is Walmart consolidating its supplier stranglehold or is Bentonville simply ushering a new low into the already cutthroat world of big-box retailing?

Welcome to Walmart's race to the bottom. Sound off.

though the incidents are typically isolated, it isn't unusual to read about shoppers injured by insect or animal bites while shopping at Walmart.

Last Tuesday, Jeriel Joiner entered the ranks of these unfortunate shoppers when a trip to a Florida Walmart garden center nearly cost him his life--he was bitten by a Pygmy Rattlesnake coiled beneath a store shelf.

A harrowing near-death experience followed when Joiner had a near fatal allergic reaction to the $30,000 per bottle antivenin. Joiner is still in serious condition. Unwilling to risk another dose of the antivenin, Joiner may be faced with nerve damage or amputation on the bitten arm.

It gets worse! Joiner's case is especially terrifying because, unlike similar incidents, there is a fairly apparent pattern of Pygmy Rattlesnake bites in Walmart stores. In Florida there have been at least four such rattlesnake bites in the past three years. In 1996, Walmart was ordered to pay Frank Agee $6,000 by a U.S. District Court after he was bitten by a rattlesnake in a Texas store. A simple Google search shows even more such bites going back to 1987.

With so many similar incidents, any responsible business would craft a clearly defined plan to contain and handle its rattlesnake problem. Not Walmart.

"There has been nothing," Gross said. "Not one phone call or one visitor (from a Walmart representative)."

After the snake bit Joiner, she said employees didn't offer to help and management seemed nowhere to be found. In the end, only an "elderly greeter" came to their rescue, batting at the snake with an old broom. She even had to call for an ambulance using her own cell phone, Gross said.

"I was really upset with how they handled the situation," Gross said.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what we've come to expect from Walmart.

Read the full article in the Daytona Beach News-Journal

We've discussed this issue before, but it deserves more attention because stories like this one are becoming a nearly daily occurrence.

The woman in this story was, as she says, relatively lucky. We've heard for far worse stories than someone getting knocked over and getting their purse taken. Still, it must have been a terrifying experience, and it's becoming a trend. Those wishing to steal, kidnap, assault, or otherwise harm others have figured out that Walmart parking lots are a pretty easy place to do it. There are usually people around, but not too many, and there is never security, except maybe a camera.

The infuriating thing about this trend is that Walmart could so easily prevent it. All it would take would be one security officer at each store walking around the parking lot, or driving around the parking lot, every so often. There has been research done that suggests if Walmart does this one simple thing, they could cut crime in their parking lots down almost to none. It wouldn't take much, they could reassign one of their security guards for ten or fifteen minutes each hour, or hire a new one since Walmart is always bragging about job creation now. Walmart has a responsibility to the communities they are in (which they also brag about) to stop this trend of parking lot crime.

Here's the story from the local TV station:

Police said they're looking for an SUV full of purse thieves after a woman was robbed while walking to her car at a Del City Wal-Mart. Martha Patrick said it happened very fast.

"They were watching for somebody," she said. "They didn't care who it
was."

She said she noticed the red SUV in the parking lot, but didn't think anything of it. That's when she was quickly knocked off her feet.
"He was hanging out of the car door, out of the window," she said.
She said she was knocked to the ground. She scraped up her knee and lost her purse.

"I had, probably, $60," she said.

She also lost credit cards. Patrick said that because she works unusual hours, crimes like that do cross her mind, but she never expected it to happen to her.

"I thought many times, 'I'll have my keys in my hand or something. I'll just stab them with my keys.' But it happened so fast, they knew what they were doing," she said.

Patrick said she feels lucky because not only did security cameras catch the attack on video, she escaped without broken bones.

"Just shattered nerves," she said.

Midwest City police said the same vehicle was identified in the same type of crime just a half-hour earlier and only a few miles away in Midwest City.

In the last few days, several more voices have joined in the growing group calling on Walmart to find a new location for their proposed store near an important civil war battlefield.

First, Ben Stein, the famous actor and comedian, urged Walmart to find a new location, writing in The American Spectator:

Frankly, I wonder if the nice people in Arkansas who run Wal-Mart have thought this through. This battlefield is incredibly important environmentally and historically and emotionally. It reeks of the blood of men fighting for causes they considered sacred. How can it possibly be that it will be used even in part for a Wal-Mart Super Store?

Next, the Governor of Virginia, Tim Kaine, and the speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates are both suggesting that Walmart and the Orange County local government find a different spot of Walmart to build. They said, in a letter to the chairman of the Board of Supervisors, "Every acre of battlefield land that is destroyed means a loss of open space and missed tourism opportunities, and it closes one more window for future generations to better understand our national story."

Of course this adds three more voices to the many, many people who have called on Walmart not to build across the street from the historic battlefield. We wonder what exactly it will take for Walmart to change locations. They are proving to be exceedingly stubborn for no particular reason. They are being asked relatively little and have been offered a comparable location at the same price further from the battlefield, but refuse to budge.

We're not quite sure why, but Walmart is a trending topic on Twitter right now. People are talking about the worlds largest retailer, and they are saying all different kinds of stuff, and an unprecedented number of people are paying attention.

We thought we'd take this rather opportune moment to invite you to join us on Twitter. For quite a while now, we've been using twitter to get the word about about what we're doing, about what Walmart is doing, and about what people are saying about Walmart, but with Walmart as the current hot topic, it's almost more than we can handle. If you are on twitter, we'd love you to help us get our message out. Let people know about Walmart's poverty level wages, let them know about the unaffordable, poor quality health care, about the poor treatment of its workers, about discrimination, about the dangerous products, about the wage and hour violations and whatever else is on your mind.

Give us a shout, too! We love hearing from everyone on Twitter, especially you guys!

Usually The Huffington Post features some great stories about Walmart. They take in to consideration the full scope of Walmart's size, labor issues, environmental issues, economic impact, and social issues. But a few days back, they featured an article that was surprisingly absent of any of those considerations.

In this particular piece, called "Bring WAL-MART To Manhattan!", Nelson Montana argues that a Walmart or four would be fantastic for New Yorkers because the city suffers from high prices and smaller local shops that don't carry enough variety. It's entirely unclear what prompted such an article, other than the authors own desire to buy lots of cheap stuff all in one place, but he misses a lot of information that should be considered before throwing his support behind the largest retailer in the world. I won't even address Mr. Montana's snide dismissal of people who want to have a say about what stores open in their neighborhood, but I would like to add a few points he missed and correct a few misconceptions.

The first big misconception in Mr. Montana's article is that opponents of Walmart take issue with Walmart's politics. In describing the views of those who work to change Walmart, he says, "It's said they're run by religious-right zealots whose union supports hard-line Republicans and have a lobby so strong they may attempt to take over every aspect of government." If you have followed this site you will know that that is not even close to our main concern. In fact, I'd say it doesn't even rank in the top ten or fifteen concerns we have with Walmart.

No, Mr. Montana misses the real objections people everywhere have to Walmart. He mentions Walmart closing down local "mom and pop" stores, and that's a good start, but he misses all the rest. He misses their poor treatment of workers, the poverty level wages, the inadequate and expensive health care, the anti-union tactics, the connections to sweatshops, the high costs to taxpayers through subsidized healthcare and tax incentives from local governments, the loss of American jobs, the dangerous products, the discrimination, the added traffic, the added crime, the environmental impact, and the wage and hour violations.

The second issue in this article is the equation of local businesses with large, international corporations in terms of economic impact. Mr. Montana writes, "All businesses are made up of little guys. And even the tiny, family-owned business answer to the big corporations at some level. So it's really just a matter of which middleman you want to deal with. A WAL-MART would be a tremendous boon to the city and its economy." In actuality, buying from a locally owned business is not just a different middleman, it has a significantly different impact on the local economy. When you spend your money at a locally owned business, around 73% of your money is staying in your local economy. When you buy from a huge corporation like Walmart, only 43% stays in the area, the rest, as you might imagine, goes to Walmart's headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, and from there around the world to different suppliers and manufacturers.

I'm sure many New Yorkers agree with Nelson Montana and would love to have a Walmart in their backyard, but many, many more don't want Walmart, and all that comes with it, in their neighborhoods.

In Texas, a couple is suing their local Walmart after a gas container they had bought exploded and caused their toddler to receive severe burns.

The injury occurred after the child’s father filled a lawnmower with gasoline and placed the gas container cap back onto the spout. A short time later, the toddler managed to pick the gas can up, remove the cap and carry it to a storage room. When the father saw the child near the container and a puddle of gasoline, he went to remove Roman from the storage room. However, as the child was being moved, the gasoline vapors ignited and the lower half of the child caught fire. As the father ran out of the room with his son, the gas container exploded, causing further injury.

According to the gas container lawsuit, the Blitz 1+ one gallon gas can only had a simple cap that required lining up arrows to remove and was ineffective as a child-resistant cap. The gas container also lacked a flame arrestor, which is a small metal mesh that could have prevented the flames from going back into the can.

The couple had purchased the container in 2005, three years prior to the passing of the Children’s Gasoline Burn Prevention Act which stated that all gas containers sold after January 17, 2009 were required to have caps designed for child resistance.

The lawsuit marks one of many instances where Walmart was willing to cut prices without taking the necessary steps to ensure product safety. While Walmart has been constantly criticized for cutting prices for monopolistic gain, (anywhere from other retail stores to the diamond industry) Walmart's regards for safety are not as widely covered by the media, but can pose a threat to the well-being of consumers.

Walmart's price-cutting techniques threaten safety as evident by the company's controversy with port security. However, this article as well as our report on Ranbaxy, shows Walmart betraying its customers right off the shelf. While laws are passed to prevent corporate irresponsibility, many still slip through the cracks, and if Walmart is found guilty, the retailer must make significant changes to its business practices.

Some people say that labor unions are outdated and unnecessary. They say in this modern day we can trust businesses to take care of employees. However, Walmart is a perfect example of just how wrong and dangerous this kind of complacent thinking can be.

A large number of Walmart's foreign supplier employees sued the company for not keeping up standards that were promised to them. Walmart said they would inspect facilities to make sure they were held to a high standard, but employees say Walmart did not deliver on the promise and even ignored mistreatment of workers. Next time you shop at Walmart, ask yourself if the low prices are really worth supporting sweatshops in foreign countries.

Last week the Ninth Circuit turned down the employees theories that Walmart was responsible for the misconduct.

Here is a blog post by Pam Smith on the website Legal Pad about the incident entitled Ninth Tackles Wal-Mart Sweatshops.

In Doe v. Wal-Mart Stores, the superstore corporation was sued by a bunch of employees at its foreign suppliers, who wanted to hold Wal-Mart liable for the conditions they worked in. Their claims were based in large part on a code of conduct Wal-Mart included in its contracts with suppliers, which said those whose working conditions don’t adhere to local laws and standards, or who don’t let Wal-Mart inspect their facilities, could have their orders canceled and their relationship with Wal-Mart cut off. At any rate, the plaintiffs accused Wal-Mart of reaping the PR benefits of this clause while being lax in its monitoring or even turning a blind eye. The Ninth Circuit turned down the plaintiffs’ four different theories of liability, affirming the Central District. (Judges Ronald Gould, Betty Fletcher and Raymond Fisher)

Click here to see the full post on the Legal Pad Blog.

While horrible, this is hardly new behavior for Walmart.
Here are some previous posts from our blog about Walmart's use of sweatshops:

Wal-Mart & Sweatshops
More Wal-Mart Sweatshop Connections
Wal-Mart's Sweatshop School Uniforms

Joe Hanson, the President of the United Food and Commercial Workers union has some salient questions for Walmart in this letter he wrote after Walmart came out in support of President Obama's Health Care Reform plan. Check out the full letter:

President Barack H. Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama:

I want to commend you for bringing America to the table in the effort to reform our health care system. Health care is a shared responsibility, and we cannot move forward until all elements of our society fully embrace that principle.

The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), representing one million workers in the retail sector, is closely attuned to the health care needs of working people, as well as the financial obligations of companies that provide health care benefits and the competitive pressures they face in the marketplace.

When Walmart announced its support of an employer mandate today, I received the news with interest—and a great deal of skepticism. As a company that has had a significant role in fueling this nation’s health care crisis, I have serious questions about Walmart’s commitment to playing a constructive role in fashioning reform that, in fact, provides quality affordable care for all.

►In terms of shared responsibility, is Walmart prepared to accept responsibility for funding a meaningful portion of their employees’, and their employees’ dependents’, health care costs? Is Walmart prepared to step up to the current average employer premium contribution levels for employer-based health insurance that are at least 80 percent of the cost of individual coverage and 75 percent of family coverage?

►More than sixty percent of retail jobs are part time. Is Walmart prepared to provide health care coverage for all part-time workers and their dependents, with employer contribution levels that are at least proportional to the number of hours worked?

►What does Walmart mean when it says that "any alternative to an employer mandate should not create barriers to hiring entry-level employees"? Does this mean entry-level workers are going to fall through the cracks when it comes to affordable, quality health care coverage?

I urge you not to applaud Walmart’s announcement until the company can provide satisfactory answers to these and other important questions.

Tremendous job growth will occur in the retail sector in the next decade. How we ultimately reform health care will determine whether these jobs will allow workers to raise a family and fully participate in the American economy or whether they will be marginalized and have to work two and three jobs to survive. The retail companies that employ UFCW members understand shared responsibility through hard work at the negotiating table and being actively engaged on health care reform issues for a number of years. This joint labor management work includes policy formulation and crafting health plans that address health issues like chronic disease and preventative care have been impressive.

I believe we can achieve meaningful health care reform this year that will benefit our entire nation. You can count on the UFCW’s unceasing support in this effort.

Respectfully,

Joseph T. Hanson
International President

Walmart’s Global Sustainability Report (http://walmartstores.com/sites/sustainabilityreport/2009/) is a report released by Walmart to measure its goal of, “becoming a more sustainable company." Most of the report has to do with environmental issues. However, the company’s social impact is also discussed. On page 106 is a lengthy description of how the Walmart Corporation helps people all over the country by donating food and money to charitable organizations.

It is important to understand that Walmart is not selflessly giving. In exchange for the money and products they give away, they receive good PR. On the top of page 106 of the report, there is a large picture of a truck with an advertisement for a Texas food bank’s website. Right under the food bank’s name are two big logos, one for Walmart and one for Sam’s Club.

When they do things to help these kinds of non-profits, Walmart gets their logo on trucks, signs, buses and websites, all associated with important charitable organizations that actually help people. Walmart’s not donating… they’re advertising! If Walmart executives believe their “gifts” warrant them advertisements, they should not be billing them as charitable donations. We must all be aware that Walmart’s contributions, while helpful to people, are not the product of a loving, compassionate company. They are business decisions designed to make Walmart look good.

Yesterday we wrote a post about what happens when Walmart leaves town. The empty, blighted shell of a huge building can be a strain on communities, and the longer it sits there, the worse it can get. But today, we see the closing of a store at a slightly different phase: right before it shuts down.

In New Britain, CT, Walmart rather abruptly decided to shut its store. It means that 162 jobs will be lost, and the Mayor is looking to help mitigate the situation. The article goes on to discuss the business:

“The building is still owned by Wal-Mart,” Stewart said. “They have to pay property taxes on it.”

The owners of that property are responsible for marketing the property, the mayor said.

Bill Carroll, business development coordinator for the City of New Britain, said he was disappointed in the abrupt way Wal-Mart handled the situation. Company officials dropped off paperwork about the store closing at the mayor’s office and left.

“We’re talking about 162 jobs and filling that space,” Carroll said. “It’s incumbent on owners of that building to hire someone to market the location. I’ll help any way I can. Aldi’s [food store chain] is nearby and they’ve been successful. Eventually, something will turn up.”

We're not so optimistic. As yesterday's post shows, Walmart isn't all that interested in dealing with vacant buildings, even if they still own them.

You can read the full article here.

While Walmart is ubiquitous, it's not without controversy when it wants to move in to a new town. Often local residents fight against building new Walmart stores because they feel it will negatively impact their community, put local stores out of business, bring extra traffic to the area, increase crime in the area, and generally detract from the feel of the neighborhood. There is yet another reason communities might not Walmart to move in...the remains of their store when they leave.

Unfortunately, Walmart doesn't build their stores to last, and when they decide the location is no longer making them sufficient profit, they simply pick up and leave. The problem is, no one wants a 200,000+ square foot shell. They're just too big to do anything with, and they tend to sit around for a very long time. Not only are the empty, blighted stores an eyesore, but they also tend to attract graffiti, abandoned cars, crime, and more.

Here's an excerpt from a story from Kansas city that demonstrates what can happen when Walmart decides your city is no longer making them enough money:

A scrap of paper that's snapped between the windshield and the wiper blade of a rusting Ford Bronco begs: "Please do not tow. Will return to pick up."

The Bronco sits in the parking lot of a former Sam's Club at Noland Road and U.S. Highway 40. The vehicle shares a piece of weed-strewn asphalt with several truck cabs and semitrailers of various origin. Dead bugs cover the face of one cab with a Kansas license plate and Louis L'Amour paperbacks visible on the dashboard.

The lot suggests a truck stop the morning after an alien abduction. Big-rig operators and others have stashed vehicles near the Sam's Club for more than a year — "maybe even quite substantially longer than that," according to Greg Hunsucker, co-owner of V’s Italiano Ristorante a few miles down the road.

Sam's Club, a division of Wal-Mart, abandoned the site in 2001. The still-vacant warehouse store, paint peeling from its siding, used to anchor General's Plaza, one of the sadder dying strip centers in the metro. Current tenants include a dollar store and a motorcycle-riding school.

The Sam's Club died a typical Wal-Mart death. Company officials, having determined that the intersection had outlived its usefulness, decided to relocate the business to a taxpayer-subsidized shopping district three miles to the east.

Wal-Mart has abandoned hundreds of locations in the course of its aggressive expansion. Often, city governments assist with those transitions through property-tax breaks or bond financing.

Al Norman, a Massachusetts-based critic of big-box stores who advises communities on how to keep them out, says Wal-Mart's inventory of "ghost stores" is unprecedented. Norman used to conduct a yearly inventory of orphaned Wal-Marts. "I stopped doing it just because it was too time-consuming," he tells me.

The Sam's Club on Noland Road would have to be included on any list of the most depressing zombie Wal-Marts. The building looks like a poorly maintained shed suffering from elephantiasis. The spider-web crack in the windshield of one of the truck cabs makes the parking lot look like a junkyard. "Boy, it has been an eyesore," Hunsucker says.

It's illegal, too. Responding to a complaint (not from me), Kansas City, Missouri, codes officials are in the process of notifying Wal-Mart that the Sam's Club parking lot is in violation. The property's zoning category does not permit trucks to be stored on-site.

Of course, Wal-Mart isn't the one using the lot as a motor pool. But the company's neglect has allowed it to happen. "The property owner is always responsible for the property," Wilson Winn, a manager in Kansas City's Planning and Development Department, tells me.

Read the full story here.

The battle over Walmart proposed store near a Civil War battlefield in Virginia has resulted in a local government official losing his job. Bill Rolfe was an Orange County administrator, until recently, but apparently the Orange County Supervisors weren't going to tolerate any discussion of where the proposed Walmart store would be located. Just a few days ago Bill Rolfe was fired for suggesting, rather reasonably it seems, that Walmart not build across the road from a protected and important historical battlefield, but instead build slightly farther away.

It seems pretty strange that the County Supervisors would make such a drastic move. After all, it's not as if Mr. Rolfe was the only one to suggest that Walmart build in a different location. In fact there has been a huge group demanding this change including conservationists, local residents, historians, activists, actors, elected officials and more.

That the Orange County Supervisors would resort to firing an employee simply for offering a different opinion is a shame, and we're not the only ones who think so. Check out these articles from the local Free Lance Star and US News & World Report calling out the supervisors, even suggesting that, "come the next election, Orange County voters should fire them."

From US News & World Report:

A few weeks back, I wrote about the ongoing controversy in Orange County, Va., where Wal-Mart wants to build a "supercenter" shopping mall on the ground where the Union and Confederate armies clashed in the battle of the Wilderness during the Civil War. Here is a disheartening update: A courageous and wise public official has been fired for suggesting that Wal-Mart choose a different site.

Wal-Mart needs a special permit to build its big box, with its flock of accompanying stores. When the Orange County planning commission held a public hearing on the permit, two thirds in the audience said sure, they would like to have a Wal-Mart in the county—but why does it have to be built on the battlefield?

County Administrator Bill Rolfe, who had "worked hard for two years to clear the bureaucratic thicket for Wal-Mart," according to the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, was impressed by the citizenry's logic. And he was moved by commentaries written in the newspaper by local residents who had fought a similar fight with Wal-Mart back in the 1990s—when it wanted to build a store next to George Washington's boyhood home in Stafford County, Va. In that case, the county officials persuaded Wal-Mart to build on different land, and everyone was happy. The Wal-Mart property was improved, and added to the tax rolls; the preservationists protected Washington's home, and the local economy continued to prosper as tourists came to see where George chopped down the cherry tree.

Rolfe's level-headed suggestion did not, unfortunately, persuade a majority of the Orange County board. Instead, after a closed session on Friday night, in the middle of the Fourth of July weekend, they fired him.

Yesterday, a Free Lance-Star editorial criticized the supervisors for their "red faces and quivering wattles" and concluded that "truth and justice have had better days." It praised Rolfe for a "spotless" record, and for "keeping [his] honor clean." The same cannot be said for the supervisors who voted, in a 3-2 roll call, to dismiss him.

The newspaper noted why the battlefield should be preserved. When the federal government surveyed the Civil War fields some years ago, it ranked the 384 major battlefields and put the Wilderness in the top 45 as "having a decisive influence on a campaign and a direct impact on the course of the war." Of those 45 "Class A" battlefields, 10 faced a "high" threat of development, including the Wilderness.

It gets worse. The land that Wal-Mart wants to pave was not only used by the Union troops during the Wilderness fight (in which no less a hero than Gen. Ulysses S. Grant wept at the carnage), but also by the Confederates in Gen. Robert E. Lee's great victory of 1863 at the adjacent battlefield of Chancellorsville, where Gen. Stonewall Jackson died at the culminating moment of a brilliant flank attack.

With the 150th anniversary of the Civil War approaching, there is bound to be increased interest in Virginia's battlefields. Even if greed is their primary motive, the Orange County supervisors should be planning to lure tourists to a preserved Wilderness battlefield, not despoiling it with a shopping center that could be built on another site.

Here are the names of the supervisors who voted to fire Rolfe: Mark Johnson, Zack Burkett, and Teri Pace.

Come the next election, Orange County voters should fire them.

You may have seen this story from last week about Walmart's rather surprising support for President Obama's health care reform proposal. Of course we are all for health care reform. Walmart workers, and workers everywhere, need real change in their health coverage. There are far too many Americans who can't afford decent health insurance, or who are forced on to state health care, or who are going bankrupt from health related issues. We'e thrilled if Walmart actually wants to work for health reform that will mean their employees will get quality care when they get sick.

But Walmart's record suggests that this move is more talk than action. As we've discussed, Walmart is engaged in a massive PR campaign attempting to repair their name when it comes to health care. For years, campaigns like this one have called Walmart out for not covering its employees adequately and for shirking its responsibility by forcing its employees on to state run health care programs. Now Walmart wants to be known as a leader in health care and health care reform. It might be easier to swallow that if Walmart had lead by example, but instead they did the exact opposite. And it hasn't gotten much better. Walmart still fails to cover over 48% of its employees or 675,000 individuals and who knows how many more children of employees.

This opinion piece in the Baltimore Sun illustrates how poor Walmart's health coverage still is:

Wal-Mart is an image conscious opportunist. I have several Wal-Mart employees as my patients. I can in all honesty declare that Wal-Mart, a wealthy corporation, for years got away with providing its employees no health care coverage at all or the type of coverage from which doctors could barely eke out payments.

Out of pocket expenses for patients are outrageous with this coverage. Hand me a Wal-Mart health insurance card, and I will let out a spontaneous sigh of exasperation because I know from experience what lies ahead is a runaround for meager compensation after I have delivered all the services.

You say Wal-Mart has obtained religion and is behind Obama's health plan? Will there be a richer bounty on my plate now for tending to my overworked and underpaid Wal-Mart flock tenderly? Somehow I doubt my sighs of exasperation will cease with this new miracle under way in the health care sector.

A fed up doc

Maybe when Walmart offers quality, affordable health coverage to it own employees, we'll believe them when they say they want everyone in the country to have good health care. Until then, we think it sounds like PR, pure and simple.