Last week we told you about Walmart firing 300 workers from its headquarters staff as the company goes through a major restructuring. The 300 jobs were just the tip of the iceberg, with 10 Sam's Club stores closing, a major layoff of 11,000 workers at Sam's Club stores, and a new decentralized set up for the company that will shift many jobs away from the main office in Bentonville to regional offices.

When we told you about those 300 layoffs, we wondered if there might by more job losses on the way. As it turns out, there may be. The Northwest Arkansas Times reports that as the company starts creating regional offices and moving positions there, jobs in Bentonville will be eliminated. According to the article,

"some headquarters staff members will face a choice of relocating, looking for other jobs or retirement, according to several people familiar with the situation.

Wal-Mart declined to put a number on positions that could be moved out of Bentonville. Those decisions will be made case by case and it will take time to figure out what works for each area"

We'll certainly be keeping an eye on this transition to see how it affects the company. We can only hope that Walmart does all it can to ensure that jobs aren't eliminated unnecessarily, or workers aren't pushed out of their jobs. Walmart has a reputation, after all, for pushing workers with seniority out to reduce the cost of salary and benefits overall. It's one of the reasons Walmart has such a high turnover rate.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has recalled two 'Princess and the Frog' charm necklaces today due to high levels of Cadmium, a dangerous heavy metal. The necklaces are sold exclusively at Walmart stores. It may sound like many other recall stories, but this is actually the first time the CPSC has recalled anything for containing Cadmium. The metal was spotlighted in a recent Associated Press investigation which discovered high levels of Cadmium in many pieces of children's jewelry.

Cadmium, like lead and other heavy metals, is a known carcinogen and can cause stunted brain development in children.

The Associated Press found that Chinese factories had started using Cadmium in products after they stopped using lead due to scrutiny from the US government during the last product safety scare.

In our opinion, it is no coincidence that this first Cadmium recall happened at Walmart, either. First because the use of cadmium seems to be linked with Chinese factories, at least so far. More than 70% of Walmart's goods come from China, making it likely that these toxic metal products could end up on Walmart's shelves. Second, Walmart has a history of using its size and clout to push suppliers to produce at a lower cost, forcing them to cut corners to meet Walmart's price demands and still make a profit. One of the areas that suppliers could cut corners is product safety.

We think it's pretty irresponsible for Walmart to be selling cadmium laced children's necklaces, or anything else with highly toxic chemicals, for that matter. That's why we launched a campaign over the holiday shopping season demanding that Walmart remove dangerous products from its shelves. Obviously they haven't listened.

You can read more about Walmart's dangerous products and sign an open letter to Mike Duke demanding that he take responsibility for consumer protection here.

The official CPSC press release about the Disney 'Princess and the Frog' necklaces is here.

Our good friend Al Norman's take on China Labor Watch's new report:

While Wal-Mart shoppers across America pushed and shoved one another today on Black Friday, fighting for first rights to Blu-Ray and High Def televisions, a new report about the retailer’s factories in China paints another kind of black. Everyday looks black to the Chinese workers who help produce low-priced goods and high profits for the Wal-Mart corporation. A group called China Labor Watch (CLW) released a report this week which finds that conditions at Wal-Mart’s vendor factories have not improved much this holiday season compared to Christmas’ past.

The CLW study focused on the Pearl River Delta of Guangdong Province, where millions of migrants work in light manufacturing. “Labor conditions in the Pearl River Delta have somewhat improved in recent years,” the new study notes, “but remain devastatingly brutal, characterized by long hours, unsafe workplaces and restricted freedom of association, and are in blatant violation of Chinese and international labor law.

The case of Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, shows that corporate codes of conduct and factory auditing alone are not enough to strengthen workers' rights if corporations are unwilling to pay the production costs associated with such codes.” Wal-Mart does not own any of its 100,000 supplier factories around the world. Tens of thousands of these vendors are located in China. Wal-Mart buys about $18 billion worth of products in China.

The CLW report focuses on labor violations in five factories “to illustrate systematic violations cited in Wal-Mart's supply chain.” One of the Wal-Mart factories visited was the Dashing Decoration Company in Dongguan City, which has been in operation for seven years. The factory specializes in production of candles and Christmas lights, and employs roughly 1,800 workers. During its site visits, CLW found:

-None of the workers were given copies of their work contract with Dashing. Workers stated that their contracts were fake and do not include basic information that is required by the Labor Contract Law.

-Workers who work over six months have difficulty quitting.

-Workers only get two days off a month, and sometimes workers must work 24 hours consecutively.

-Overtime is illegally underpaid and workers are fined for refusing to work overtime. There are long overtime hours in the factory, and overtime is mandatory. Workers who refuse will receive a penalty equivalent to three day wages. The hourly rate at Dashing is around $0.65/hour. Overtime wages are illegally low at rates of $0.44/hour for regular overtime (45% of the legal minimum), $0.88/hour for weekend overtime (68% of the minimum) and $1.32/hour for holiday overtime (68% of the minimum). It is extremely difficult to ask for a day off at Dashing, unless it is for sick leave, which requires medical authorization. There is no paid vacation and pregnant women are offered 45 days of unpaid maternity leave.

-Workers must sign false pay stubs to deceive clients and lie during audits. CLW investigators discovered last year that workers are required to sign a false pay stub. Several days after signing false document, workers were given a chart with real figures

-Living conditions are very poor: bathrooms have no running water, canteen sanitation is poor and fees are deducted from wages regardless of whether workers eat there.

-Workers are fined 9 days wages for absence of more than half a day. In the Dashing worker dormitories, each room has the capacity to hold 12 persons, and currently average 10 workers per room. Communal restrooms have no running water and can hold no more than ten people. There is a bucket of water in the restroom for workers to flush the toilet, but since demand for water is higher than supply, most of the toilets are left unflushed. The workers have production quotas. If workers are unable to meet quotas four days in a row, on the fourth day Dashing will deduct overtime wages.

There is no union at this factory. There are complaint boxes located on the stairway of each dormitory floor, but workers say no one ever checks the boxes. The CLW found that every day was a black day at the factories churning out goods for American consumers at Wal-Marts.

What you can do: As a result of their study, the CLW concludes that “Wal-Mart pricing is too low.” The report notes, “As the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart leverages its huge orders to convince factories to sell goods at low prices that are not sustainable. This puts pressure on other brands to pay less, thereby setting a dangerous industry precedent.” CLW says Wal-Mart's audits fail to identify all labor violations. “After failing two Wal-Mart audits, factories may bribe auditors on the third audit to avoid losing Wal-Mart orders.” The group calls for a system of external monitoring of these factories. “Wal-Mart's corporate structure needs to focus on real change and not on image,” CLW says. “Wal-Mart routinely turns a blind eye to poor conditions in supplier factories unless investigations are made public.”

CLW charges that Wal-Mart is not enforcing its basic standards. “It has the size and power to be an industry leader,” CLW writes. “Wal-Mart needs more transparent ethical sourcing efforts.” American shoppers don’t want to hear that Wal-Mart’s low prices are built on a system of exploitation and deceit. But that’s all part of the price of shopping at Wal-Mart. You save money---but the worker’s don’t live better. For a full copy of the China Labor Watch report, go to www.chinalaborwatch.org.

Walmart's treatment of workers, both in the United States, and abroad, is a major issue that needs serious attention and change. In the case of workers in the US, it seems that Walmart deliberately squeezes every dime out of their workers. Overseas, it seems like workers are mistreated more as a symptom of a destructive business model.

A new report from China Labor Watch reveals labor abuses in Walmart's Chinese factories, a failure of Walmart's auditing system, and, ultimately, how Walmart's demand for the cheapest goods leads other companies to follow in its footsteps, creating a race to the bottom. Here's how it works:

"Wal-Mart pricing is too low. As the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart leverages its huge orders to convince factories to sell goods at low prices that are not sustainable. This puts pressure on other brands to pay less, thereby setting a dangerous industry precedent. In conversations with CLW, both factories and other brands frequently cite Wal-Mart's pricing structure as a major source of financial pressure."

Walmart likes to brag about how much money it saves people, even if they don't shop at Walmart. Their argument is that by having the lowest prices, other companies are forced to compete and lower their prices as well. The same properties are at work with sweatshop labor. Walmart is a trend setter in the industry because of its size. It is important to remember that Walmart's low prices come at a cost.

The ultimate message in China Labor Watch's report is that Walmart needs to focus on real change, and not on image, a message we've been preaching for years now. The real problem, says the report is that, "corporate codes of conduct and factory auditing alone are not enough to strengthen workers' rights if corporations are unwilling to pay the production costs associated with such codes."

You can read the full China Labor Watch report here (pdf).

Check out this picture from Fail Blog showing the same product marked with four different prices. Perhaps this was a case of the movie moving from shelf to shelf, or from bargain bin to bargain bin; or maybe it was just a run of the mill screw up, but this humorous image is indicative of something more sinister at Walmart. We here at Wake Up Walmart get emails from customers regularly complaining about price irregularities at Walmart. We also hear similar stories from our friends over at The Consumerist. It seems that Walmart has made it a habit of listing products for one price on the floor, and ringing it up for an entirely different price at the register, and that's not even getting in to the pricing irregularities between stores in the same area. This image from Fail Blog certainly is funny, but it's also disturbing.

Wal-Mart has long been infamous for the high number of crimes in their parking lots, but recently we've seen a rather startling increase in the number of new reports about crime at Wal-Mart. In particular, we've noticed a striking increase in violent confrontations arising from Wal-Mart's 'loss prevention' efforts. Not only have several people been injured or killed by over-zealous security guards, but there have now been several reports of confrontations between customers and Wal-Mart employees who are attempting to check their receipts. Last night a loss prevention officer was threatened with a knife after he confronted a man attempting to shoplift. Back on Christmas Eve, an off duty police officer violently shoved an elderly Wal-Mart greeter who asked him for his receipt. Two days ago a Wal-Mart employee had a gun pulled on him when he asked to see the customer's receipt. We've received several e-mails about customers being detained and physically assaulted by Wal-Mart employees who thought they may have been shoplifting.

We're not sure if this uptick in confrontation and violence is a result of Wal-Mart getting overly zealous about shoplifters, an increase in shoplifting because of the bad economy, or some other unexplained reason, but it's certainly a disturbing trend.

Here's our statement on the ruling from Minnesota:

Walmart again forced to pay for exploiting workers

For Immediate Release
July 2, 2008

CONTACT: Meghan Scott
(866) 253-1350

A Minnesota judge has ruled that Walmart must pay $6.5 million in back pay to 56,000 employees because it forced them to work off the clock and through lunch breaks. Walmart is currently facing 76 lawsuits across the country for such behavior, and has already been forced to pay $172 million in a suit in California. They were cited for more than 2 million violations of labor law and a jury could force them to pay $1,000 for each violation, or $2 billion.

The following statement is attributed to Meghan Scott – campaign director for wakeupwalmart.com.

“Walmart’s slogan claims to help its customers “live better,” but at a time when hard-working families are struggling, Walmart continues to cheat and exploit its employees.”

“It is shameful that a company with more than $11 billions in profits feels it can break the law. It is even more shameful that at a time when families are financially struggling, Walmart CEO Lee Scott continues to allow this type of exploitation and mistreatment. Walmart and CEO Lee Scott need to start playing by the rules and stop denying workers the pay and benefits they have earned.”

With its dreams of breaking into the banking industry foiled in the united states, Wal-Mart has turned to another, more cash-strapped market: Mexico. "Banco Wal-Mart" is targeting low-income consumers with savings accounts that offer a miserly 1 percent interest rate. The new bank is also attempting to tap into the short-term lending sector by offering consumer loans at a whopping 75 percent APR.

From CNN Money:

Wal-Mart's mission is to lure newcomers with easy instructions and entry points, like minimum balances of less than $5 and no commissions, compared with $100 minimums at competing banks. (But interest rates are only 1 percent, half what most banks pay, and Wal-Mart's annual rate for consumer loans is 75 percent.) The retailer, which opened three branches in Toluca, plans to have as many as 80 by the end of the year, before an even bigger push in 2009.

Mexico's biggest retailer, with 668 stores, wants to crack the low-income market in a country where just 24 percent of households have savings accounts, compared with 55 percent in Chile.

With options like Banco Wal-Mart, Mexican consumers are probably better off tucking their savings under their mattresses.

Today KXAN-TV aired their investigative report on pricing inaccuracies in central Texas. What they found at Wal-Mart is disturbing:

Every time you go shopping, you could be getting overcharged and not even know it...

Store managers don't usually allow our cameras to come in and check things out so we used a hidden camera and went shopping...

The first stop is the Wal-Mart on 183 and I-35. We went straight to the clearance rack, which is supposedly where the best deals are, right?

We pulled a child's sweater set off the rack, which was marked $9. On the big clearance aisle, we found a halogen flood light for $3.

We also found a baseball batting glove in the 50-cents clearance bin. We ended up paying more than 20 times that price for the batting glove...

We checked our receipts, and we found mistakes.

Of the 18 items we purchased at the Wal-Mart on 183 and I-35, three were scanned incorrectly, but the overcharge was enormous.

The sweater set scanned at $13 -- an overcharge of $4.

The halogen flood light scanned at $7.47. That's an overcharge of $4.47.

Our deal of the day turned into the biggest rip-off. The batting glove in the 50-cent clearance bin scanned at $12.46. That's nearly 23 times the sale price. It's an overcharge of $11.96.

Our 18 items totaled $70.62, which if the scanner was accurate, should've been $50.19. It was an overcharge of $20.43.

...It's fair to mention, we also went to Randalls, H-E-B and Target.

Their scanners got it right.

As Washington state legislators debate Fair Share Health Care legislation, a new report reveals additional information about Wal-Mart's negative impact on state taxpayers.

The report, produced by state senators, estimates that in 2004, Wal-Mart workers received more than $22.7 million in taxpayer-funded health benefits in Washington state alone.

From the Associated Press:

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Wal-Mart and other large retailers are pushing tens of millions of dollars per year in health costs onto taxpayers, a new report produced for two Democratic state senators says...

The report estimates that in 2004, Wal-Mart workers received more than $22.7 million in taxpayer-funded health benefits. More than $12.1 million of that total came from Washington state's coffers.

Click here to read the entire article.

The Washington Fair Share Health Care Coalition released a statement today on the latest damning report. The Coalition says that a growing number of legislators in Washington are supporting Fair Share Health Care. The coalition, along with several prominent state legislators, say inaction is unacceptable as the ranks of the uninsured keep growing. An estimated 100,000 children in Washington are uninsured.

Wal-Mart tops the list again.

In the 19 states that have released data on employer use of Medicaid, Wal-Mart top the list every single time. Today, a new state analysis shows Utah taxpayers are footing the company's health care bill. Wal-Mart is now 20 for 20.

From the Salt Lake Tribune:

An analysis by The Salt Lake Tribune of Utah Department of Health data shows taxpayers footed the health insurance bill for 7,220 working Wasatch Front Utahns and their children in 2004. That's an estimated $42 million subsidy for low-wage employers such as Wal-Mart, Convergys Corp. and McDonalds. Also benefitting: public schools, universities and the LDS Church.

Utah's large employers split: Two of Utah's Top 10 employers, Hill Air Force Base and Skywest Airlines, have zero Wasatch Front workers on state-funded insurance, according to Health Department records. The state's largest, IHC, has 26,000 employees - nearly double Wal-Mart's Utah workforce - but only 48 workers on Medicaid.

Who is on Utah's list? Topping Utah's roster is Wal-Mart, which has 234 workers getting Medicaid or related assistance through the Primary Care Network and Children's Health Insurance Program.

Read the full article.

Despite Wal-Mart’s hype about their health care policies for 2006, Wal-Mart still has more than half of their employees without company health care. In fact, Wal-Mart’s so-called Value Plan, a basic repackaging of an existing high-deductible plan, increased coverage by less than 2%. At that pace, Wal-Mart will reach the national average for large employers providing health care by 2017.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wal-Mart added 70,000 workers to its health care rolls for 2006. But, a majority of the employees added were due to Wal-Mart’s expansion growth and only 22,000 new Wal-Mart employees chose the Value Plan.

The fact is Wal-Mart missed another opportunity to address the great health care crisis that infects its company.

In response, Paul Blank, campaign director for WakeUpWalMart.com, released this statement.

“For those of us truly watching Wal-Mart, these Holiday health care numbers are disappointing.

It just proves Wal-Mart’s health care announcements were nothing more than a publicity stunt to deceive the American people. In 2006, just like in 2005, more than half of Wal-Mart’s workers, over 600,000 Wal-Mart workers, will still have no company health care.

Despite Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott’s pronouncement that “we will bring [health] insurance within reach of all Associates,” the fact is Wal-Mart’s health care remains out of reach and unaffordable. In fact, Wal-Mart increased their health care enrollments by a paltry 2%.

Sadly, this Holiday season, a majority of Wal-Mart workers must live without company health care because Wal-Mart fails to address the two fundamental problems with its health care plans - extremely high deductibles and strict eligibility requirements.”

Today, WakeUpWalMart.com was featured on CNBC's "Power Lunch" and CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight." Not surprisingly, Wal-Mart declined invitations to debate us on either show.

Both shows examined the potential negative impact of Wal-Mart's application to expand into banking.

Dobbs started his segement tonight with these words: "Critics say if Wal-Mart has its way, local banks will go the way of local retailers, run out of business by Wal-Mart. Your community will be a Wal-Mart community."

WakeUpWalMart.com Communications Director Chris Kofinis appeared on the show, saying, "The sad reality here is Wal-Mart is not only interested in monopolizing the American economy, they're interesting in monopolizing the American way of life, right down to where we bank."

Click here to see the transcript from Lou Dobbs Tonight

College students, a group typically benefiting from the low prices and convenience of supercenter shopping, are realizing that there is a high cost to Wal-Mart's low prices.

From the Ball State Daily News:

So how is Wal-Mart able to provide everything we need at “Always Low Prices?” Well that’s easy: It just pays its 1.6 million associates an average of less than $20,000 a year for full-time work, force local businesses to close by cutting retail prices way below cost when you enter new communities and buy $10 billion worth of merchandise each year from Chinese sweatshops that pay their workers 13 cents an hour.

Wal-Mart’s got it all figured out. Once it devours the local grocery, hardware and clothing stores, it jacks the prices back up to bring home those consistent record profits that only a true monopoly can get you.

The superstores don’t even have to create new jobs; in fact, for every two Wal-Mart jobs created, three local business jobs are lost.

All those small local Aussie businesses should take a step back and watch how the pros do it. Buy cheap goods from poor people, sell them at low prices to poor people and keep opening new stores where poor people live. That’s the way the real money-makers do it; it also happens to be the most convenient way, for everyone.

Oh, and by the way ... This might have been my last “Wal-Mart run,” unless I’m in a town where it’s the only store.

From the North Carolina State Techinican:

I have a confession. It is about my shopping habits. When I got my driver's license in high school, I discovered Wal-Mart and I loved it. I loved walking the aisles and looking at all the "stuff." I loved eating pretzel-combos at the Radio Grill. I loved just hanging out and people watching. Everywhere I went I sought out the nearest Wal-Mart and checked it out. I even have a collection of pictures of myself at many of the different (except they are all the same) Wal-Marts across the country. I'm not sure what drove this madness. I guess I thought about going to Wal-Mart as the ultimate American experience. And then I started dating this guy who introduced me to his sister. She was appalled by my obsession with Wal-Mart. She actually told him to ditch me since I wasn't smart enough to know what was wrong with Wal-Mart. Well, he did ditch me, but not for my shopping preferences, I don't think. But she had planted a seed of doubt. What could be wrong with low prices, one-stop shopping and free parking? Isn't Wal-Mart about as American and as good as it gets? What could be bad about these things? I guess this is really about asking ourselves what is truly the American way.

What I found out is that Wal-Mart asks our government to come up with $2.5 billion every year to subsidize them. Each year you and I spend about that much of our federal taxes to compensate Wal-Mart employees for their lack of benefits and wages. Over half of the store's employees do not qualify for health coverage and they are paid wages that are below the poverty line. In 1999, the average annual wages of Wal-Mart employees was $13,861. Who do you think picks up the tab when they get injured or are sick? You and I do! While Wal-Mart stock owners are enjoying a profit of $10 billion a year, Wal-Mart keeps it's prices low by passing on costs of health care to the taxpayer.

John Durso, president of the 250,000-member Long Island Federation of Labor, had this to say in a Newsday editorial:

Assuming the proposed Fair Share for Health Care Act becomes law in Suffolk County, approximately 12,000 retail workers will receive health care - something out of reach for the vast majority of them now. That's a small piece of the 45 million Americans who have no health insurance, but it is a step that may resonate outside the county.

Why is the larger goal of health care for all so hard to obtain? Since Harry Truman tried to address the nation's health care crisis in 1945, more than 70 percent of Americans have consistently favored national health insurance. With every attempt to reform a broken system, a barrage of distortions came forward from the medical, insurance and pharmaceutical industries. The solution afforded by the Suffolk County legislation addresses the issue the federal government has avoided: what to do about the growing class of employers who pay low wages and provide little or no health care.

Suffolk legislators will conduct a hearing on the proposed law Tuesday. Assuming they enact the measure, it will go to County Executive Steve Levy for approval.

The growing sector of the economy where employers provide little or no health care is mainly retail, and some of the nation's largest employers are found in this industry.

The established retail employers, particularly retail grocers, provided decent wages and health care for many years. Employees gained decent working conditions and benefits through unionization, a result that afforded retail workers and their families an avenue toward stability and middle-class life. This model is challenged by a new one: low wages, no benefits, high turnover, and the promise of low prices for consumers. Sounds like Wal-Mart, doesn't it?

Our nation's largest employer, Wal-Mart is playing a central role in driving down living standards for working families. With wages among the nation's lowest, our neighbors who hold these jobs are unable to pay for health care. The burden is passed on to the taxpayer as retail workers turn to government programs or just show up in emergency rooms.

It is a well-known fact Wal-Mart instructs its employees to apply for Medicaid, the taxpayer-funded health care program for the poor. That is one reason why government must step in and pass legislation like Fair Share. The Suffolk measure would require covered employers to contribute to a health care fund that would be administered by the county department of labor. We may also see similar laws passed around the country that benefit the working poor and the taxpayers and that monitor business practices of wealthy corporations.

Wal-Mart's aggressive supply and pricing strategies take away revenues from local merchants and put many out of business. This hurts our economy, locally and nationally. Wal-Mart destroys more jobs than it creates, and the jobs it creates pay less.

It is not surprising the detractors would say that the health care issue is somebody else's problem to fix. It's not. Retail sectors are growing in municipalities and counties all over the country. Suffolk County lawmakers understand that it is their responsibility to address the raid on public funds by the big retailers.

Best estimates conclude that the county will save $25 million annually in Medicaid costs when the Fair Share for Health Care Act becomes law. There's a good chance that people in other jurisdictions, fed up with political gridlock at higher levels of government, may look to Suffolk County for inspiration in dealing with this national crisis.

From Business Week:

Using a multimillion-dollar ad campaign, Wal-Mart's (WMT ) executives are defiantly blasting back at opponents who have criticized the retail giant's shoddy labor practices. But most people and even Wal-Mart's critics are missing the real crisis, which is that the behemoth from Bentonville, Ark., with its nationally destabilizing business model, is a dangerous detriment to America's local and national economies and to the middle class.

Today, if you listen carefully, you can hear a second giant sucking sound: Wal-Mart sopping up the vitality from middle-class American families, local communities, and the national economy.

EMPTY DOWNTOWNS. This happens in three different but related ways. First, there's the clobbering of Main Street: Wal-Mart moves in on the edges of towns, and the much smaller downtown merchants, unable to match its prices, soon go under. Second, there's the miserable wage and benefits package offered by Sam Walton's creation. And third, there's Wal-Mart's purchasing strategy, which seems to be about buying American-made products only as a last resort -- to the point that today Wal-Mart, by itself, is China's eighth-largest trading partner!

You could make the case that we are well on our way to becoming "Wal-Mart Nation." But maybe we don't have to be. Consider Costco (COST ), Wal-Mart's most notable competitor –- whose much more sensitive and noble business model actually serves as a boost to the national economy and to its shareholders.

From the Chicago Defender:

I recently sat in a conference held in St. Louis listening to the testimony of several workers whose rights and dignity, they charged, had been denied by Wal-Mart. I listened to the stories of humiliation and intimidation. I listened to stories of the negative impact of Wal-Mart stores on businesses in communities across the USA.

As I sat there, I thought: Why is this not a human rights issue? Why is it that human rights advocates, and occasionally the U.S. government, can expose injustices overseas -including workplace injustices - yet say nothing about the abuses we suffer here?

From WWMT Channel 3 in Michigan:

Wal-Mart in Portage has been ordered to make changes to its retention pond following a citation from the Department of Environmental Quality.

The store is allowed to drain treated water into a creek, but residents complained last month that the runoff was contaminated with oil and trash.

From The Globe and Mail in Canada:

The Quebec Labour Board has ruled that the closing of a Wal-Mart store this year amounted to a reprisal against unionized workers and has ordered the company to compensate former employees.

The labour board concluded that Wal-Mart Canada, Inc., failed to prove that the closing of its store in Jonquière in April was "real, genuine and definitive" as required under the Quebec Labour Code.

The board will determine the "appropriate remedies" for the former employees later. As many as 79 of the store's 190 former employees filed for compensation under the labour code.

According to a report put out by the Census Bureau today, the nation's poverty rate rose to 12.7% of the population last year, despite 2.2 million jobs being created during the same period. This is the latest in the trend of poverty level Wal-Mart jobs being created, instead of middle class jobs.

Wal-Mart is single-handedly driving down our standard of living by rapidly expanding the number of low-wage, no-benefits jobs, while taking away stable jobs. Because of Wal-Mart's market power, other retailers are forced to lower their employee's compensation to compete with Wal-Mart's poverty level wages.

From 2001 to 2004, poverty-level jobs (jobs paying less than $9 an hour) out grew living wage jobs ($12 to $15 an hour) by 2-to-1. (UC-Berkeley Institute of Industrial Relations, The Evolving Distribution of Wages and Job Composition over the 2001 to 2004 Period)

The Wal-Martization of America not only threatens the middle class and drives down wages, but is potentially creating a permanent underclass. In fact, in the retail sector, real wages have actually declined over the last 20 years. The average retail employee earns 5% less in real annual earnings from 1982 to 2002. What does this mean? In 2002, the average retail employee earned $15,140. Twenty years ago, that same employee would have earned $15,883 in 2002 dollars. (Analysis of BLS Covered Employees Survey Data).

From the Courier-Journal in Kentucky comes this op-ed:

Last week, teachers in Jefferson County decided to take a stand against Wal-Mart. The teachers want to send us a challenge as school begins to take the Back-to-School pledge that says we will buy our children's back-to-school supplies from another company.

I have taken the wake-up Wal-Mart back-to-school pledge because I want Wal-Mart to go get its G.E.D. That's a General Education in Decency!

From the Herald Tribune in Florida:

A push to match customer traffic with an on-duty work force is costing some Wal-Mart employees their full-time status, limiting their benefits and shaking up staff at the local stores of the world's largest retailer.

Wal-Mart employees in Southwest Florida said their work schedules are now being created through a computer system directed by the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer's corporate office.

A spokesman for Wal-Mart insisted that there was no big change happening, just a "re-emphasis" on making sure that there are sufficient associates on hand during traditionally busy shopping times.

But some employees at local stores said they were told in individual meetings with management recently that their work hours would change in accordance with the needs that the computer spit out.

The results for some have been shrunken schedules and jeopardized benefits. That's left some workers wondering whether they can afford to continue to work for America's low-cost leader.

Both Wal-Mart's part-time and full-time employees are eligible for benefits, but part-time employees do not qualify for family benefits, the company spokesman said.

From the Arizona Daily Star:

Close to one of every 10 Wal-Mart employees is getting health insurance paid for by Arizona taxpayers, according to figures obtained Friday from the state. The nearly 2,700 Wal-Mart workers represent about 1.9 percent of working people who are getting benefits from the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System. The company is the largest private employer in the state and has more workers getting state-paid health care than any other. By contrast, other retailers in the top 15 list of private employers had rates of AHCCCS enrollment among their workers about half that of Wal-Mart's.

To continue reading this article, click here.

Sign up today to be a citizen co-sponsor of Fair Share for Health Care legislation. Make Wal-Mart care about health care. Click here.

Coming out of Tennessee, we see that more Republicans have joined the battle to make Wal-Mart pay its fair share for health care. Here is an excerpt from WATE 6 in Knoxville:

KNOXVILLE (WATE) -- During WATE's TennCare town hall meeting Tuesday night, state Sen. Tim Burchett (R-Knoxville) said Wal-Mart shares some of the blame for the TennCare crisis.

"A large percentage of their employees are on TennCare and I'd like to see them use some of their profits to support some of their people, and things like that," Burchett said.

We also learn something very interesting from a Wal-Mart employee who was interviewed for this story. Wal-Mart spokespeople claim that the company "does not encourage associates to apply for public assistance, nor does Wal-Mart design plans to be subsidized by it."

But according to Scotty Hurst, a full-time employee at Wal-Mart who is covered by TennCare, Wal-Mart does encourage associates to stay on public assistance if they are already on it:

"I was wanting to, but since I've already got it, they say it's the same thing," Scotty said.

To continue reading this article, click here.

To sign on to co-sponsor Fair Share for Health Care legislation, click here.

I just came across a story out of Belleville, IL, highlighting the huge amount of taxpayer dollars that are used to subsidize the development of Wal-Mart stores. I think the best quote of the piece comes from an environmental attorney who represents a group of citizens opposed to the $19.8 million incentives package being offered to the developer:

" Giving tax breaks to the largest corporation on earth seems counterintuitive."

This is a point that needs to be raised: why are taxpayers giving millions of dollars to develop new stores for Wal-Mart, a company with $10 billion in profits?

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Small towns and cities across America were the backbone of the country's virile economy of goods and services. In my own hometown of 12,000 when I was growing up, thriving businesses included local and chain department stores, men's and women's shops, a dozen drug stores, supermarkets and grocery stores and a wide variety of others from auto and hardware to furniture stores.

Now these things still can be bought in my town and hundreds of others like it across the land, but only from one place - Wal-Mart.

Not since the government decided that Standard Oil controlled too much of the petroleum market - or that the cross ownership of Dupont and General Motors posed a similar threat to free enterprise - has the idea of healthy competition been as challenged as it is by the Arkansas-based retail behemoth "that is simultaneously the most admired and the most reviled in the world."

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From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

In the waning days of the 2005 Legislature, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has declared war on Sen. Becky Lourey over a bill that would require public disclosure of big companies whose employees rely on state subsidized health insurance. We hope legislators find time in the special session to pass Lourey's bill, for Wal-Mart has taken the wrong position based on faulty premises.

Around the Capitol, Lourey's bill has been dubbed the "anti-Wal-Mart bill." But that's a misnomer. The DFLer from Kerrick, Minn., would require the state to compile a list of all large companies along with the number of their employees who use MinnesotaCare, the subsidized health plan for the working poor. When Massachusetts passed a similar law, Wal-Mart wound up on the list, but so did Dunkin' Donuts, McDonald's, several hospitals and the city of Boston.

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From a Miami Herald op-ed:

For all its groundbreaking efficiencies, Wal-Mart is a leader in a most unseemly inefficiency: A massive shift of healthcare expenditures from business to taxpayers. Surely a company that's figured out how to do just about everything better than its competitors could find a way to fix this, too.

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Families USA issued a June 2005 report showing that people with health insurance from their employers pay $922 in higher premiums on average due to the mounting costs of caring for the increasing numbers of people with no health care coverage.

More than 45 million working families do not have health care coverage. Over 10 million children cannot see a doctor when they are sick because their families don't have any health care coverage. Half of all bankruptcies in America are due to the inability to pay for a serious illness. This is a national crisis which needs a national solution. Without a national solution, costs for everyone will continue to escalate out of control.

To read the full report, click here.

An editorial from the Capitol Times (WI):

Despite the fact that the Wal-Mart retail behemoth collected more than $10 [b]illion in profits last year, the corporation has shown no interest in being a good corporate citizen of Wisconsin. Instead, the firm continues to raid the state treasury by steering thousands of its uninsured employees into the state's taxpayer-funded BadgerCare program, which provides access to health care for low-income workers and their families.

Some legislators, led by state Rep. Terese Berceau, D-Madison, and newspapers, including this one, have expressed concern about the way Wal-Mart and other corporations made their profits by shifting the burden for providing employee health care onto the state's shoulders. But, clearly, more pressure is needed.

So it is good to learn that Wisconsin Citizen Action and other groups will be turning up the heat on Wal-Mart, McDonald's, Walgreens and other large and profitable firms that expect the state to provide benefits for their employees.

"(We)will be targeting McDonald's and Walgreens," says Citizen Action's Darcy Haber. "Any big, profitable corporation that can afford to be offering health insurance for their employees should be doing the responsible thing and offering that health insurance coverage, because if not, they are part of the health insurance crisis we are facing now."

In particular, Wal-Mart needs to get whacked on this issue. But that will only happen if consumers put pressure on the image-conscious corporation to clean up its act, and if citizens let legislators know that they have a responsibility to protect taxpayers and workers by requiring Wal-Mart to steer a portion of its profits into taking care of its employees.

Big box stores like Wal-Mart cost us all in lots of ways: more traffic, water pollution, flooding and fewer family-supporting jobs. But one thing really hits in the checkbook--higher taxes to subsidize their health insurance. It really bugs us to learn that billions of tax money goes to make the richest company in the world, Wal-Mart, even richer. That’s just wrong that these rich companies are mooching on Medicaid and taking health care from those who need it the most.

We learned that Wal-Mart had the most employees and families on BadgerCare, Wisconsin’s Medicaid program for low-income working families with children, costing state taxpayer almost $5 million a year.

This is a problem across the country. U.S. taxpayers pay $2.5 billion subsidizing Wal-Mart’s Medicaid costs and other federal subsidies, one-fourth of Wal-Mart’s $10 billion in profits last year.

Now we are all for free enterprise, but some companies think this means a free ride on the taxpayers’ dime. That’s just wrong.

With billion dollar state budget and $400 billion federal budget deficit, state legislatures and Congress should recover Wal-Mart and other wealthy companies’ health subsidies. Having taxpayers pay for Wal-Mart’s health care costs makes no sense when Medicaid is $2 billion in the hole and is being attacked by the Republicans across the country.

We should reform this corporate welfare. The Bush Administration is making it worse by trying to cut Medicaid payments to states by $6 billion a year.

We all deserve health care and need to direct our scarce health dollars to the one-in-five American whose can’t afford any health insurance. These Medicaid dollars were never intended to subsidize Wal-Mart and other greedy companies’ profits. Wal-Mart’s mooches on Medicaid in 14 states, according to Good Jobs First.

There is a better way. Other legislatures are requiring Wal-Mart and other large corporations to spend more on health care for workers. For example, earlier this month the Maryland legislature passed a bill known as the “Fair Share Health Care Bill,” which mandates that Wal-Mart spend at least 8 percent of its Maryland payroll on health care. Unfortunately, Governor Erhlich vetoed this measure. One report has Wal-Mart officials lobbying him. (From David Sirota)

You can check and see what the Wal-Mart subsidy is in your state by going to Good Jobs First report on Wal-Mart's mooching on Medicaid across the country. In Georgia, Wal-Mart had more employees on state-funded health programs than any other major employer in the state. Good Jobs First showed Wal-Mart is the top recipient of Medicaid in 13 of 14 states, for more click here. If your state is not listed, call your state’s Medicaid administrator and ask for the information.

When Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott was asked why so many of his employees were on Medicaid, he said "in many states the public program is a better value". Better value for him, but a raw deal taxpayers.

More than 50% of Wal-Mart’s 1.2 million workers nationwide do not have health insurance coverage and the monthly premiums for employees who elect family coverage run as high as $3,000 per month. This has prompted other states, including Wisconsin, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, to consider “Fair Share Health Care” bills of their own.

Check in with your state’s health care coalition. We can all be asking wealthy companies like Wal-Mart to pay their fair share for health care. That means you and I won’t have to, and we can spend more tax money on helping the truly needy. They should stop mooching on Medicaid.

If we all work together, we can have health care for all and stop Medicaid mooching.

By Brett Hulsey and Darcy Haber

Dane County Supervisor Brett Hulsey is vice chairman of the Personnel and Finance Committee, and Darcy Haber is health care campaign director for Wisconsin Citizen Action.

From the Concord (NH) Monitor:

The health-care system has become much like an old spin-the-plates comedy act out of vaudeville. In this version, the elegantly dressed star never appears to notice that most of the plates fall, only to be caught by the frantic assistant. The incompetent star is the private and public insurance system that covers a shrinking number of Americans. The nearly exhausted assistant is Medicaid, the joint federal-state program whose costs threaten to bankrupt state governments.

Nationally, 70 percent of the 45 million Americans who lack health insurance either work full-time or are the dependents of someone who does. According to a study done by the state Department of Health and Human Services, about half of the 70,000 children enrolled in one of Medicaid's Healthy Kids insurance programs have a parent or parents who work full- or part-time for an employer that does not provide health insurance.

It costs $2,200 per year to cover each child in the Healthy Kids program. Since parents who can afford to do so pay a premium based on their income, it's not easy to say how much the state would save if the parents had employer-based coverage. But the cost to taxpayers runs into the millions -perhaps tens of millions.

The state's study found that the employer with the greatest number of workers with children on Medicaid is, as you might guess, Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer. In New Hampshire, 487 of its 8,500 workers have children enrolled in the program.

According to the Associated Press, 22 percent of the employers with workers with children on Medicaid are in retail, one of the state's fastest growing job sectors. Health-care providers come in second at 16 percent, followed by service sector companies, 15 percent, and state and local government, 10 percent.

The availability of taxpayer-subsidized health insurance gives employers an incentive not offer it. No company has been more often accused of shifting health-care costs to taxpayers than Wal-Mart. Thanks to low wages, coverage that's more expensive than its employees can afford and long waiting periods for eligibility, this company insures fewer than half its workers. By comparison, Wal-Mart's major rival nationally, Costco - a company founded on a belief in social responsibility - insures roughly 96 percent of its employees.

For years, the drive to avoid health-care costs has led employers to hire more part-time workers, including people who work just a few hours per week short of what would qualify them as full-time. Even state and local governments have sometimes fallen to this temptation.

Most states are taking steps to rein in Medicaid costs. Nearly a dozen are trying to pass laws to force large companies to cover more of their workers, but the effectiveness of that approach is doubtful. Maryland's legislature recently passed a bill that would require very large employers - large enough that the bill affected only Wal-Mart - to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on health care for workers. Last week, Maryland's governor vetoed the bill.

States are tightening eligibility requirements, requiring higher premiums from Medicaid recipients and taking other steps to reduce Medicaid rolls. Since it costs taxpayers far more in the long run when children do not receive adequate health care, such measures are counterproductive.

Nor, we believe, will attempts to force some but not all employers to insure their workers succeed. The competitive advantage of not providing health care is great and growing.

In the end, the health-care problem will have to be addressed not by beating up employers or encouraging a system that creates 30-hour-per-week jobs. It could be solved if businesses band together to force political leaders to put real and lasting solutions on the table for discussion.

From today's Philadelphia Inquirer:

But critics say the jobs have come with a hidden cost: An unusually high percentage of Wal-Mart workers do not have company-paid health insurance, leaving them to rely on taxpayer-subsidized care. [...] The bill would require Pennsylvania companies with 20 or more employees to issue annual reports stating how many of them are receiving Medical Assistance. The bill is the first step, sponsors say, toward mandating that large companies pay their fair share of health-care costs.

"Wal-Mart is the most notorious abuser of Medical Assistance programs nationwide based on states that have done studies," said Rep. Mike Veon (D., Beaver), a cosponsor of the bill. "We need to find a way to encourage or require employers to provide affordable health-care insurance."

Entire article available here.

From an article by Paul Krugman in today's New York Times:

In 1968, when General Motors was a widely emulated icon of American business, many of its workers were lifetime employees. On average, they earned about $29,000 a year in today's dollars, a solidly middle-class income at the time. They also had generous health and retirement benefits.

Since then, America has grown much richer, but American workers have become far less secure.

Today, Wal-Mart is America's largest corporation. Like G.M. in its prime, it has become a widely emulated business icon. But there the resemblance ends.

The average full-time Wal-Mart employee is paid only about $17,000 a year. The company's health care plan covers fewer than half of its workers.

True, not everyone is badly paid. In 1968, the head of General Motors received about $4 million in today's dollars - and that was considered extravagant. But last year Scott Lee Jr., Wal-Mart's chief executive, was paid $17.5 million. That is, every two weeks Mr. Lee was paid about as much as his average employee will earn in a lifetime.

Entire article available here.

From India's Business Standard:

Wal-Mart, the $56 billion global retail chain, plans to increase sourcing from India by 30 per cent. The company currently sources $1.2 billion worth of goods from India, mainly leather, apparels, textiles, home furnishing and jewellery. It is exploring the food sector and has set sights on commodity items, such as spices, rice, tea and sea foods, to increase its sourcing.

"The foods sector is an area which we have not yet tapped to its full potential from here and we will focus on this in the near future," he said. The $1.2 billion sourcing from India pales in comparison with the $18 billion worth of goods the multinational sources from China.

From Saturday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Critics say Wal-Mart's low prices have consequences. Some employees rely on state welfare programs, the company receives tax breaks for development and smaller retailers often fail under pressure from the giant.

"I don't think the average taxpayer should be forced to subsidize Wal-Mart, and they are," Schnuck said.

Share your thoughts - at what cost does Wal-Mart offer its low prices?

In today's Tallahassee Democrat, FL State Rep. Susan Bucher has a nice analysis of Wal-Mart's costs to taxpayers. Among the more important quotes are these:

"It might be tempting to dismiss this issue as a larger one of corporate welfare, or to argue that we're singling out Wal-Mart unfairly. But facts are facts: Wal-Mart does not just shift health-care costs onto taxpayers, it does so at a level well beyond that of any other employer."

"That is, the retail behemoth deliberately cuts corners on employee health care, forcing a disproportionate number of its employees into state programs in order to receive health care for themselves and their families."

"Finally, his response is entirely disingenuous. [Wal-Mart CEO Lee] Scott acts as though public programs are a better deal for workers, when really they're simply a better deal for Wal-Mart. It's not that Wal-Mart can't afford to do better. It's that Wal-Mart chooses not to."

With such high costs to taxpayers, isn't it time for Wal-Mart to wake up?

Link to full article here.

Lately, Wal-Mart has run into trouble trying to build its fourth and fifth supercenters in the Winston-Salem, North Carolina area. In order to get more support from the community, one of their spokespeople talked to a reporter from the Winston-Salem Journal. According to this Winston-Salem Journal story from April 10th:

"[Wal-Mart spokesman Glen] Wilkins said that prices on local grocery items drop about 15 percent to 20 percent when a Wal-Mart supercenter opens.

"In some places it's higher than that," he said. "So not only do we move in and offer quality goods, great customer service, but we also create a great competitive atmosphere where the customer is the one who wins as well," he said.

The two paragraphs before this read:

"When [Wilkins] asks critics to name the small supermarkets that they say Wal-Mart is putting out of business, they typically mention supermarkets such as Kroger and Publix," he said.

"The last time I checked, they're not a small mom-and-pop company," he said.

So let me get this straight.

1. Wal-Mart moves into a market and their competitors drop their prices to match Wal-Mart.


2. Their competitors go out of business because they can’t match Wal-Mart’s prices.

To make matters worse, as the Journal reports:

"Several local shoppers said they typically find a larger assortment of products at such supermarkets as Harris Teeter and Lowes than they can find at Wal-Mart."

Fewer places to shop; fewer things to shop for once you’re there. Shopping at Wal-Mart just isn’t worth it in the long run.

JR

Last week, Brian Lehrer moderated a debate which will be airing on CSPAN sometime soon - between The Nation and The Economist - titled "What's Good for Wal-Mart is Good for America?" Jonathan Tasini, who participated in the debate, has written his thoughts on it here.

The debate itself is available online right now if you can't wait for it to be aired on television. You can find the 2-part video here.

Share your thoughts on the debate here. What do you think? Is Wal-Mart good for America?

From an article in today's NYT by Steven Greenhouse:

"Beginning in the mid-1990's, pay increases for most workers slowly but steadily outpaced the rate of inflation, improving the living standards for nearly all Americans. But an unexpected reversal last year in those gains has set off a vigorous debate among economists over whether the decline is just a temporary dip or portends a deeper shift that may cause the pay of average Americans to lag for years to come.

Labor unions' declining bargaining power has given corporations a stronger hand to hold down wages, he argued, but more recent trends, including the emergence of Wal-Mart Stores as a central force in the economy, now play crucial roles, too.

Laurie Piazza, a Safeway cashier in Santa Clara, Calif., said she reluctantly voted to approve a pay freeze in the first two years of her union's three-year contract because Safeway insisted that it needed to hold down costs to compete with Wal-Mart. Her take-home pay will fall $20 a week because the contract reduces the premium for working on Sundays to 33 percent of regular pay, from 50 percent."

Has the stifling of wages affected you or someone you know?

According to a study done by Good Jobs First, Wal-Mart tops the list in 12 of 13 states where there is data for the number of employees it has on public assistance for health care.

That means YOU -- the American taxpayer -- are paying for Wal-Mart's health care costs. The estimated total amount of federal assistance for which Wal-Mart employees were eligible in 2004 was $2.5 billion. Does it seem fair that we are picking up the tab for a company with $10 billion in profits?