This is a pretty unbelievable case. Andre Johnson, an NFL star bought several bikes at Wal-Mart through his charity (to be given to underprivileged children), and Wal-Mart agreed to donate some water and ice to the event. Somehow the order got messed up and because Andre Johnson did not end up buying as many bike as he originally planned, Wal-Mart refused to give him the water and ice.

How callous does one have to be to refuse a donation because the person in question spent a little less at your store? For that matter, why should their donation be dependent on spending money at all?

Here's the story from TMZ:

NFL Star: Wal-Mart Left Kids Out in the Cold

NFL superstar Andre Johnson claims his charity got stiffed by Wal-Mart -- it all involves water and ice. Yes, ice.

Johnson ordered 750 bicycles to be given to underprivileged kids at an event sponsored by the Andre Johnson Foundation -- in return for the purchase, Wal-Mart agreed to donate water and ice for the May 3 event.

But there was a problem with the order, so Johnson ended up buying fewer bikes than planned. Wal-Mart countered by not giving the water and ice as promised. That's cold.

Wal-Mart is trying to rectify the situation. They tell TMZ, "We are reaching out to the Andre Johnson Foundation as we speak to rectify the situation. It's disappointing that this happened."

Via Wal-Mart Watch's blog, here's a letter from Christopher Shank, Debbie Shank's son. You can see how profoundly this ordeal has affected this family's life, and how different it would have been if Wal-Mart had done the right thing.

First of all, let it be known that I’m Debbie Shank’s son, and not some random dude putting in his two cents. That being said, here’s the skinny…

When we sued the trucking company, our lawyer told us that the only amount we could get off of the trucking company was what the truck was insured for...namely, a million dollars. As they were a small trucking company, they had no real net worth, and the amount we could sue them for was just for their insurance.

When we received the settlement of 1 million, a third of that was paid out to the lawyers. After that, my dad was given a portion of that to make up for lost wages. We told Wal-Mart about all of this, and they basically said “Okay.” and did nothing. We set up the rest, 417K, to take care of mom. We took care of her for three years on that, but when the statute of limitations was set to expire on Wal-Mart suing us, they literally had days left, they filed to sue us. Our lawyer told us at the time that they were only doing this to keep their options open, but Wal-Mart decided that they wanted to go after the settlement, as they say time and time again, “out of fairness for everyone in the medical plan”.

And so it went. The first ruling came August 31, 2006. At the time it was the worst thing that had happened. Six days later, my brother was killed. Dad said “Fine. Whatever. They won.” We were without any will to keep going. Our lawyers said “We’ll appeal. You just don’t worry about things. We’ll take care of all of it.”

Appeal after appeal, Wal-Mart won them all. We finally appealed to the Supreme Court. Last week, they said they weren’t going to take our case. We lost. Now, Wal-Mart can’t take any more money than we had in the trust fund, so they get that. But, we still have 150K in outstanding medical bills. We have a fund set up that has accepted donations, but it quickly depletes due to bills. Even with government assistance, we still must pay anywhere from 500-1000 per month to keep mom in the nursing home, and that’s not counting bills she has from trips to the hospital (a couple weeks ago she was bleeding internally) . The outstanding bills we have, they can sue my father directly, so it’s looking like he may have to sell his home at least. My youngest brother, if he wants to have the money to go to college, will himself either have to take out thousands in loans or join the military.

Dad has worked all his life, was set to retire in 5 years, but now it’s looking as if he’ll have to work longer and longer. Plus he has cancer to worry about.

So, that’s the story. I have a feeling that somewhere along the lines, be it by Wal-Mart, the courts, the lawyers, the trucking company, or a combination of all, we’ve been taken advantage of. We could only sue for so much, we had to pay the lawyers, the courts decided to maintain the status quo, and Wal-Mart sold it’s soul.

Whoever’s fault it is, we’re screwed. Plain and simple.

Here's the video footage from CNN. It is incredibly humanizing to see this family on tape, and incredibly sad too.

CNN has more coverage of the incredibly sad healthcare case today. Here's the article:

JACKSON, Missouri (CNN) -- Debbie Shank breaks down in tears every time she's told that her 18-year-old son, Jeremy, was killed in Iraq.

Even though the 52-year-old mother of three attended her son's funeral -- she continues to ask how he's doing. When her family reminds her that he's dead -- she weeps as if hearing the news for the first time.

Shank suffered severe brain damage after a traffic accident nearly eight years ago that robbed her of much of her short-term memory and left her in a wheelchair and living in a nursing home.

It was the beginning of a series of battles -- both personal and legal -- that loomed for Shank and her family. One of their biggest was with Wal-Mart's health plan.

Eight years ago, Shank was stocking shelves for the retail giant and signed up for Wal-Mart's health and benefits plan.

Two years after the accident, Shank and her husband, Jim, were awarded about $1 million in a lawsuit against the trucking company involved in the crash. After legal fees were paid, $417,000 was placed in a trust to pay for Debbie Shank's long-term care.

Wal-Mart had paid out about $470,000 for Shank's medical expenses, but in 2005, Wal-Mart's health plan sued the Shanks for the same amount.

The Shanks didn't notice in the fine print of Wal-Mart's health plan policy that the company has the right to recoup medical expenses if an employee collects damages in a lawsuit.

The family's attorney, Maurice Graham, said he informed Wal-Mart about the settlement and believed the Shanks would be allowed to keep the money.

"We assumed after three years, they [Wal-Mart] had made a decision to let Debbie Shank use this money for what it was intended to," Graham said.

The Shanks lost their suit to Wal-Mart. Last summer, the couple appealed the ruling -- but also lost it. One week later, their son was killed in Iraq.

"They are quite within their rights. But I just wonder if they need it that bad," Jim Shank said.

In 2007, the retail giant reported net sales in the third quarter of $90 billion.

Legal or not, CNN asked Wal-Mart why the company pursued the money.

Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley, who called Debbie Shank's case "unbelievably sad," replied in a statement: "Wal-Mart's plan is bound by very specific rules. ... We wish it could be more flexible in Mrs. Shank's case since her circumstances are clearly extraordinary, but this is done out of fairness to all associates who contribute to, and benefit from, the plan."

Jim Shank said he believes Wal-Mart should make an exception.

"My idea of a win-win is -- you keep the paperwork that says you won and let us keep the money so I can take care of my wife," he said.

The family's situation is so dire that last year Jim Shank divorced Debbie, so she could receive more money from Medicaid.

Jim Shank, 54, is recovering from prostate cancer, works two jobs and struggles to pay the bills. He's afraid he won't be able to send their youngest son to college and pay for his and Debbie's care.

"Who needs the money more? A disabled lady in a wheelchair with no future, whatsoever, or does Wal-Mart need $90 billion, plus $200,000?" he asked.

The family's attorney agrees.

"The recovery that Debbie Shank made was recovery for future lost earnings, for her pain and suffering," Graham said.

"She'll never be able to work again. Never have a relationship with her husband or children again. The damage she recovered was for much more than just medical expenses."

Graham said he believes Wal-Mart should be entitled to only about $100,000. Right now, about $277,000 remains in the trust -- far short of the $470,000 Wal-Mart wants back.

Refusing to give up the fight, the Shanks appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. But just last week, the high court said it would not hear the case.

Graham said the Shanks have exhausted all their resources and there's nothing more they can do but go on with their lives.

Jim Shank said he's disappointed with the Supreme Court's decision not to hear the case -- not for the sake of his family -- but for those who might face similar circumstances.

For now, he said the family will figure out a way to get by and "do the best we can for Debbie."

"Luckily, she's oblivious to everything," he said. "We don't tell her
what's going on because it will just upset her."

Here is a rather unbelievable story, or perhaps not considering how easy it is to get fired from Wal-Mart. It is disgraceful that Tom Hampton was fired for his disability. Wal-Mart should be ashamed at making such a poor choice, both ethically and from a business standpoint (after all, it sounds like Tom was a great employee, and could perform his job just as well, if not better in his wheelchair). Wal-Mart is apparently looking to rehire Tom once they find a suitable position for him. I'm not sure what is wrong with his old position, which he clearly enjoyed. What is most disturbing about this story, however, is not Tom's individual case but the trend of intolerance and the speed at which an associate can be fired.

Here's the full story from The Mansfield News Journal:

Tom Hampton wants to go back to work. A Wal-Mart official said the company wants to find him work.

But Hampton continues to sit at home.

The 48-year-old Lexington man, paralyzed on his left side since a 1986 motorcycle accident, said problems began in October when he filed a request to use his wheelchair at the Possum Run Road store.

"I knew the Christmas rush was coming and I was running out of energy in my left leg, so I asked if I could bring my wheelchair into work," he said. "They have a form you fill out, which is a request for a reasonable accommodation. I gave it to my store manager, but then I heard nothing back about it for a long time. For three months, they just kept saying that they hadn't heard anything. So one day I just showed up in my wheelchair."

Hampton said he worked 30 minutes before he was called into the office.

"They told me I either had to get up out of the chair or go home," he said. "It really surprised me. After working there for two years, I thought I'd proven myself. I never missed a day of work and I thought I was a pretty valued employee and they'd want to keep me -- but they didn't seem like they wanted to."

Hampton went home.

Nearly four months have passed, but Wal-Mart spokesperson Sharon Weber said the company is working to find Hampton a position.

"He's gotten a letter from us," Weber said. "We don't discuss personnel issues dealing with associates, but we always try to work closely with our associates to help them perform their jobs.

"We certainly want to help this individual. Each department has minimum job requirements that employees have to meet. We do allow people with wheelchairs to work, but right now we're working to help him find a position."

Hampton said he hasn't received a letter from Wal-Mart.

"When I went in for an interview, I went through the same hiring process like everyone else did. My disabilities were visible -- I had a cane and my left arm was in a sling. They did not question me at all on my condition."

Until recently, he was pleased with his experience at the store. That's a point of pride for the company, Weber said.

"We value all our associates and work so hard to be an employer of choice," Weber said. "We've received awards for our work with associates with disabilities."

Hampton said he worked as a sales associate in the electronics department, where he helped run the cash register and general customer service responsibilities.

"I was impressed that they'd given me a chance as a disabled person," he said. "They treated me really well until this past winter."

Hampton said he was asked to provide a doctor's release to add to his request for the wheelchair. Three weeks later he was told his request had been denied.

"I don't have any use of my left arm. I can walk fairly well, but it's not very smooth with my left leg," Hampton said.

Hampton said he experienced no problems in his chair.

"I didn't have any trouble maneuvering through the aisles," he said. "Actually, I could move faster in the wheelchair than I could walking. A lot of my customers know me by name and they didn't mind me in the chair, just the management did."

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has taken Hampton's statement, but he said they haven't gotten back to him yet.

"They said it could take six months to a year to get me on their list," he said. "I'm holding my own for now, but it's not great. I was working for a reason. I needed the money."

Bill Hiser, of the Independent Living Center, said Hampton has been with the Mansfield agency for more than 12 years.

"He was on the board, he was treasurer and a friend, so he's been part of the Independent Living Center family for a long time," Hiser said. "We were just amazed that the whole thing happened -- amazed and a little horrified. He's had good reviews, he's very knowledgeable in the world of electronics and computers and worked there two years, so I don't think his disability is an issue. Tom has always strived to be as independent as he can, where most people in his situation would want to roll over and not work. He wants to work."

Hampton said he's amenable to shifting to a new position if necessary.

"I would be willing to work in another department, hopefully it would be one in which I could still use my knowledge and expertise," he said. "I just would really like to get back to work."

The U.S Supreme Court has refused to review the case of Debbie Shank, who worked for Wal-Mart as a stocker and was severely brain damaged in a car accident. The refusal means that the Shank family now owes Wal-Mart $470,000. Wal-Mart sued the family after paying their medical bills because the Shanks won a lawsuit against the trucking company that hit Debbie's car.

Wal-Mart says they sued "out of fairness to everyone who contributes" to the insurance plan, except, it seems, to the Shanks. The money they won from the trucking company was set aside to use for long term care because Debbie needs full time care. Instead, Wal-Mart will put this money back in to their insurance plan.

Here's the story from the St. Louis Post Dispatch:

WASHINGTON — The family of a Missouri woman must reimburse Wal-Mart for nearly a half-million dollars in medical expenses now that the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review her case.

The court on Monday let stand a ruling by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis requiring Debbie Shank of Cape Girardeau County to pay nearly $470,000 to Wal-Mart.

The appeal was the last legal recourse for the family of the 52-year-old Shank, a mother of three who was critically injured in a car accident eight years ago. She suffered a brain injury that took her memory and left her with very little ability to move or communicate. She has lived in a nursing home since she was released from the hospital.

"It's been kind of hard on us," Nathan Shank, Debbie Shank's 17-year-old son, said Monday when told about the court's decision.

Nathan Shank said that with her case in limbo, his mother already had lost a private caregiver and might be moved out of her private room in the nursing home.

According to legal documents, Shank's medical bills — totaling $469,216 — were covered by a health insurance program at Wal-Mart, where Shank worked nights stocking shelves.

Her family later settled a lawsuit with the trucking company whose driver was involved in the accident. After attorneys' fees and expenses, $417,477 was put in a trust for Shank's care. That settlement money, plus $51,739 that Shank will have to pay out of pocket, must be paid to Wal-Mart.

As is common for employer-sponsored health plans, Shank's insurance required full repayment of medical expenses if she received money from a lawsuit.

Daphne Moore, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said the company sued "out of fairness to everyone who contributes" to the plan.

"This is a tragic situation," Moore said. "The reality is that the health plan is required to protect its assets so that it can pay future claims for other associates and their family members."

The Supreme Court gave no explanation for its decision.

Imagine your spouse dying and their employer collecting thousands of dollars because of it. Wouldn't you be angry? Especially if you hadn't known their employer might benefit from their death? For many spouses of Wal-Mart employees, this happened. Recently a lawsuit against the company was thrown out of court because of a technicality, but Wal-Mart paid nearly $15 million because of the 350,000 secret claims they had.

Here's the story from the St. Petersburg Times:

A federal judge has dismissed a Hillsborough County man's lawsuit against Wal-Mart over a life insurance claim the company received when the man's wife died.

Friday, U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr. dismissed the suit filed by Richard Armatrout, because it failed to reach the $75,000 threshold for a civil complaint to go before a federal judge.

When Karen Armatrout, 50, died of cancer in 1997, Wal-Mart collected $72,820.30 from an insurance policy the retail giant had in her name. Armatrout's husband sued, saying the couple never knew about the policy and he received none of the payout.

Armatrout's attorney argued the lawsuit exceeded the $75,000 limit if punitive damages were included.

Karen Armatrout worked at a Wal-Mart pharmacy on Waters Avenue in Tampa and took a leave of absence when doctors diagnosed her with cancer.

Michael D. Myers, a Texas attorney representing Richard Armatrout, said Monday he anticipated the case would be thrown out because of the technicality. Before Moody's ruling, Myers filed Armatrout's lawsuit in Pasco County, along with a similar case for Pasco resident Wayne Atkinson. Myers said Wal-Mart also collected on a policy when Atkinson's wife, Rita, died.

Myers estimates Wal-Mart secretly insured about 350,000 employees for two years beginning in 1993. Wal-Mart officials said they dropped the policies by the start of 2000.

He has won settlements against Wal-Mart in Texas and Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, a judge approved a $5.1-million class-action settlement in a case brought by the estates of deceased Wal-Mart employees. A $10-million settlement was reached in Texas.

Myers is waiting to see if a Pasco County judge will grant his motion to give Armatrout's case class-action status for similar estate claims in Florida.

After the Consumerist published their story about a customer being held in a Wal-Mart because he didn't show his receipt, letters poured in of others who had similar experiences. Here's one they published that's particularly interesting. Perhaps this is why Wal-Mart ranks last in consumer satisfaction. Here's the letter from a customer who wasn't allowed to leave the store, even though a manager was there with him, holding his purchase:

Here's a basic run down of my WalMart experience from this past Saturday in Memphis, TN. I went there to buy 1)firearm, 2)ammunition for firearm, and 3)groceries. I knew the firearm would take the longest so I went to the sporting goods counter first with the intent of buying the firearm and ammunition back there and groceries up front ( I had produce). I was going to have my initial purchase in its own basket and flow through the self check out with my groceries. While waiting for the government approval to buy the firearm, I gathered my groceries and the ammunition. The cashier, who really was nice and pleasant, kept telling me it would be just another five minutes and to wait instead of going up front and buying my groceries. After an hour the approval came through so a manager was called to complete the sale. We waited 15 minutes for Assistant Manager Ladarrel to show up. He checks the paperwork then tells me he can't ring the ammunition up with the firearm. I would have to take them to the car and come back. Since I had already spent an hour waiting so far and no one in sporting goods bothered to point out that store policy, I decided I would just buy the ammunition at another time. I already had to wait in 2 separate lines. I didn't want to make it 3. Ladarrel sells me the firearm. I give him cash. He gives me a receipt. He then says it is store policy that he escorts the firearm out of the store. So he, holding the box with the firearm, follows me and my shopping cart to the front of the store. When I walk to a check out line he tells me he has to escort the firearm out of the store immediately and I would have to take the firearm to my car and come back to buy the groceries. I explained I could not secure or even hide the firearm in my car so once I put the box in my car I was leaving. He insisted I could not buy my groceries at that time. So, we abandoned the cart and went to the door. When he reaches the door checker, he, still holding my purchased firearm, stops and tells me to show them my receipt. I say that I don't do that. He says it's store policy. I explain that it's my policy not to show my receipts unless absolutely necessary. Soon another man who apparently is in charge of the front joins in and insists that unless I show my receipt I can't have my firearm. I try to explain that not only did I give cash to Assistant Manager Ladarrel AND he gave me a receipt of sale AND he has been in complete possession of the firearm since the sale; he escorted me from the back of the store to where we were standing. At no time had I been in possession of my merchandise. He knew he had sold me the merchandise and he knew I was the owner at that time. It was useless. We argued for about 10 minutes. It all came down to their saying that unless I showed proof of ownership the merchandise was not mine. I insisted that not only did Ladarrel know I owned the merchandise so he was illegally in retaining possession of it; the proof was located in the records they are required to keep for a firearm sale; records that Ladarrel had personally verified for accuracy. Finally, I said I wanted to return the item. They insisted that without a receipt I could only get store credit. I told them that I paid cash and I would get cash. We walked to the sporting goods counter and they easily printed a copy of the receipt from the register. I received my cash back and they kept the firearm. I left and went to a grocery store and a sporting goods store. All in all, I would have spent over $450 at WalMart but other companies received my business. Patrick

In January, an investigative reporter from St. Louis station KMOV went undercover and found that Wal-Mart was throwing away a huge amount of food that had reached its sell-by date, but was still perfectly safe to eat. The station recently learned that this is official Wal-Mart corporate policy. Governor Matt Blunt of Missouri and Representative Jo Ann Emerson have written letters to Lee Scott telling him to donate the food to pantries and soup kitchens. Check out the report!

Wal-Mare is being sued once again. This time, it's not for gender discrimination or forcing employees to work off the clock. This time it's for refusing to help a customer when his three year old daughter was molested in a Wal-Mart! Following is the full story from the OC Register:

A Stanton father is suing Wal-Mart alleging that store managers in the Westminster outlet failed to protect or help his then 3-year-old daughter when she was being inappropriately touched by another man.

Tom Flood said in his civil complaint that he had to follow John Anderson, whom police later arrested on suspicion of a lewd act with a minor in connection with the incident.

Anderson reportedly touched and rubbed the girl's lower back and caressed her hair even as her father was standing a few feet away picking out Cinderella towels for her bathroom, Flood said in the suit.

Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley said Thursday that he could not comment about pending litigation.

"But we try very hard to ensure a safe and secure environment for our customers and associates,'' he said.

Flood filed the complaint in Orange County Superior Court last month. Wal-Mart has not yet been served with the lawsuit.

Flood claims in the suit that during the May 19 incident he asked the store's manager to call the police, but the manager refused. The manager also told Flood that Anderson was the brother of an employee, the lawsuit states. Flood was forced to follow Anderson around the store with his daughter seated in the shopping cart, crying, until police arrived and arrested Anderson, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit alleges that Wal-Mart among other things, failed to: contact authorities; help a distraught customer; supervise Anderson despite knowledge of his conduct with Flood's daughter; and maintain a safe environment for its customers.

Anderson is awaiting trial and has also been named as a defendant in Flood's lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages in excess of $25,000.

Flood, a single father, said that his daughter has suffered emotionally because of this incident.

"She is scared every time we drive by Wal-Mart or go in there," he said. "She is afraid to hug other kids in pre-school. I just feel like she's lost her innocence because of what happened to her."
When his daughter gets scared, he tries to assure her that he would be there to protect her.

"But she tells me, 'But you didn't, daddy,'" he said. "And that's been really hard for me."

Flood's attorney, Philip Putman, said he has seen an increase in civil molestation cases over the last 20 years.

"There just seem to be more and more predators and it happens way too often," he said. "Parents and guardians must completely avoid contact with strangers and be very careful when they are in a public place."

When The Consumerist heard that there were shirts at Wal-Mart with a design that was an exact replica of a Nazi symbol, they started 'Wal-Mart Nazi T-Shirt Watch' and we're not on week 62. The design itself is certainly appalling, but the consumerist has a point: why can't Wal-Mart seem to get rid of these things? What else can't they get rid of? Here's the article:

Walmart Nazi Tshirt Watch: Week 62

When you thought all of the Walmart tshirts bearing the exact replica of an infamous Nazi symbol were recalled, or sold to a discount store and burned, a Walmart in Palmdale, California has them on sale for $3.00 a pop. 62 weeks after Walmart pledged to remove the shirts from its shelves, and 50 weeks after getting a letter from Congress demanding the shirts removal, they're still out there. If they can't get rid of a simple tshirt, how good are they at recalling toys, defective merchandise, and dangerous food?

An investigative report found that while other grocery stores were donating food they didn't sell to local food pantries, Wal-Mart has been throwing their unsold food in the trash. Watch the report here!

This year, we expect that millions of homes will be lit with Christmas lights, the perennial holiday favorite. Like most Americans, I can't help but to smile when I see families quadrupling their electricity bills just to spread a little bit of holiday cheer.

If your family purchased Christmas lights from Wal-Mart, you're in for even more surprises than the ones wrapped up under the tree. How about the risk of lead poisoning, for starters?

CNN just released an article about high lead content in several brands of Christmas lights. Topping the list of dangerous decorations, and hardly a surprise to us, is Wal-Mart's offering. Here the quote from CNN.com.

Wal-Mart brand lights had the highest levels of surface lead, with levels ranging from 86.6 to 132.7 micrograms. GE lights showed surface lead levels from 68 to 109.1 micrograms. Sylvania had surface lead levels from 59 to 70.3 micrograms. Levels of surface lead in the lights made by Philips ranged from a low of 3.2 -- well under the 15 microgram limit -- to 107.2 in another sample.

According to CNN, Wal-Mart's product contains about 9 times the 15 microgram limit for lead content. These Christmas lights are so dangerous, CNN reports, that gloves are required while handling them. Additionally, the lights should be kept out of the reach of children.

If you think something is wrong here, you're not alone. We have spent this holiday season campaigning for Wal-Mart to take responsibility for their their part in America's product safety crisis. Already, our supporters are well on their way toward 10,000 letters to the US Senate, all calling for hearings on Wal-Mart's negative effect on product safety in America.

Let's make stories like this one history. Hold Wal-Mart responsible for the unsafe products they sell by signing our letter to the US Senate.

The Holidays are here! Around the country, people are beginning to decorate their homes and trim the Christmas Tree. Many Americans have fond memories of trimming the tree with their families. No one would ever think this time-honored tradition could threaten their health.

Neither did Juanita Hargas, a Texas woman who recently purchased a Christmas Tree from Wal-Mart. While setting it up, she was shocked to find a warning label which stated that the product contains dangerous amounts of lead, which can cause cancer. Understandably, she was outraged and so are we. For more, check out this story from WJBF News

Open the box...and a Christmas surprise...a Texas woman finds a warning about cancer!

Juanita Hargas, "I was just angry, just angry, because cancer is an ugly thing."

Juanita Hirgas bought this pre-lit tree at Wal-Mart...she was putting it together...when she came across a tag she thought was just an electrical warning.

Hirgas, "But then I saw the word cancer...I thought, 'I better read this.'"

The warning reads: Caution...Cancer...lead...wash hands..."

The warning lets consumers know about hazardous chemicals...but businesses aren't required to put it on their labels.

We contacted Wal-Mart twice...and as of our deadline...we heard no response.

Hirgas, "I took it back, I did not want that tree in my house, and risk exposing my family and myself to lead."

Juanita, herself, is in remission from cancer. What's worse, she was putting up this tree with her 2-year-old granddaughter.

Hirgas, "To me, it's like putting a snake in the same room with you and saying, 'well, it may bite you, it may not.'"

The product is made in China...and with the several recent recalls of Chinese-made products containing lead...Juanita has made up her mind.

Hirgas, "I'm not going to buy anything made from China."

When Wal-Mart does business in Illinois, they ought to pay taxes in Illinois, right? In reality, through a convoluted arrangement, Wal-Marts in Illinois are actually owned by an Italian real estate company and thus pay no income tax in the state. The arrangement has slashed its Illinois tax bill by millions of dollars. Now the state is fighting back. For more, check out this article from The Wall Street Journal:

More than 4,500 miles separate a small Wal-Mart Stores Inc. office in Florence, Italy, from the company's dozens of Illinois retail outlets. But thanks to a convoluted tax arrangement, court records show, Wal-Mart's Italian operation has helped the giant retailer cut its state tax bill in Illinois by millions of dollars a year.

Wal-Mart set its affairs so that its Italian outpost is the only operating unit of a real-estate subsidiary that controls billions of dollars of the retailer's property in Illinois and other states. Because technically its only employees are based in Italy, the real-estate unit claims its operations are foreign, exempt from Illinois corporate income taxes.

Earlier this year, the Illinois Department of Revenue objected to the Italian tax maneuver, demanding $26.4 million in back taxes, interest and penalties. Wal-Mart paid the amount in dispute and then sued the state for a refund, according to a complaint filed in May in Illinois Circuit Court in Springfield, Ill.

A Wal-Mart spokesman declined to comment beyond a prepared statement: "We have a disagreement with the state of Illinois over our tax liability last year, and we've asked a judge to resolve that for us." He declined to explain why Italy was chosen as the home of this particular foreign operation or whether Wal-Mart has other such arrangements.

The dispute with Wal-Mart is part of a wider effort by some states to crack down on what they believe is abusive use of so-called 80/20 companies. These companies are domestic subsidiaries that conduct at least 80% of their business overseas. States typically don't tax income from outside the U.S., and many companies have used 80/20 subsidiaries to legitimately shield foreign operations from state taxation.

But authorities in several states have challenged a number of companies over the 80/20 units, claiming the structure was improperly used to shift income away from the purview of state taxing authorities.

The misuse of 80/20 companies is "shocking to the conscience," said Brian Hamer, director of the Illinois Department of Revenue. "These kinds of manipulations clearly were never contemplated by the state legislatures," added Mr. Hamer, who wouldn't comment on any single company or legal case. "It ought to have been clear to businesses that this was highly questionable conduct."

Illinois tax authorities are in a dispute with Mc Donald?'s Corp. over nearly $11 million stemming from its use of an 80/20 subsidiary. Details are sketchy, but Mc Donald?'s, based in Oak Brook, Ill., says in court papers that a Delaware financing unit that owns restaurants in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, conducts 80% or more of its business activity outside the U.S., exempting its operations from being included in Illinois tax calculations.

Minnesota, BNSF Wrangle

Meanwhile, Minnesota tax authorities are taking issue with interest payments made by Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. to a pair of Delaware subsidiaries doing business in Canada. The railway company deducted the interest associated with the payments but didn't pay taxes on most of the income received by the subsidiaries. The state's revenue department says in an audit report that this was "done purely for tax avoidance purposes." The Fort Worth, Texas, company paid a disputed $4 million in back taxes and interest and sued the state in May for a refund.

A Mc Donald?'s spokeswoman said: "We believe the results of our business have been properly reported to the state of Illinois." A Burlington Northern spokesman declined to comment.
At the prodding of the Illinois revenue department, that state's legislature in 2004 passed a law essentially shutting down the abusive use of 80/20 units. The Minnesota state legislature enacted one change in 2005 and has considered several other bills since then to shut down alleged abuse of the structure.
States Crack Down

Wal-Mart's Italian tax-planning maneuver is the latest disclosure of a strategy by the firm to cut state taxes. A page-one article in The Wall Street Journal in February focused on how the Bentonville, Ark., retailer cut taxes in some states by paying rent to a real-estate investment trust it owned, even though the money never left the firm.
That REIT strategy has been challenged by tax authorities in several sates; some have enacted laws to close the REIT structure since the Journal article.

However, the REIT tax structure saved money only in some states -- those that tax income solely from operations within their borders. This taxation system, known as "separate reporting," can make it simpler for companies to shift income out of state to tax-friendly jurisdictions such as Delaware or Nevada.

But "combined reporting" states such as Illinois are much tougher. They add together all profits of a company's domestic operations, regardless of what state they are in, and then allocate a portion of those profits to their state. Theoretically, combined reporting makes it harder for companies to shift income to more advantageous locales.

Because Illinois rules apply only to domestic profits -- not world-wide income -- companies can get around the rules by figuring out ways to effectively shift income overseas.

Wal-Mart's 80/20 structure worked like this: The company first transferred its Illinois stores to its in-house REI Ts?, paid rent to the REI Ts? and then deducted those payments from its taxes. The REI Ts?, in turn, paid that money to their 99% owner, a Wal-Mart unit based in Delaware.

Ordinarily, Illinois's combined-reporting rules wouldn't permit a company to cut its taxes by shifting income to a Delaware unit. But in late 2001, Wal-Mart formed a Delaware subsidiary called WMGS Services LLC, records show. WMGS, with offices in Florence, was a wholly owned subsidiary of Wal-Mart Property Co., which also was 99% owner of Wal-Mart's main REIT.

In its filing, Wal-Mart contends that Property Co.'s ownership of the Italian unit converted Property Co. into an 80/20 company. In other words, at least 80% of its employees and its property were overseas, exempting its income from taxes.

Though Property Co. is the 99% owner of the REIT -- which owns dozens of stores in Illinois -- Wal-Mart says Property Co. owns no real estate itself. And although Wal-Mart has more than 48,000 employees in Illinois, the firm contends Property Co. has no employees in the state, either.

The only employees of Property Co. were in Italy, the company says. Property Co. was set up to own the majority of the shares of Wal-Mart's main REIT and has no employees anywhere, Wal-Mart has said in court records elsewhere. (In its court filing in Illinois, Wal-Mart says that WMGS's employees and property were in Turin, Italy; an official with the company in Florence and a Wal-Mart spokesman in the U.S. say the company doesn't have an office in Turin.)

WMGS employs 22 people at its office in central Florence, according to a company official who answered the door there on a recent weekday morning. The office is responsible for procuring merchandise from around Europe, he said. Wal-Mart has no stores in Italy.

Our latest press release:

Washington, DC - Wal-Mart, the #1 importer of Chinese products, today was forced to remove from its shelves a toy, Aqua Dots, that it had previously listed as one of its "Top 12 Toys of Christmas." Like 70 percent of products on Wal-Mart shelves, Aqua Dots were made in a Chinese factory. These toys were recalled because they contain a chemical that converts into the date rape drug GHB when ingested.

In an October 1, 2007 Wal-Mart press release touting Aqua Dots as a top buy for Christmas, a Wal-Mart spokesman said, "You really cant go wrong with any of these toys... Mom wants price, convenience and safety, and with our Toy Safety Net program underway, we feel confident delivering on all three this upcoming holiday season."

The Aqua Dots recall is just the latest in a series of more than 20 Chinese-made products, ranging from lead-laced toy cars to poisonous pet food - that were so dangerous they had to be pulled from Wal-Marts shelves. Of the other 11 toys on Wal-Marts Top Toys for Christmas list, all were made in communist China - a country that exploits workers, violates human rights, and fills American shelves with dangerous and deadly products.

"Today's recall reveals the huge holes in Wal-Mart's 'safety net' testing program. It also raises real concerns about the safety of the other 11 Chinese-made toys Wal-Mart is promoting this Christmas," said WakeUpWalMart.com spokeswoman Meghan Scott. "That one of Wal-Mart's top 12 toys slipped through the company's cracks is shocking. It suggests that Wal-Mart is still more concerned with public relations than public safety. As the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart must do better. It has the economic power and duty to protect American consumers and demand higher quality from its Chinese suppliers."

In Bentonville, Christmas apparently starts in October.

Yesterday, without a shred of irony, Wal-Mart announced the official commencement of the "Christmas season." Yes, on Halloween... the holiday with the least possible amount of Christmas spirit. I'm not sure Santa would approve of that.

Of course, Wal-Mart is desperate to get holiday shoppers into their stores a little early this year. But savvy consumers will want to think twice before shopping at a company that imports 70% of its merchandise from China. Check out this bit of news from our friends at the Consumerist:

Consumerist's ongoing lead recall tally has reached 14,431,550 products recalled just for lead in the first 10 months of 2007.

That's right, almost 14.5 million products have been recalled this year for lead alone, and you can expect more to come. When you think of lead poisoning and dangerous products, you may well think of Wal-Mart. Many of the recalled items are cheap, Chinese-made toys from Wal-Mart's shelves, like the recently recalled "sets of realistic-looking farm animals, jungle animals and dinosaurs."

So, there's a bit of food for thought for holiday shoppers. Unsafe products are never a good deal.

This one is truly hard to believe. According to this invoice, Wal-Mart paid over $2 million to Ernst & Young to develop an aggressive state-tax minimization strategy. These dodgy tactics have left up to $2.5 billion in unpaid taxes owed to state governments. Read the WSJ article to learn more, along with our related press release.

In May 2001, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. issued an appeal to big accounting firms: Find us creative new ways to cut our state tax bills.

Ernst & Young LLP swung into action. Senior tax experts at the big accounting firm swapped ideas via email and in a series of meetings. At least one gathering, according to an internal Ernst & Young calendar, took place in Wal-Mart's headquarters in the "Tax Shelter Room."

Wal-Mart decided to hire Ernst & Young to help devise complex tax strategies to use in at least four big states. The accounting firm, for example, helped Wal-Mart take tax deductions in California for dividends it never actually paid. And in Texas, Ernst & Young advised, the giant retailer could exploit a wrinkle in the tax law involving limited partners from out-of-state -- a maneuver subsequently shut down by the state's legislature.

Big companies hardly ever discuss how outside accountants, lawyers and investment bankers help them cut their tax bills. But Ernst & Young's contributions to Wal-Mart's state-tax minimization project are outlined in a raft of documents filed in recent months in North Carolina state court, where the state's attorney general is challenging a Wal-Mart tax-cutting structure involving real-estate investment trusts. The material, which includes company emails and memos, provides a rare window into accountants' role in generating tax-reduction ideas at one major company.

Companies often assert that tax savings are simply happy byproducts of transactions pursued for other business reasons. But documents from the North Carolina case indicate that Wal-Mart, from the outset, had one primary purpose: cutting its state income taxes. Ernst & Young worked to fulfill that goal. In 2002, for example, the accounting firm delivered a 37-page proposal laying out a smorgasbord of 27 potential tax strategies, most tailored to a particular state's tax code. It described one of them as "a very aggressive strategy with considerable risk."

Lawmakers and law-enforcement officials have taken a keen interest in tax advice provided by the Big Four accounting firms and other consultants. In August, U.S. Senate investigators sent letters to at least 30 companies asking for details of potentially aggressive tax arrangements, including the names of tax professionals and law firms that advised on the deals. In May, four current and former Ernst & Young partners were indicted for their tax-shelter work. Two years ago, KPMG LLP agreed to pay $456 million to settle government charges that it promoted abusive shelters to individual taxpayers.

Publicly traded companies reduced their federal income taxes by about $12 billion in 2004 through potentially abusive tax transactions, according to Internal Revenue Service data. Some experts say companies save far more than that each year through elaborate tax-cutting maneuvers.

A Wal-Mart spokesman, citing ongoing litigation, declined to comment on any of the tax work by Ernst & Young, which also set up the tax maneuver that North Carolina has challenged. In court papers, Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart has said that some transactions implemented by Ernst & Young were intended to cut taxes, but also to more efficiently manage its real estate and potentially help raise capital. A spokesman for Ernst & Young says the tax deals for Wal-Mart "occurred years ago when such tax structures were not uncommon."

Cookie-Cutter Shelters

Tax-enforcement authorities often regard complex corporate transactions that serve no business purpose other than to reduce taxes to be improper tax shelters. In recent years, authorities have cracked down on cookie-cutter tax shelters mass marketed by accounting and law firms. But these days, it is common for advisers to help large companies such as Wal-Mart to develop individually tailored tax-cutting strategies, according to people who work on such deals.

Wal-Mart's 2001 letter to accounting firms got right to the point. It began: "Wal-Mart is requesting your proposal(s) for professional tax advice and related implementation services in connection with minimization of state income taxes in the following states: Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania."

State income-tax rates for corporations average about 6.9%, and come on top of a federal statutory rate of 35%. Tax rates vary from state to state, and some states have no corporate tax at all on certain income. That provides ample opportunity for so-called tax arbitrage, in which companies allocate expenses and revenues between states in order to minimize taxes owed. That practice has been going on for decades. Some such strategies are perfectly legal. The government considers others to be abusive. States often try to crack down, but the tax-enforcement staffs of many states are smaller than the tax departments of some big companies.

Wal-Mart set aside about $526 million for state and local income taxes last year, not including its substantial property-tax bills, according to the company's financial reports. But its various state tax-cutting strategies seem to have had an impact. On average, Wal-Mart has paid taxes at a rate equal to about half of the average statutory state rate over the past decade, according to an analysis of the company's regulatory filings by Standard & Poor's Compustat.

Wal-Mart has switched state income-tax strategies several times over the past 15 years, coming up with new approaches as states attack existing ones, court records show. In the early 1990s, it employed an "intangibles holding company," a unit operating in tax-friendly Delaware into which it transferred ownership of its brand names such as Sam's Club. It then made payments to that unit for use of those brands, deducting them as expenses from its taxable income in other states, according to court records. That strategy fell out of favor after several states successfully challenged Wal-Mart and other companies in court over the maneuver.

About a decade ago, Wal-Mart adopted another approach, following advice from Ernst & Young. Wal-Mart transferred ownership of its stores to various in-house real-estate investment trusts. REITs pay no corporate income tax as long as they pay out at least 90% of their income to shareholders as dividends, which are usually taxed. Wal-Mart paid tax-deductible rent to those REITs. For one four-year period, the setup saved the retailer an estimated $230 million on its tax bill, even though the rent payments never left the company.

That strategy was the focus of a Wall Street Journal article in February. Since then, at least six states, including New York, Illinois, Maryland and Rhode Island, have passed laws attempting to prohibit the maneuver, which also has been used by banks and other retailers such as AutoZone Inc. The practice is being challenged by tax authorities in at least four other states, court records show.

After Wal-Mart hired the firm in 1996 to implement the REIT strategy, an Ernst & Young tax executive urged his team to be discreet, according to a staff memo included in North Carolina court records. "We don't think there is much the state taxing authorities can do to mitigate these savings to Wal-Mart, however some states might attempt something if they had advance notification," he wrote. "We think the best course of action is to keep the project relatively quiet....there just seems to be too many opportunities for it to get out to the press or financial community and we all know they are difficult to control, particularly when we are dealing with a client as well-known as Wal-Mart."

David Bullington, Wal-Mart's vice president for tax policy, said in a deposition that he began feeling pressure to lower the company's effective tax rate after the current chief financial officer, Thomas Schoewe, was hired in 2000. Mr. Schoewe was familiar with "some very sophisticated and aggressive tax planning," Mr. Bullington said, according to a transcript of the deposition, taken by the North Carolina attorney general's office in July. "And he ride herds [sic] on us all the time that we have the world's highest tax rate of any major company."

Compared with many other large multinational companies, Wal-Mart has a small presence in foreign countries with low tax rates, reducing opportunities to shift income overseas for tax purposes.

The May 2001 invitation to provide advice came from Wal-Mart's then senior director for income tax, Wyman Atwell. Most of the states he named in the letter had provisions in their tax codes that prevented the REIT strategy from easily providing tax benefits, according to several people familiar with the matter.

In addition to advising Wal-Mart on tax issues, Ernst & Young served as its outside auditor, which meant that its accountants had to pass judgment on advice rendered by colleagues who did the tax work. That's permissible for accounting firms, so long as tax-consulting fees aren't contingent on a client's tax savings. Rules instituted in 2005 prohibit accounting firms from pitching certain types of "aggressive" tax structures to audit clients. An Ernst & Young spokesman said the work for Wal-Mart "complied fully with the independence rules at the time regarding tax advice provided to audit clients."

'Domestic Restructuring'

As Ernst & Young worked on its proposals, one high-ranking tax partner sent an email to a colleague addressing a concern often faced by companies: how to describe a tax-driven transaction in a way that won't create problems later on with tax authorities. "You asked if we have a document that details how the tax savings will work, how much they will save....We really don't have anything like that except for the sales document, partly because we have avoided calling this a 'tax' project, to show that we did not have a tax savings motivation, rather it is a 'domestic restructuring' project," he wrote.

That November, Ernst & Young sent Wal-Mart an "engagement letter" to confirm the scope of its work to cut the company's state tax burden. The letter said the accounting firm's fees would be at least $2.5 million, with potential additional fees to be determined later.

California was a key state for Ernst & Young's project. Its tax system is among the most stringent in the country. Many states only tax income from operations within their own borders -- called the separate-reporting method -- which makes it easier for companies to shift taxable income out of reach of tax authorities in those states. But "combined reporting" states such as California total up all profits of a company's domestic or world-wide operations, regardless of what state they're in, then allocate a portion of those profits to their states.

Ernst & Young dreamed up a novel way to sidestep combined-reporting requirements in California. It used an unusual type of dividend to transfer income from one subsidiary to another in such a way that the second unit wouldn't be taxed.

Here's how it worked: When REITs pay dividends to their shareholders, they can deduct those payments from their taxable income. The federal government permits REITs to take deductions for dividends before they're actually paid -- a provision intended to give them extra time to make payments. Such dividends are called "consent dividends" because the recipients must consent to record the unpaid dividends as taxable income.

Ernst & Young argued that California law permitted REITs to deduct such consent dividends, but that the state law didn't also require recipients of the consent dividends to count them as taxable income, according to one person who worked on the transactions. The accounting firm proposed a strategy in which the Wal-Mart REIT would claim a tax deduction for paying consent dividends to its parent, but the unit receiving the dividends wouldn't record them as income for tax purposes. The bottom line: Wal-Mart could reduce its taxable income in California by an amount equal to the total consent dividend payments it recorded, thereby cutting its tax bill.

Two years later, California's Franchise Tax Board, the state's income-tax agency, put the strategy on its list of "Abusive Tax Shelters." Wal-Mart's Mr. Bullington said in his deposition that California tax authorities have protested various tax benefits taken by the retailer since 1998. California also is in litigation with a big bank, City National Corp., over a similar strategy.

Out-of-State Partner

In Texas, Ernst & Young helped Wal-Mart set up a somewhat more common tax-cutting vehicle. Under Texas law at the time, a limited partner from out of state was exempt from Texas's corporate franchise tax. As a result, scores of companies, including Wal-Mart, reorganized their Texas operations into limited partnerships. The general partner, which was subject to state taxation, was typically a subsidiary based in Texas. But the limited partner, often owning as much as 99.9% of the entity, would be based in Delaware or another tax-friendly state. The result: up to 99.9% of the profits of the Texas operation would flow to that out-of-state limited partner, making that income tax-free.

Texas's state legislature eliminated that option when it revamped its tax laws earlier this year.

Wal-Mart also agreed to buy other complex tax shelters from Ernst & Young to cut taxes in Arizona and Michigan, the court documents show. One Ernst & Young document said Wal-Mart would cut its state income taxes by about $18 million, although that document didn't make clear the time period or the states included in that figure.

In August 2002, Ernst & Young proffered the new list of 27 additional tax-cutting approaches. It isn't clear if Wal-Mart adopted any of them. One of the proposals was accompanied by the following warning: "Note that in a 'post-Enron' environment and amidst the focus on 'tax haven' operations, this strategy is expected to get more scrutiny by the IRS, as well as some states."

As for Wal-Mart's "Tax Shelter Room," North Carolina officials asked Mr. Bullington about the odd name. In his deposition, the Wal-Mart vice president said the moniker was "a bit of a pun," stemming from the conference room's use by tax-department employees to conduct safety drills for natural disasters such as tornadoes.

Wal-Mart, he said, no longer has a room by that name.

The recent Good Jobs First study on Wal-Mart's systematic property tax appeals has caused quite a stir in the media. Al Norman picked up the issue for the Huffington Post, sharing some of his insights on Wal-Mart's dubious tax appeal strategy. Here are a few of the highlights.

Property assessment disputes pit Wal-Mart's legal team against local assessors. Such battles are an intimidating financial club wielded by Wal-Mart to lower its cost of doing business. If local assessors balk at giving relief, Wal-Mart just takes their case to a state appellate board, tying up local staff and resources.

A colleague of mine says that all major corporations try to push down their property tax costs. "I sit on a tax board of review in small town," he writes. "The Wal-Mart landlord came in last year to appeal their assessment. Long story short -- he is 'connected' to local family of businessmen who presented us with an appeal 'we can't refuse.' Wal-Mart never stepped foot inside that meeting. They came in without an appointment and walked out as the only business to get their assessment lowered. They presented no evidence other than they just wanted to have it lowered. It came down to my vote to break the tie. I voted for it because the assessor recommended we do so. It came down to a matter of $20,000 of tax breaks a year for Wal-Mart. It would cost $20,000 of village funds to fight them in an appeal. We all knew that voting no could mean a world of hurt for us personally. It makes it so someone doesn't even want to serve on these boards."

This coming year, as many as several hundred communities will receive such a visit from Wal-Mart's lawyers regarding a tax abatement. But enthusiasm for Wal-Mart at the local level continues unabated. Four weeks ago, when Wal-Mart opened up its new supercenter in the small southern Oregon community of Eagle Point, Mayor Leon Sherman was front and center at the ribbon cutting. "We've been working for three or four years to get this supercenter," the Mayor said, "and we're really happy that they're here. Not only will the store bring extra jobs, but it will also provide an additional tax base for the city as well as the school district."

Mayor Sherman is in for a big, supercenter surprise.

Don't miss the rest of this article, you can read it in its entirety here.

In 2005, a pregnant Wal-Mart worker in Fayetteville, Arkansas was denied the use of a stool because, according to her manager, "“it did not look good.” She later quit, citing health risks to her and her child. She recently reached a settlement with Wal-Mart. For more, check out this artilce from The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

A settlement has been reached in a federal lawsuit filed against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. over claims that a female employee’s supervisors failed to meet her medical needs during a problematic pregnancy. Terms of the out-of-court agreement were not released in court documents Thursday. The sides signed a confidentiality agreement, said Judith Rebecca Hass, attorney for Maggie Collins, a former customer service manager at Wal-Mart Supercenter No. 144, 2875 W. Sixth St. in Fayetteville.

The lawsuit, filed in September 2006 in U. S. District Court in Fayetteville, claimed Collins’ former bosses told her she couldn’t use a stool at work because “it did not look good.”

Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, didn’t dispute that Collins wasn’t allowed to sit on a stool to do her work. The retail giant instead argued that Collins stated no “cognizable legal claim under any theory, and she is unable to point to a disputed material fact such that a reasonable jury could find in her favor.”

Wal-Mart also argued that other pregnant employees were not treated more favorably, and that she was an at-will employee.

Collins, who had worked for the company since July 2004, suffered a miscarriage in 2005 and was having problems with a second pregnancy when she asked her supervisor if she could sit on a stool do to her work.
Collins quit her job in late 2005 “rather than endanger the health and life of her unborn child,” court records show.

Hardly! The new study by Good Jobs First shows how Wal-Mart Rolls Back Property Tax Payments by aggressively pursuing property tax reassessments. Here are a few excerpts today's press release:

The first-ever investigation of Wal-Mart's local property tax records finds that the retail giant systematically seeks to minimize its payment of taxes that support public schools and other vital government services. That is the key finding of Rolling Back Property Tax Payments, a report released today by Good Jobs First, a non-profit, non-partisan research center in Washington, DC. The full text is available at www.goodjobsfirst.org/pdf/walmartproptax.pdf

"Wal-Mart, a company with $350 billion in annual revenues and $11 billion in profits, drains vitally needed funds from communities by regularly challenging the valuation put on its properties by public officials," said Philip Mattera, research director of Good Jobs First and principal author of the report. "When the company succeeds in one of these challenges, it diminishes the funds available to pay for education, police and fire protection, and other essential services provided by local governments."

In some cases, Wal-Mart has drained hundreds of thousands of dollars from local governments through aggressive tax appeals.

In 2004 Wal-Mart proposed that the assessment of its distribution center in Tomah, Wisconsin be lowered from $43.6 million to $23 million. The city resisted, but Wal-Mart persisted. This year the matter was finally settled, with the city agreeing to drop the assessment to $31.4 million and refund the company more than $300,000 for each of three years--a total of $949,000.

Wal-Mart has filed 11 separate challenges at its distribution center in the northern California city of Red Bluff. The company first appealed for the years 1994-1996 but got no change. It then appealed for the years 1997-2002 and reached agreement on changes for each year, achieving total savings of $644,000--a substantial amount but much less than what Wal-Mart was seeking. The company returned with appeals for 2005 and 2006 and recouped another $150,000.

In 2003 Wal-Mart succeeded in getting the real property assessment of its Supercenter on East Hampden Avenue in the Denver suburb of Aurora reduced from about $22 million to $9.6 million. This brought the company tax savings of $456,000.

Even when local governments defeat a Wal-Mart appeal entirely, there still may be substantial costs for the community. Assessors told us of major cases in which they had to spend tens of thousands of dollars on outside lawyers, appraisers and other consultants to prepare their defense.

Also, check out WalMartSubsidyWatch.com for a searchable database of Wal-Mart's tax appeals.

A mother in Utah was cooking lunch for her sons when she found a mouse head in her can of green beans. Where did she buy them? You guessed it, Wal-Mart. For more, check out this outrageous story from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

An Arkansas company is offering $100 to a Utah woman who found a severed mouse head in a can of green beans if she pledges not to take legal action, but she's not biting. The letter from Allens Inc. of Siloam Springs, Ark., describes it as a "gesture of goodwill." Marianne Watson isn't interested.

"I won't sign it under any circumstances," she said.

Watson, 49, said she never wanted to take legal action.

She said she wants to "put enough media attention on them that they either withdraw those cans or do something other than what they're trying to do, which is shut me up."

Watson was cooking lunch for two sons Sunday when she said she found a severed mouse head in a can of Allens Cut Green Beans, which had been purchased at a Wal-Mart store in American Fork. Nothing was eaten.

Allens spokesman James Phillips said the mouse probably was picked up during the harvest and did not originate in the canning factory. He called it an isolated incident.

"We apologize as much as we can, but we also do everything known from a technology standpoint and personnel standpoint to prevent it from happening," he said. "But inevitably, occasionally, things like this occur."

A recall is not necessary, Phillips said Thursday.

"This would not reach the level of exposing people to illness because the product is rendered commercially sterile," he said in a phone interview. "Every can is cooked to a predetermined temperature and time."

Watson said she may have the mouse remnants and green beans tested. She has refused to return them to the company.

"I was thankful I had a little soup earlier because I couldn't eat after seeing that," she said.

Clean Water Action found that many retailers, notably Wal-Mart, are still selling toys with dangerous lead levels. From CNNMoney:

Tests conducted on some toys and other children's products sold recently at Wal-Mart, Target and Toys "R" Us stores were found to contain dangerously high levels of lead, consumer interest groups said Thursday.

The CWA said 11 of those toys - some of which were made out of vinyl - contained lead, including two that contained "extremely high levels of lead."

Sadly, testing for lead content is not rocket science. It's no more complicated than a simple point and click. With all the warnings and recalls, what excuse can there be for leaving these dangerous products on the shelves?

Connor said she used the NITON XRF analyzers handheld lead detector for the toy tests. Thermo Fisher Scientific, which manufactures the device, says Panasonic is among some big manufacturers that have used it to test for hazardous substances in product components.

Yesterday, Wal-Mart pulled 331,582 pounds of unsafe hamburger patties from its shelves. That's a lot of bad beef. Unfortunately, the recall came too late for an 18-year-old girl from Florida, who was allegedly sicked with E. Coli by the recalled meat.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc faces a lawsuit filed on behalf of an 18-year-old Fort Lauderdale, Fla., girl after she contracted an E. coli infection, allegedly caused by eating hamburger patties purchased from a Wal-Mart store, attorneys with the law firm of Shelden J. Schlesinger PA said Wednesday.

Wal-Mart representatives didn't have any immediate comment.

According to the suit, which says damages exceed $15,000, Samantha Safranek was allegedly hospitalized for three weeks and suffered kidney failure after eating a meat from a package of beef patties manufactured by Topps Meat C. LLC of Elizabeth, N.J., and purchased at a Wal-Mart store, attorneys said.

The plaintiff's lawyers said Topps Meat announced a recall Tuesday of 331,582 pounds of frozen beef patties.

Also, Wal-Mart announced it would remove the Topps burger products from its stores, the law firm said.

You can learn more about Wal-Mart's product safety record by reading our new report, Wal-Mart and China: How America’s #1 Company is Putting America’s Safety Second

Wal-Mart fired a woman in Chesapeake, Virginia, with a "mandatory no rehire" finding, for making funny pictures of management on her computer. For more on this ludicrous story, check out this entry from huffingtonpost.com

At Wal-Mart, one of the key personnel mantras is "respect for the individual." One Wal-Mart worker once told me, "I'm sure Wal-Mart respects the individual -- I just never met that individual." Any manager will tell you that you can judge a company by how it treats its front line workers. Here is the story of one Wal-Mart worker who got no respect.

Christine Knowels was a loyal Wal-Mart worker who lost her job, and wanted it back. She was hired by Wal-Mart in August of 2000, and worked for roughly seven years---all at the Wal-Mart supercenter #1841 in Chesapeake, Virginia. She was abruptly fired for "gross misconduct", with a "mandatory no rehire" finding. According to her store manager, "Christine displayed 13 potentially offensive pictures of the management team in the back hallway while on the clock. Christine used/took company resources (digital media/or photo copies off of company property without permission."

When Knowels went to file for unemployment compensation, the Virginia Employment Commission wrote up her case as follows: "Christine was discharged from her position with Wal-Mart for displaying photos of the management team that were considered to be potentially offensive. Christine reported that she had been told by the employee who was taking down the photos that she could have them. Christine used a program on her computer to make funny pictures and brought the altered pictures back to work the following day. Christine said she had done such pictures in the past and co-workers thought it was good for morale. Christine said no one had complained about them in the past and while she was putting up the pictures on the board a co-manager saw them and laughed. When Christine was let go she was asked if she had permission to take the pictures and told [the store manager] who was removing the pictures had told her it was ok to do with them what she wanted.

Christine did not feel the pictures were offensive, and did not mean for them to be taken that way. Christine said she signed off on Wal-Mart's separation form as she was very upset and needed to get out of the office as she was sick when she heard the news of her discharge. Wal-Mart has said that Christine was discharged for putting up potentially offensive pictures of the management team on company time and for taking company property without permission. Wal-Mart has not provided any copy of the policy the claimant allegedly violated, or given any explanation on how the pictures were thought to be offensive.

Regarding claims of Christine taking the pictures without permission, she states that she had permission. The burden of proof lies with the employer to show evidence of misconduct. In this case, Wal-Mart has provided only a statement of why Christine was dischared. However, there is no documentation to show her actions were willful or deliberate, or amounted to the level of misconduct. The charge of misconduct in connection with employment is a matter to be taken very seriously in the instant case. While Christine may have shown poor judgment in what she did...such action cannot, in the opinion of the Deputy, be deemed misconduct. Accordingly, the claimant is Qualified for Benefits."

For her part, Knowels says her co-workers thought the pictures she created were a big hit. "I have done pictures of an associate, who works as ICS Lead and Truck Unload Leader. I have put lime green, bright yellow, hot pink, blue and purple different styled wigs on him in the pictures, they hung in grocery receiving for a few weeks. I also made him into Shrek by turning his skin all green, bulging out his eyes and elongating his ears. This picture hung at the time clock for at least a week. He wanted to take the pictures home for his kids."

On the day she was fired, Knowels says, "When I was called into the office, Mr. [E] was sitting there. He had already had the green sheet filled out and a copy of the surveillance CD, which was placed on top of his computer. Even after speaking with me about the pictures Mr.[E] just took the green sheet down off his computer top and asked me to sign it. He did not add any information I told him, or change anything to what I told him. He didn't correct what he wrote either. He had me fired before I got in the office."

Knowels says "the pictures in question were made to boost the moral of the store, make people laugh and have a good time, because several associates have been saying we are not allowed to have any fun anymore and the morale is gone. Let me just say that I have been making these type of pictures...for as long as I have been working for Wal-Mart and no one told me I couldn't do it or that it was harassment, nor did I think it to be as such. I have had several people ask me to make their pictures or their kids picture, which I have done also. If I felt it would of hurt anyone's feelings or was even considered harassment I never would of made the pictures. I would of taken the pictures down if anyone told me to, and I would have apologized."

Knowels admits she signed a "green sheet" on separation, stating that she did not have permission to have the photos, but she adds, "the moment [they] said I was fired my stomach turned and I felt I was going to regurgitate any minute and I just scribbled my name and got out of the office to get to the bathroom."

Looking back on her termination, Knowels says that her store manager lied about the photos, because she did have permission to use them. "So many associates have called me and emailed me saying how they thought it was wrong to fire me because they know I was just trying to raise the morale and have a good time."

Knowels says her loss is not just emotional, but economic as well. "To lose the Health Insurance on my husband and myself, my Accidental Death Insurance, Dental Insurance, Part of my 401k & Profit sharing (as I had 3 weeks to go before being fully invested) Life Insurance and Stock options, over something I have been doing for years and always got great response is just horrible."

Christine L. Knowels, loyal seven-year employee at Wal-Mart, had to turn in her badge and her discount card. But she also left something much more important on the table in that back office in supercenter #1841 in Chesapeake, Virginia: her pride and self-respect. And she's prepared to fight the world's largest retailer to get them back.
Alongside of Knowels' photos of employees wearing lime-colored wigs, is a grim snapshot of life inside the Wal-Mart corporation itself.

From KENS 5 News in San Antonio:

It's a David versus Goliath battle heating up in the Hill Country — a group of nuns from Boerne is taking a stand against Wal-Mart.

The corporate giant reportedly labeled the nuns a security threat after they raised questions about Wal-Mart's business practices.

Sister Susan Mika is part of the Benedectine Sisters, which is part of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. The center has been questioning Wal-Mart's business practices for years.

"We've been raising questions with them for about 17 years, so it's not like they don't know it," Sister Mika said.

Now, the sisters find themselves on Wal-Mart's security threat list. Sister Mika said the group has been wrongly labeled.

"In no way have we ever been a threat to the company in that sense. We might be a threat in the kind of question that we're asking, but not a security threat," Sister Mika said.

The sisters have raised questions on wages, human rights, health care and the pay disparity between CEOs and workers. They believe that's why Wal-Mart has launched a surveillance operation on the small church group.

"We wanted to find out more about what was actually happening, and did they do any surveillance on us, either personally or as a community, and to let us know what that would be, and to apologize to us," Sister Mika said.

Calls from KENS 5 to a Wal-Mart spokesperson went unreturned.

The nuns say they want an apology and will continue to raise concerns and issues until someone launches an investigation into thousands of allegations against Wal-Mart.

Watch the video here.

You won't believe this!

From KTVK in Phoenix, AZ:

Three shoppers say they used their camera phone to take a picture of a rodent in a doughnut case at the Wal-Mart near 16th Avenue and Bethany Home Road.

They say there were at least three rodents in the case.

"What I thought I was going to spend $200 in groceries, I ended up leaving with nothing other than pictures of rats and doughnuts," said one of the shoppers.

Photo from FOX 10:

It was Saturday night, at the Wal-Mart when the three shoppers with a sweet tooth hit a sour note.

"Like a big cinnamon bun looking thing, there's like chunks eaten out of it," said a shopper.

They ratted on what they believed to be rats in the doughnut case. But the Wal-Mart employees, they shoppers say, were rude.

"They said this is normal with construction," said a shopper. "We're like, 'normal?' You're just going to let a rat eat your food and leave it out for people to buy?"

David Ludwig is the Maricopa County Environmental Health Division Manager.

"I don't think anyone wants to have urine, mouse droppings or even rodent hair on their food," Ludwig said.
Ludwig's office is now investigating the case. He says this isn't the first time he's received complaints of rodents at this specific Wal-Mart.

"(This Wal-Mart location has the) highest number of complaints I've seen in one area," he said.

According to county records, someone said they saw a huge rat run from behind a partition and crawl into a display case in February. That complaint, however, wasn't verified. They found nothing.

Health inspectors didn't find anything in December of last year when someone called to say there was a severe problem with rats and mice.
And last June, health inspectors didn't find anything after someone saw a rat or mouse crawling from the cash register into a deli case.
"We can take five business days to follow up on a complaint," Ludwig said. "I made sure our inspectors will go out there later today to go verify and see this case."

In a statement to be released Monday, Wal-Mart contends, "We take this allegation quite seriously and are thoroughly investigating it. We have a consistent record of food safety in our Phoenix stores from the Department of Health and have pest-control services performed regularly."

The statement goes on to say, "In an abundance of caution we have sanitized and cleaned the bakery area and have scheduled additional pest control. We immediately discarded all bakery products in the case in question.

Brian White over at bloggingstocks posts some interesting questions about CEO Lee Scott's recent $22 million bonus.

If you're a Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. shareholder who has watched WMT shares sit around for the past five years without much movement, you'll be interested to know that Wal-Mart has awarded CEO Lee Scott a stock bonus worth $22 million for reaching revenue targets.

That's all well and good -- but after glancing at the five-year stock performance chart [see chart here], Scott certainly has not had a positive effect on the price of WMT shares in that timeframe, even though Wal-Mart itself may have met revenue goals set by upper management or the board. In fact, who set those revenue goals? ...

The details: Scott's regular salary and bonus for 2006 was $5.23 million, and his total compensation was $15.7 million, not counting restricted stock awards for performance. The $22 million bonus was for Wal-Mart's 2007 fiscal year revenue targets being beat.

Workers, shoppers and all Americans concerned about out-of-control CEO compensation should be alarmed at Scott's recent bonus. Wal-Mart shareholders should be incensed.

UPDATE: This post on White's blog sums up what I said about the bonus yesterday:

Wow, As a Wal-Mart associate my wages got capped! No wonder Wal-Mart sales are lackluster. Associates just don't care anymore! We have lost the basic core values that built this company. It's a real shame.

From the AP:

BENTONVILLE, Ark. -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has awarded it chief executive officer a stock bonus worth $22 million for reaching revenue targets, the retail giant disclosed Friday in a regulatory filing.

The compensation committee of Wal-Mart's board voted Wednesday to make the award to Scott and also grant shares to other executives.

Scott's salary and bonus for 2006 was $5.23 million. His total compensation for that year was, excluding restricted stock awards, was $15.7 million. The $22 million bonus was for Wal-Mart's 2007 fiscal year.

The filing Friday says Scott was awarded 459,348 Wal-Mart shares, which will be fully vested in five years. The award brings Scott's total Wal-Mart holding to 1,185,002 shares, worth $56.8 million.

Let me get this straight. In 2006, Wal-Mart tallied its worst same-store sales growth in 27 years. The company's stock price has remained stagnant for years. And, public opinion has taken a serious turn for the worse.

The company has slashed labor costs by capping the salary if its employees, reduced the number of its employees receiving company health care and implemented a series of additional business practices to cut labor costs.

Given all that, the company's board rewards Scott with a $22 million bonus? Something is seriously wrong with this picture.

One of the greatest dangers we face in America is a nuclear weapon in the hands of terrorists being shipped through an American port. But, did you know, we only inspect about 5% of the cargo containers coming into America.

That is why the U.S. House of Representatives passed a 9/11 bill to strengthen America's port security by scanning 100% of the cargo containers being shipped into the U.S. from abroad.

But, yesterday, Wal-Mart's special interest lobbyists defeated the 100% scanning portion of the 9/11 bill in the U.S. Senate.

Why?

Because, even though 1 Wal-Mart container arrives at a U.S. port every 45 seconds, Wal-Mart fears that inspecting 100% of these containers might slow down its imports from countries like China which could hurt Wal-Mart's profits.

Are Wal-Mart's profits really worth the cost of leaving America vulnerable to another terrorist attack?

Please write your U.S. Senator today and tell him/her to put America's security first and support 100% scanning of all cargo containers as passed by the U.S. House.

If you really want to grasp how dangerous Wal-Mart's opposition to 100% scanning is for our country, think about it this way...

Would you get on an airplane where the airport security officials only screened 5% of the passengers?

Of course not, so why shouldn't we scan 100% of the cargo containers bound for the United States? There is only one reason - because big corporations like Wal-Mart will do anything, even lobby against protecting America, to protect their profits.

We must stop Wal-Mart now and make sure the U.S. Senate puts America's security first.

Please write your U.S. Senator now and tell him/her to put America's security first and support 100% scanning of all cargo containers as passed by the U.S. House.

From shipping good-paying American jobs overseas to opposing expanding health care for working families, Wal-Mart has a long record of lobbying against the best interests of America.

But, this time, Wal-Mart has totally crossed the line.

With 324,000 Americans in all 50 states, we have the power to change this company and this country for the better, but it is up to us to act.

Our newest press release on the Wal-Mart health care saga:

WAL-MART CONTRADICTS WAL-MART ON COMPANY’S LATEST HEALTH CARE FIGURES

WAL-MART IGNORES OWN STATEMENTS PROVING THE NUMBER OF WORKERS INSURED BY THE COMPANY DECLINED IN 2006/ ATTEMPTS TO BLAME MEDIA FOR “ERRONEOUSLY” REPORTING PAST HEALTH CARE DATA

WASHINGTON, DC - Yesterday, in an attempt to hide the shocking fact that Wal-Mart’s own health care figures prove that the actual number of Wal-Mart workers insured by the company declined in 2006 from 638,000 to 636,391, Wal-Mart argued that the national media, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Pittsburgh Post Gazette, “erroneously” reported that Wal-Mart provided health care to 638,000 employees at the beginning of 2006.

According to an article yesterday by Reuters, “The Wal-Mart spokesman, Dan Fogleman said that the 638,000 figure was erroneously reported…”

However, the fact that Wal-Mart told the media that it provided health insurance to 638,000 employees was not erroneously reported. Both in December 2005 and in January 2006, Wal-Mart spokesman Nate Hurst confirmed, in separate interviews with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Harrisburg Patriot News, and other media outlets that 638,000 Wal-Mart workers were insured by the company.

The exact passages from the articles are provided below:

* “Wal-Mart, which is considering challenging the Maryland law, will fight such efforts in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, spokesman Nate Hurst said Friday. Nationwide, 638,000 of Wal-Mart's 1.3 million workers have health insurance through the company, he said. The company expects support from other businesses that could be targeted next, Hurst said. [Harrisburg Patriot News, 1/19/06]

* Mr. Hurst said Wal-Mart provides health insurance coverage for 638,000 of its 1.3 million workers. Many of those not covered by Wal-Mart's health plans are young people covered by their parents' insurance or senior citizens covered by Medicare, he said. "We have made some significant changes in our plan to increase affordability and access," Mr. Hurst said. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1/6/06]

Therefore, based on Wal-Mart’s own reported figures the number of Wal-Mart workers covered under the company health care plan actually decreased, not increased, in 2006 by nearly 2,000 employees. Wal-Mart’s claim that it increased enrollment by 8% year over year is false.

Based on the misleading statements made Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Fogelman, WakeUpWalMart.com released the following statement attributable to Chris Kofinis, communications director for WakeUpWalMart.com.

"To add insult to injury, Wal-Mart’s own spokespeople are now contradicting one another and are trying to blame the national media for their own deceptions. The reality is, Wal-Mart’s deception is either a desperate attempt to hide the fact that Wal-Mart now insures fewer workers than it did a year ago or Wal-Mart falsely inflated last year’s figures to try and avoid paying its fair share for health care. Either way, Wal-Mart should be ashamed.

We call on Wal-Mart to apologize to the national media and to own up to the fact that its own figures prove that the Wal-Mart health care crisis is worsening. Clearly, with well over half of its employees and families left uninsured by the company, it is more evident today than ever before that Wal-Mart’s health care is unaffordable and must be changed. We hope that Wal-Mart will face this simple and obvious truth and take steps to live up to its health care responsibilities.”

Our latest press release:

WAL-MART'S NEW HEALTH CARE FIGURES PROVE THAT WAL-MART’S HEALTH CARE CRISIS WORSENED IN 2006

WAL-MART’S FIGURES CONTRADICT EARLIER STATEMENTS AND SHOW THE NUMBER OF WAL-MART EMPLOYEES INSURED BY THE COMPANY ACTUALLY DECREASED IN 2006

WASHINGTON, DC - Today, Wal-Mart falsely claimed that the number of Wal-Mart employees covered by the company health care plan increased in 2006. Wal-Mart’s latest health care numbers directly contradict Wal-Mart’s figures from last year and prove that the company’s health care crisis actually worsened. In fact, both in absolute numbers and on percentage basis, the number of Wal-Mart workers covered under the company health care plan actually decreased in 2006.

Last year, at the end of Wal-Mart’s health care enrollment period, Wal-Mart made public statements to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other media outlets claiming that "638,000 workers were now insured by the company.” Today, Wal-Mart said at the end of this year’s enrollment period it now insured only 636,391 workers. Therefore, Wal-Mart’s new health care enrollment decreased, not increased, by almost 2,000 workers compared to the same time last year.

Unfortunately, Wal-Mart wrongly claimed today, and several media outlets mistakenly reported on this wrong number, that Wal-Mart’s figure of 636,391 employees represents an 8% increase in enrollment.

It is impossible for Wal-Mart to have increased enrollment by 8% unless Wal-Mart lied to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and only insured 589,250 employees last year, not the 638,000 it claimed.

Even on a percentage basis, Wal-Mart’s figures are not accurate. This year, Wal-Mart claims it increased the percentage of workers covered under the company health care plan to an embarrassing 47.4%. But, at the end of last year, Wal-Mart told the Wall Street Journal that it provided company health care to 49% of its workers. Therefore, the 47.4% actually represents a decrease of 1.6%.

Based on the misleading statements made today by Wal-Mart, WakeUpWalMart.com released the following statement attributable to Paul Blank, campaign director for WakeUpWalMart.com.

"Incredibly, Wal-Mart's own health care numbers prove that the Wal-Mart health care crisis has worsened. The sad truth is that despite making $11 billion in annual profit, Wal-Mart still fails to provide company health care to over half of its employees.

Given the enormous cost American taxpayers must pay to subsidize Wal-Mart’s health care crisis, we call on Wal-Mart to stop misleading the American people and our elected leaders who expect, if nothing else, that America's largest private employer will live up to it's health care responsibilities.

At a minimum, Wal-Mart should have the decency to remember how many workers they actually provide health care to and stop changing the numbers in a deliberate and desperate attempt to mislead the public and the media as the company tries to repair its faltering public image.

In the end, we hope that Wal-Mart will wake up and realize that continuing to make misleading statements about its health care crisis will not only fail to improve its faltering public image, but will only further stoke the anger of the American people and our elected leaders who expect Wal-Mart to finally change for the better.”

#######

Click here to read the story in the Washington Post.

Today's Austin-American Statesman reports that Terry Nelson, president of Crosslink Strategy and a top consultant to Wal-Mart, was behind the racist TV ad attacking Tennessee U.S. Senate Candidate Harold Ford, Jr.

In response to this shocking development, we sent Wal-Mart’s CEO, Lee Scott, a personal letter calling on Wal-Mart to immediately condemn the ad and end its relationship with Republican operative and Wal-Mart consultant, Terry Nelson. Already, the racist television ad has been widely condemned by the NAACP and other civil rights leaders.

Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr. and Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. also called on Wal-Mart to condemn the ad and dismiss Terry Nelson.

Reverend Jackson had this to say in response to the revelation today:

This is a reflection on Wal-Mart and the people that drive their right-wing, anti-worker family agenda. The same people that engage in race-baiting also support right to work laws that undermine working people...

In his role as a close and intimate advisor to Wal-Mart, Nelson created the strategy for Wal-Mart’s front group, Working Families for Wal-Mart, launched an unprecedented smear website, PaidCritics.com, to attack hard-working families, and directs Wal-Mart’s recently launched voter education program which targets any Democrat who calls on Wal-Mart to be a responsible corporation.

Read our entire press release, statements from Rev. Jess Jackson, Sr., Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., our letter to Lee Scott, and today’s article below the jump.

WAKEUPWALMART.COM CALLS ON WAL-MART TO DENOUNCE RACIST AD PRODUCED BY WAL-MART CONSULTANT TERRY NELSON

CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER REV. JESSE JACKSON SR. & REP. JESSE JACKSON JR. CALL ON WAL-MART TO CONDEMN AD AND DISMISS TERRY NELSON

GROUP SENDS LETTER TO WAL-MART CEO LEE SCOTT CALLING ON WAL-MART TO FIRE ITS REPUBLICAN OPERATIVE

Washington, D.C. - As reported today by the Austin-American Statesman, Terry Nelson, president of Crosslink Strategy and a consultant to Wal-Mart, was behind the racist TV ad attacking Tennessee U.S. Senate Candidate Harold Ford, Jr.

In response to this shocking development, WakeUpWalMart.com, America’s campaign to change Wal-Mart, sent Wal-Mart’s CEO, Lee Scott, a personal letter calling on Wal-Mart to immediately condemn the ad and end its relationship with Republican operative and Wal-Mart consultant, Terry Nelson, for his production of a racist TV ad. Already, the ad has been widely condemned by the NAACP and other civil rights leaders.

In his role as a close and intimate advisor to Wal-Mart, Nelson created the strategy for Wal-Mart’s front group, Working Families for Wal-Mart, launched an unprecedented smear website, PaidCritics.com, to attack Democrats and hard-working families, and directs Wal-Mart’s recently launched voter education program which targets any Democrat who calls on Wal-Mart to be a responsible corporation.

In the past, Nelson served as national political director for President Bush’s 2004 reelection and also runs the Republican National Committee’s independent expenditure unit which funded the racist ad.

The letter, which was faxed to Scott today, demands Scott “send a message to all Americans, especially African Americans, that Wal-Mart will not do business with consultants who use race as a political tool to divide our nation.” The letter goes on to ask Scott to end the company’s business relationship with Nelson and his firm, and to immediately undertake a review of the tactics and tools being employed by the many Republican operatives who work for Wal-Mart and its public relations firm Edelman.

Over the last few months, several high profile consultants and advisors to Wal-Mart, including former chairman to Working Families for Wal-Mart, Ambassador Andrew Young, have been condemned or forced to resign for racist and insensitive actions.

Statement by the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr.:

This is a reflection on Wal-Mart and the people that drive their right-wing, anti-worker family agenda. The same people that engage in race-baiting also support right to work laws that undermine working people.

Wal-Mart has the responsibility to dismiss Terry Nelson, with explanation, and apologize to Harold Ford Jr. Even though the Republican Party pulled the ad, if you throw ink on a suit, you leave a stain. They threw ink on Harold Ford, Jr. and many people believed it to be true, resulting in a negative impact.

If he did it, he must go and Wal-Mart owes a huge apology to the American people and to Harold Ford, Jr. Wal-Mart will determine what it will do based on how they view the gravity of the situation. It will