Two Christmases ago, Walmart was inundated with complaints and bad press about carrying products that were dangerous. Chief among those concerns were products that contained dangerous levels of lead. You see Walmart's business model is based on selling their goods for the cheapest price possible. Often that means pressuring their manufacturers to cut corners or use the cheapest factories around. The result is products that are tainted with lead, contain other harmful material, or are physically dangerous.

While the fervor has died down, Walmart hasn't stopped carrying dangerous products because their business model hasn't changed. As evidence, today the state of California has asked several companies to remove several products from their shelves because they contain dangerous levels of lead. On the list, are the Kids Poncho and MSY Faded Glory Rebecca Shoes which are sold at Walmart.

Walmart might have cheap prices, but often there is a hidden cost behind that price tag. The hidden cost of an unsafe product, of environmental degradation, of sweatshop labor, or of labor abuses.

Here is an excerpt from the article from the Los Angeles Times:

California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown issued a safety warning Tuesday, alleging that seven toys and other products tested by the Center for Environmental Health this month contained illegal levels of lead.

...Other products that the center says have abnormal amounts of lead are the Kids Poncho and MSY Faded Glory Rebecca Shoes, both sold by Wal-Mart; Reversible Croco Belt sold by Target; Dora the Explorer Activity Tote sold by TJ Maxx; and Paula Fuschia Open-Toed Shoes sold by Sears

With Thanksgiving looming, and Black Friday (the busiest shopping day of the year) coming on its heels, it's worth remembering the terrible tragedy that happened on Black Friday last year. In its eagerness to get to the "door buster" deals, a crowd outside a Walmart literally busted a door, surged in to the store, and killed a temporary employee in the process. His name was Jdimytai Damour and he died sheltering a pregnant woman from the oncoming throng. The aftermath of the event was upsetting as well. There were no consequences for anyone. Walmart struck a deal with the local district attorney, giving the community $1.5 million and offering an insulting and paltry $400,000 to all the victims of the stampede (the Damour family and several other individuals who were injured).

The only discipline Walmart received was from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration which hit Walmart with a 'serious citation' and a fine of $7000.

This article, over at the Southtown Star reminds us all of what happened last year, it is well worth a read:

Wal-Mart gets off easy in 'Black Friday' death

Only 10 days remain until Black Friday.-- All year, Wal- Mart has been busy, busy - occupied with damage control, lawsuits and district attorneys, making sure the bordering-on-poor American consumer will not let last season's incident in which a Wal-Mart worker was trampled to death stop her from living better by spending the little she has at the world's largest retailer.--
Jdimytai Damour, 34, died Nov. 28 after a mindless herd pressed heavily on the glass door of the Valley Stream, N.Y., store, breaking it off its hinges moments before the 5 a.m. opening, with the crush of shoppers stampeding over Damour and injuring other workers.

Damour, a 6-foot-5-inch, 270-pound temporary employee, was hired for the holidays. The bargain-hungry mob knocked him to the floor amid broken glass and trampled him. He died not long after of asphyxiation.

Video of the incident shows emergency workers attempting to save his life with CPR as shoppers continue to stream hurriedly past in pursuit of bargains. A pregnant employee also was injured along with several others.--

I'm writing to ask all Wal-Mart addicts to behave this year. And to recap what's happened since the Black Friday tragedy.--
Let's see: No criminal charges were filed against any of the approximately 2,000 people in the crowd even though the culprits are on video. Manslaughter might be messy in court when committed by a frenzied mob.

But don't think Wal-Mart got off easy because it's the biggest retailer in the world. No, no. The U.S. Department of Labor really cracked down.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration conducted an inspection and found that the New York store "fail(ed) to implement reasonable and effective crowd management principles," including training that was "inadequate" to accommodate the advertised "Blitz Friday" that offered cheap-o electronics for all.

OSHA slapped Wal-Mart with a "serious citation" and the maximum fine of $7,000. Uh, no, I'm not missing any zeros. That's seven thousand dollars. Wal-Mart Stores promised to implement a crowd management plan for its New York stores and went to work consulting with big-event security firms.--

Meanwhile, the deceased employee's family sued for wrongful death, and Wal-Mart put out statements saying Damour had been part of the Wal-Mart family. Touching.--

The retail supergiant then cut a no-prosecution deal with the district attorney, promising beefed-up Black Friday crowd control along with generous contributions to the community - $1.5 million worth of local generosity and $400,000 in compensation to the victims of the incident.--

Next week, things will be different. While the special sales will commence at 5 a.m. Nov. 27, as in the past, the stores will have been open since 5 p.m. Thanksgiving night. This is intended to create a flow of customers rather than a ravenous pack.--
I hope the plan succeeds and that no one gets hurt.--

As Wal-Mart shoppers again seek cheap goods and to contribute to their future unemployment risk, let's remember that it's people who trample linebacker-sized door guys - not the global corporations that work all year to offer awesome, 32-inch flat-screen TVs for less than $400.

A judge has just approved yet another legal settlement for Walmart as part of the 63 cases they vowed to settle back in December of '08. It is not clear how many people will be effected in this particular class action suit, but it is clear that, once again, Walmart is coughing up a small bit of money for systematically cheating its workers out of money and time. Because Walmart is settling, they are paying only a small percentage of what they should be paying based on back pay and punitive fines for breaking the law literally millions of times across the country.

Here's the article from The Dickinson Press:

Several hundred former and present North Dakota Wal-Mart Stores Inc. employees may see some money flow their way.

A Nevada federal court judge gave final approval Wednesday to an $85 million class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. amid a wage and hour dispute.

Involving 30 states and more than 3 million hourly employees, the suit claimed Wal-Mart employees were asked to work off the clock and breaks were cut short or not given consistently.

“The policy was a little off and didn’t really go with the law,” said Kevin McMillan, assistant to Robert Bonsignore, national lead counsel for the employees. “It’s anything but an isolated occurrence.”

Hourly employees who worked for Wal-Mart in the year 2000 and beyond may file a claim.

“They were requested to take shorter breaks,” said Mike Miller, a Fargo-based attorney and North Dakota counsel for the suit.“That’s the primary focus of the overall settlement — is those cases.”

Rose Kostelecky, a 19-year-veteran employee of Dickinson’s Wal-Mart Supercenter, said she has never been asked to work off the clock.

“I have never, myself, never ever worked off the clock,” Kostelecky said. “They’re very strict about that. I know that nobody here does.”

While it is nearly impossible to know if the incidents occurred at every Wal-Mart store, there is enough evidence to show that it happened, Miller said.

“Wal-Mart is not admitting they did anything wrong,” Miller said. “But litigation is litigation. We feel it’s better to settle it at this point than go forward with it any further.”

The last day for eligible North Dakota Wal-Mart employees to submit a request for a portion of the settlement is Nov. 9, according to a press release.

Employees have 30 days after the entry of judgment to file an appeal, Miller said.

“The people that are part of it can protest it if they’re not in agreement with it,” Miller said. “If in fact somebody objects, it could definitely delay payment for quite some time.”

Management at Dickinson’s Supercenter Wal-Mart declined comment.

Michelle Bradford, senior manager of corporate communications at Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., said the company has no further comment beyond a December 2008 press release.

“Resolving this litigation is in the best interest of our company, our shareholders and our associates,” said Tom Mars, executive vice president and general counsel, in the release. “Many of these lawsuits were filed years ago and the allegations are not representative of the company we are today.”

Our good friend Al Norman has a new post up over at The Huffington Post:

The words "small" and "Wal-Mart" don't fit well together. Yet the dominant retailer on the globe has been telling Wall Street analysts for several years running that small is beautiful. Last year this time, at an analyst's meeting, Tom Shoewe, Wal-Mart's Executive Vice President, summarized his company's strategy on new store growth: "A moderation in new stores, migrating to a smaller footprint for the stores that we're adding, more efficient smaller stores."

This week, at their annual analyst's gathering, there was more talk of less. Small was still on the agenda. Wal-Mart reversed its decision from June of 2007 to slow down new store growth, and told Wall Street to expect an acceleration in the number of new stores being proposed. Wal-Mart has been aggressively remodeling hundreds of existing stores---its so-called 'Impact Store' project---but the retailer also sounded like the annual speaker at the E.F. Schumacher Society.

One Wall Street analyst reported that although Wal-Mart would open more stores in 2010, the stores themselves would be smaller. The Associated Press quoted this analyst as predicting that Wal-Mart will be "scaling back the size of its supercenters." In fact, the analyst said in recent sit-downs with management at Wal-Mart, the company "even expressed some confidence in developing supercenters as small at 70,000 square feet."

A store that size---1.6 acres just for the building--- is far larger than the typical grocery store in most small communities. Add in a parking lot that is usually at least twice the size of the building, and you're no longer talking about a 'small' project.
But this is small for Wal-Mart, and these pronouncements by the company are important to local communities---where activists for more than a decade have packed town hall hearings, demanding smaller, less intrusive stores.

Last year, a Wal-Mart real estate planner told Women's Wear Daily that his company was concentrating heavily on smaller stores. He said that Wal-Mart was far more likely these days to consider a 90,000 s.f. store for a supercenter. "We can generate as much sales, as much profit from a smaller store," the Wal-Mart official admitted.
Talk of smaller footprints goes back at least to 2004, when Merrill Lynch Global Securities said that Wal-Mart could build 850 of its smaller supercenters over the next decade. The smaller stores could go into urban areas where land isn't available for a traditional supercenter.

The reality is: land is not available anywhere for the classic Wal-Mart supercenter, weighing in at over 200,000 s.f. These retail dinosaurs will---in the not too distant future---sit empty by our roadways. They are cheaply made, energy guzzling eyesores, and the sooner their Ice Age comes, the better for our communities.

Wal-Mart has learned that it can take an existing store around 120,000 s.f. and convert it into a supercenter---without altering its size. This format is called an "in-box conversion," and its been done in Milwaukee and other U.S. cities. The advantage here is that the existing discount store doesn't get abandoned--as the company has done to more than 1,000 of its stores since 1995---and the company doesn't have to go through extensive zoning hearings.

It is doubtful that Wal-Mart will ever learn to think small. But the company is clearly grasping that consumers don't want to shop in endless concrete caverns, and that shoppers are increasingly aware of the environment in which they are shopping as much as what they are shopping for. It also helps that competitors like Aldi and Tesco are focusing on smaller formats. Huge superstores are obviously land-consumptive and inefficient. They clash with Wal-Mart's claims to be a sustainable, green company.

The fact that Wal-Mart is stepping up its new store growth just means that more local citizen's groups will step-up their opposition. But smaller stores will be welcomed everywhere.
Small is not yet beautiful at Wal-Mart---but it's still an improvement over the wasteful land use monstrosities they've built over the past 15 years.

Current and former Walmart workers in Iowa are the most recent to be a party to a major class action settlement with Walmart. The $11 million settlement is in response to Walmart illegally forcing employees to work through breaks or work off the clock. This particular settlement is part of a larger agreement Walmart made back in December to settle 63 wage and hour cases across the country.

Of course the settlement is far from satisfactory. First because Walmart admitted no wrong doing, even though they clearly systematically abused their workers. Second, with 97,000 workers sharing the $11 million settlement, that works out to a little over $100 a person. I would bet that that doesn't even cover the wages they cheated workers out of.

Read the full story from the AP here.

Wired has a great piece out about a major security breach of Walmart's electronic data back in 2006. The breach has just been made public, through internal Walmart documents, and they show just how close Walmart was to letting a hacker get names, addresses, social security numbers, and complete credit card profiles. The Wired piece is really worth reading in full, it's a fascinating story, but what we're most interested in is how terrible Walmart's security was as recent as 2006.

Here's a quick synopsis of what was wrong with Walmart's digital security:

"stores, for example, housed complete backup copies of transaction logs on network-connected UNIX servers, which included at least four years’ worth of unencrypted credit card numbers, cardholder names and expiration dates from purchases at the stores...

...servers, transaction processing systems, and other network-connected devices handling sensitive information used the same usernames and passwords across every Wal-Mart store nationwide. In some cases, the passwords could be easily guessed...

...sensitive customer information [was] stored unencrypted on pharmacy computers...including customer names, home addresses, Social Security numbers, genders, credit card numbers and expiration dates."

Essentially Walmart was leaving itself open for someone to steal huge amounts of data and use it to steal thousands or millions of identities. In addition to their lax security, we were particularly interested in this revalation:

"Wal-Mart commissioned the probe from security auditors at CyberTrust as part of its efforts to become compliant with Payment Card Industry (PCI) security standards that were established in 2001. Enforced by credit card issuer Visa, top-tier companies such as Wal-Mart were theoretically required to be in compliance with the standards by mid-2004. Wal-Mart says it received a number of deadline extensions."

We would like to know why Walmart got these extensions. Why was world's largest retailer, who processes millions of credit cards a year, allowed to slack on security?

With its history of breaches, can consumers trust their identities to Walmart now?

You can read the full article here.

MSN.com has a cover story about Walmart today. Actually, they have two. In a point/counterpoint style called Perspectives on Walmart, MSN is running one story called "Why you should love Walmart" and one called "Why you should hate Walmart". They are both interesting reads, but we find the latter far more convincing. Take for example this section in the article:

"It's troubling that Wal-Mart goes to such lengths to shine its image instead of simply avoiding the practices that tarnished it in the first place. In a desperate attempt to keep its costs down, Wal-Mart -- which clocked in as the 14th-most-profitable company in the world last year, as measured by Fortune -- has established corporate policy that calls for stepping on virtually everyone it's involved with. In a 2005 memo (.pdf file) to the Wal-Mart board of directors, a human-resources executive outlined myriad ways to save money on benefits, including ways to hire healthier people and requiring physical activity for all associates. She even raised the problem that comes with employees who are happy enough to stay at Wal-Mart for longer than the company would like:

"(T)he cost of an Associate with seven years of tenure is almost 55% more than the cost of an Associate with one year of tenure, yet there is no difference in his or her productivity," she wrote. "Moreover, because we pay an Associate more in salary and benefits as his or her tenure increases, we are pricing that Associate out of the labor market, increasing the likelihood that he or she will stay with Wal-Mart."

The horror! If we treat our people well, they might actually want to stay. This kind of thinking by a senior human resources executive at one of the world's biggest companies is simply unconscionable. Over the years, there have been too many examples of this kind of pervasive thinking among Wal-Mart's top ranks.

When you have to hire an army of people to help improve your image, you've probably been doing some things wrong. That's a lesson Wal-Mart seems incapable of learning."

The counter argument, on the other hand, is based on company touted lines about saving Americans money and a rather terse explanation that Walmart is big and is slow to change, but it can change, but it's great because it's still running on the same strategy that it used to. Most importantly, it hardly convinces us of its thesis, which seems to be to prove that this vision of Walmart is wrong:

"The goods Wal-Mart sells aren't hip enough for self-styled trendsetters on the U.S. coasts. To those who would never deign to set foot in a Wal-Mart, the chain's labor practices are widely regarded as only slightly more civil than a slave galley. The retail giant is belittled for driving mom-and-pop shops out of business and bullying vendors into cutting profits to the bone."

In the world of Walmart news, yesterday's big headline was "Walmart=America!!!" The strange and slightly sad (c'mon, we can do better than that!) headline comes from a new Vanity Fair/60 Minutes poll. The poll is the first in what will be a monthly series and this one included two questions about Walmart amid its rather scattered and odd selection of questions.

The first Walmart questions was "The American banking and auto industries have just suffered through one of their worst years ever. Given that, which of the following BEST SYMBOLIZES AMERICA TODAY?" The possible answers were Walmart, Google, Microsoft, the NFL, Goldman Sachs, or none of the above. We're not quite sure why the poll chose to have this question set up as a multiple choice, or how they decided which companies to include as possible answers. It seems odd that this wouldn't have been an open ended question given the nearly endless possibilities for answers. Walmart undoubtedly would have done well in an open ended format, given its size and scope, but one can imagine companies not on this list doing well. Facebook, for instance, might have made a showing, AIG may have been mentioned, or Ford.

The second question concerning Walmart was, "Wal-Mart has said that it is considering the addition of swine-flu, or H1N1-flu, vaccination stations to some of its 4,000 mega-stores across the country. IF WAL-MART OFFERED HEALTH-CARE SERVICES—such as flu shots, dental, eye, or basic check-ups—would you consider becoming a Wal-Mart patient?" Here the answer was more straight forward, and the results more interesting. In total, 33% of those responding said they would not consider using Walmart's medical services and 31% said they didn't know, leaving just 25% saying they would use Walmart for medical services. When you look at the break down of numbers, they get even more interesting. only 20% of men said they'd go to Walmart for flu shots and the like, while women were split rather evenly on the questions with 29% saying no, 30% saying yes, and 28% saying they didn't know. Age was a factor too. While 33% of 18-29 year olds would go to Walmart for a check up, only 15% of those over the age of 65 said they would while 41% said they wouldn't even consider it.

These numbers are important for a few reasons. First, Walmart has been on a major PR offensive when it comes to health care. They are attempting to draw attention away from their own inadequate health care coverage. Walmart is also attempting to launch in store health clinics on a large scale (as the questions suggests) but have been rather unsuccessful. The numbers from these polls suggests that a retail health clinic associated with Walmart probably won't do very well.

Perhaps the most interesting question these numbers bring up is why people seem so unwilling to trust their health to Walmart. Is it a perceived lack of trust or quality? Is it some kind of cultural bias? What do you think? Why do you think people are hesitant when it comes to Walmart and health care?

Here is something we don't say often: go plant yourself in front of your television for 90 minutes tonight.

If you're interested in the ongoing struggle to make Walmart a more responsible corporation, you will probably want to see CNBC's latest offering. "The New Age of Walmart" is a CNBC produced, 90-minute documentary that follows up on David Faber's 2004 documentary with a similar name: "The Age of Walmart."

Walmart Workers for Change and WakeUpWalmart.com are both featured in the show.

From CNBC's description of the documentary:

CNBC presents "The New Age of Walmart," reported by award-winning correspondent David Faber. The 90-minute documentary takes an inside look at a company that sold more than $400 billion worth of goods last year and continues to thrive, even in an unforgiving economy. Faber investigates Walmart's effort to reinvent itself and whether new leadership, aggressive green policies and a full-scale store overhaul signify real change for the controversial powerhouse.

The documentary delivers an exclusive, never-before-seen look at how Walmart decides where to build a store. For the first time, television cameras accompany one of the teams that secretly traverse the country and the world looking for new places to plant its flag. CNBC speaks with Brian Hooper, the man in charge of the real estate development team for Walmart and Sam's Club in the Northeast. CNBC takes you on this covert operation where a decision to build can change a town's fortune forever.

In this economic climate, some might think the prospect of a brand new Supercenter would be an easy sell to communities. Faber found that while some people believe the opening of a Walmart would bring new job opportunities, others are convinced it will lead to their town's demise. In his first extended interview, new CEO Mike Duke addresses some of the tough issues that make Walmart both successful ... and controversial, including the company's ongoing fight against a proposed law that would make it easier for workers to form unions. Faber confronts Duke with questions about continued criticism of Walmart's health care coverage, as well as the level of wages it pays employees.

The piece airs Wednesday night at 9PM, with a repeat at 10:30PM.

According to an article in USA Today, the Supreme Court could alter contribution restrictions and open the door for corporations to spend millions to influence the political process. Considering how corporation already wield enormous influence, this ruling could instigate a spending bonanza. Read the article below for more details.

Supreme Court could loosen cap on corporate political spending By Joan Biskupic, USA TODAY:

The Supreme Court appeared poised to open the door to more corporate spending in political elections Wednesday, in a fast-paced special hearing over campaign-finance regulation.

If the conservative majority moves in that direction — which would mean reversing decisions that endorsed restrictions on corporations — it will not be without a fight. Liberals, including senior Justice John Paul Stevens, lodged vigorous counterarguments in the case that could transform the rules for corporate and labor union money in elections.

The special session revolved around a 2008 movie by the conservative group Citizens United that attacked Hillary Rodham Clinton when she ran for the Democratic presidential nomination. Hillary: The Movie presented 90 minutes of news clips and criticism of the former first lady. She lost the nomination to Barack Obama and is now secretary of State.
The case escalated during the presidential campaign when Citizens United sought to offer the movie through a TV video-on-demand service. The Federal Election Commission said it was subject to a 2002 law barring TV ads financed with corporate and labor union money close to an election.

Citizens United contended the FEC’s move violated its rights of free political speech.

After the Supreme Court’s first round of arguments in the case last spring, the justices asked the two sides to address the broader question of the constitutionality of limits on corporate spending in elections. That ratcheted up the stakes.

The tenor of Wednesday’s arguments suggested that a majority might be ready to lift limits on corporate expenditures in races.

Chief Justice John Roberts voiced skepticism that the U.S. government had sufficient justification to target corporations and suggested the disputed law swept too broadly.

“We don’t put our First Amendment rights in the hands of FEC bureaucrats,” Roberts said, worried about how far the federal government could extend the law.

His view seemed shared by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito. Justice Clarence Thomas, the only one who did not ask questions, usually votes against regulation of campaign money.

Lawyer Theodore Olson, who represented Citizens United, insisted at the outset that “robust debate about candidates for elective office is the most fundamental value protected by the First Amendment.”

Justices Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg pressed him on why Congress could not treat corporations differently from individuals.

New Justice Sonia Sotomayor entered the fray 25 minutes into the 90-minute session to challenge Olson’s assertion that campaign-finance regulation was a complicated system difficult to navigate.

“You make very impassioned arguments about why this is a bad system … but we don’t have any record developed” in the litigation about alleged problems in the system, she said. She appeared unready to vote to change the rules, and asked whether doing so would interfere with state campaign regulation efforts and “the democratic process.”

U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, defending the regulation and arguing her first case before the court, said Congress’ interest in curbing corporate money in elections is long-standing: “For over 100 years, Congress has made a judgment that corporations must be subject to special rules when they participate in elections.”

Kagan urged the court not to overturn a pivotal 1990 case in which it allowed states to bar corporations from using general treasury funds on candidates. The ruling in the case said, “Corporate wealth can unfairly influence elections.”

Kennedy, who often is a swing vote in highly charged cases, is unlikely to play that role here. He dissented in the 1990 case and is suspicious of government regulation of campaign money. “There is no place where an ongoing chill (to speech) is more dangerous than in the elections context,” he said.

Today the Wall Street Journal breaks a story we've been hearing about for a little while now. Apparently Walmart will no longer be offering regular paper checks to its employees. Instead, Walmart will begin paying its workers either through a direct deposit program, or on a debit card. Walmart is touting the change as a way to save money (for themselves) and as a green initiative because of all the paper it will save. While both are undeniably true, it could turn out to be a pretty raw deal for employees.

Employees with checking accounts who opt to get their pay through direct deposit will likely not be affected at all, but employees without a checking account could have to deal with fees for checking their balance, withdrawing money, and more. While the fees may not seem like a lot of money, they can add up and make a difference to an employee making poverty level wages.

What's more, it seems to us that Walmart is trying to create a 'factory store' like situation, where employees end up spending large portions of their income where they work, giving their hard earned money right back to the company.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

Though the debit cards save companies money by reducing payroll costs, consumer advocates have criticized some card programs, noting that workers are often charged fees to access their money or even check balances.

MasterCard, however, said First Data Corp., which will process the transactions, agreed with Wal-Mart to offer some of the lowest fees available among such cards, and noted that many workers already pay fees for cashing checks. It said employees' first ATM transaction a pay period is free; subsequent ones cost $2 each.

Laura Kelly, senior vice president of global prepaid cards at MasterCard, said the arrangement benefits both companies and workers, who "won't have to go to stores to pick up their paychecks anymore."

It is worth pointing out how silly the 'upsides' of the debit card are in this article. Having the lowest fees sound nice, but the fees are replacing a form of payment that came with no fees. I don't care how low their fees are (and $2 withdrawal fees is not particularly low) it's still a net loss for the employees. Laura Kelly's comment that it'll be great for workers because they, "won't have to go to stores to pick up their paychecks anymore" is either willfully misleading or shockingly out of touch with the daily lives of Walmart workers. These workers aren't working from home or telecommuting, they're working in the stores, they have to be there regularly, and getting their paycheck when they go in for work is not a particularly difficult task.

Yesterday we told you that there was going to be a public hearing about the proposed Walmart that could seriously degrade an important Civil War battlefield. As it turns out, the Orange County Board of Supervisors voted to recommend that the store be approved. The final decision will go to the City Council, and in the mean time, groups that have been pushing hard against Walmart building so close to the battlefield say they will keep fighting.

In a press statement, James Lighthizer, president of the Civil War Preservation Trust says,

"I am deeply disappointed by today’s vote. The Orange County Board of Supervisors had an opportunity to protect the battlefield by embracing a reasonable compromise approach to the Wal-Mart superstore proposal. Instead, they ignored rational voices on the national, state and local level encouraging them to work with the preservation community and local landowners to find a more suitable alternative location.

...The Civil War Preservation Trust and the other member groups of the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition will now carefully weigh options for continued opposition of this misguided proposal. This battle is not over yet."

They need your help, though, and they need it now more than ever. Go to the Civil War Preservation Trust's action page to learn more, speak out, and get involved. This isn't just a local issue, this is a matter of protecting important historical sites, indeed protecting our national identity.

Soon we'll know if Walmart will be allowed to desecrate an historically important battlefield in Orange County, Virginia. There is a public meeting scheduled tonight about whether to allow Walmart to build a supercenter less than a quarter mile away from the Wilderness Battlefield and there will likely be a vote after the meeting.

The site, as you might imagine, is controversial and everyone from celebrities to elected officials to historians to locals have come out against Walmart building their store where it can negatively impact the battlefield.

Of course Walmart could easily move their planned site. There was an offer to purchase a comparable site, for the same price just a little farther away from the battlefield, but Walamrt stubbornly said no.

You can learn more and speak out about the proposed store over at the Civil War Preservation Trust's action page.

Here's the article from the AP via The Arkansas Democrat Gazette:

Decision nears on Wal-Mart near Va. battlefield

ORANGE, Va. — Wal-Mart should know this week if it can build a Supercenter near a Civil War battlefield in Virginia.

Orange County officials will hold a public hearing Monday evening that will likely be followed by a vote on a special use permit by the Board of Supervisors. The world’s largest retailer needs the permit to build near the Wilderness Battlefield site.

Historians and Civil War buffs have rallied against the location less than a mile from where Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant first met in battle. They contend the store will draw more commerce and traffic

Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. counters that the property is already zoned for commercial use. It says the store will not be within sight of the battlefield’s 2,700 protected acres.

As if to highlight Walmart's connection to China discussed in the Al Norman article we just posted, we just received the news that Walmart is recalling one and a half million Chinese made DVD players because of a risk of the product overheating and starting a fire.

Of course the connection to China isn't the only issue here. The real issue is that Walmart pressures its suppliers to produce goods for the lowest possible price. This DVD player, for instance, retailed for $29. There's nothing wrong with cheap goods, per se, who doesn't want a $29 DVD player. The problem is that Walmart, at least implicitly, encourages their suppliers to cut corners on things like safety. In this case, it lead to a DVD player that could burn your house down.

Congratulations!

Last week, we learned that Walmart was sponsoring Glenn Beck's program by advertising on it. We immediately called on Walmart to pull its substantial advertising dollars from the Glen Beck because of his extreme and hateful rhetoric. We also asked you to write letters to Walmart's corporate headquarters demanding that they pull their ad dollars from Glenn Beck's show right now.

It is now being reported that Walmart has pulled its advertisements from Glenn Beck's show! It seems that Walmart heard your concerns and has done the right thing. Thank you to all of those that wrote a letter to Walmart.

Here is some of the coverage of Walmart pulling its ads:

Eight more companies -- including Wal-Mart -- reportedly pull Glenn Beck ads [Media Matters]

More companies pull Beck ads: Wal-Mart, CVS, Best Buy [Politico]

Walmart, CVS, Best Buy Ditch Glenn Beck (Plus Five More Companies) [Huffington Post]

Yesterday, Governor Mike Huckabee wrote a piece called "Maybe We Should Let Walmart Run Health Care" on Fox New's Closing Thoughts. In it, he argues that while Washington was dragging their heels after Hurricane Katrina, Walmart was delivering aid, and therefore, why not let Walmart run health care. He goes on to make his actual point, "I love Walmart and they are headquartered in my home state, but I'm not really suggesting that they ought to run the entire health care industry. But if it were between Walmart and Washington, I'd pick Walmart."

While I think we can all agree that the government seriously bungled the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it's not a terribly apt comparison. I would suggest looking at a better example: health care.

Sure, Walmart's got great prices, as Governor Huckabee pointed out, but how are they doing at actually providing health coverage to their employees (a far more accurate measure of how Walmart might administer health care to an entire nation)? Not so great, as it turns out. While most large companies cover more than 65% of their employees, Walmart covers just under 52%of their employees. That means Walmart fails to cover over 48% of its employees or 675,000 individuals, and who knows how many more children of employees. That is because, while their prices are low, so is their pay, but the cost of their health insurance? Not so much. Many workers are therefore forced rely on state-sponsored plans like Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Walmart relies on taxpayers to foot the bill for their negligence.

And how about the government? They certainly failed in their response to Katrina, but how have they done at actually providing health care? One has to look no further than Medicare, Medicaid, and the elaborate health care system for our troops, all of which run pretty smoothly. No one seems to be clambering for the government to stop running those programs and have Walmart (or the health insurance companies) take them over.

No, I don't think Governor Huckabee would be very happy with Walmart's health care coverage.

You can read Governor Huckabee's full article here.

If you were to go to a store and steal something (not that I am suggesting you should) you might expect to be stopped, detained, maybe arrested and charged with a crime. What you probably wouldn't expect is physical harm. Well, leave it to Walmart to break expectations. A man is suing Walmart for excessive force after four employees wrestled him to the ground for which he suffered a dislocated shoulder.OF course the man was shoplifting, which is illegal, but doesn't four employees smashing you to the ground sound a little extreme when simply stopping the man probably would have sufficed?

The worst part of this story, though, is that this is hardly new. Walmart has a history of using brutal methods to stop shoplifters, or those they think are shoplifting. The result has been some pretty serious injuries and even, in a few cases, death.

Here is a piece of the article from the local TV station:

A Port Arthur man is suing Wal-Mart for injuries he received after he was caught shoplifting. It happened March 13th at the Wal-Mart on Twin City Highway in Port Arthur and it was all caught on tape. Jessica Holloway reports, attorneys say the shoplifter is suing because store employees went too far.

Surveillance video was taken from inside Wal-Mart in Port Arthur. It appears that four employees wrestle Michael Harris to the ground. Harris is suing Wal-mart and two employees for dislocating his shoulder. It's what happened before, caught on tape, that led up to this point.

Usually, when Walmart is looking in to a new product for their generic brand, it's not really big news, but I heard about Walmart's "Great Value" cookies this morning on NPR before I even got to work. It turns out that Walmart is developing generic versions of two very popular flavors of Girl Scout cookies. Soon, you may be able to buy Walmart's take on Thin Mints and Tagalongs. Why is this such big news? Well it turns out that this blog entry set off quite a stir.

And we think the author, CV Harquail, is right. Walmart often likes to brag about how much good it does for the communities its stores are in, (without mentioning, of course, the independent businesses it shuttered, the added traffic, the poor wages and benefits, and the wages it depresses in nearby stores) but actions like this throw its true colors in to question. This blog post hits the nail right on the head, "Wal-mart can sell all the hunting equipment, cheap plastic gizmos and clothes made in sweatshops that it wants to sell. But why must they encroach upon the market of a non-profit? Why do they have to go after the Girl Scouts?"

Perhaps the most important paragraph of the blog post, though it is the real meat of piece, didn't make the news,

When it comes to assessing whether an organization is authentic, whether it is trying to grow into something more or better, it is important to look at the organization’s actions in that area. We should be looking at Wal-mart’s sustainability efforts and encourage them when these efforts seem to demonstrate that Wal-mart is keeping its promises. But also, we should look at the organization’s behavior around the fringes, because it is this behavior that clues us in to whether the change effort is real, or whether the change effort is fake.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joining with WakeUpWalMart.com will:

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

###

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's the story from the local TV station:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Just shattered nerves," she said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dear President Obama:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Respectfully,

Joseph T. Hanson
International President

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

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

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

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

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

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

A fed up doc

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

As a follow up to last week's post about the Orange County Planning Commission voting on whether to allow Walmart to build near a Civil War battlefield, we have learned that the Planning Commission has approved Walmart's initial plans. The Commission voted five to four to recommend Walmart's plans to the county supervisors, who will hold a public hearing and decide if Walmart will be allowed to build sometime this week.

Of course we think it's a shame that Walmart might be allowed to build a stone's throw away from the protected Civil War battlefield. Not only was the store's location a staging area for Union Troops, but the store will also bring increased traffic to the area, degrading the integrity of the protected battlefield. We hope the county supervisors, who are not held to the Planning Commission's recommendation, take the importance and historical significance of the Wilderness Civil War battlefield in to account and suggest an alternate location for Walmart to build.

Here is some of the coverage of the County Planning Commission vote:

Wal-Mart near Virginia battlefield moves forward [Business Week]

Wal-Mart near Va. battlefield moves forward [Forbes]

Wal-Mart proposal moves to Orange supervisors [Fredericksburg.com]

This week in Walmart news:

A Canadian court rescinded union certification given to Walmart workers, keeping alive a five year old battle between Walmart and the union.

The Orange County Planning Commission will soon vote on whether to allow Walmart to build near an important Civil War battlefield. The controversial store has drawn opposition from historians, politicians, actors and local activists.

It looks like yet another older rock band is going to do an exclusive deal with Walmart. Kiss's Gene Simmons has confirmed that a deal is in the works to sell their upcoming album only at Walmart.

Walmart ended a long review and has hired three PR agencies who will compete against each other for specific projects.

The National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus took issue with some of Walmart's ads that claimed a shopper could save more than $700 a year buying groceries in its stores. Walmart responded by defending the claim but pulled the ad off the air anyway.

Walmart opened up a few more walk in medical clinics and the media is still writing about how they failed in their initial attempt to open hundreds of clinics.

Finally, we released a new report this week detailing how Walmart sources its much-touted $4 prescription medications from Ranbaxy, a disgraced Indian drug maker. The report generated quite a bit of media coverage.

I'm not sure about you, but this story seems very strange to us. Essentially a court in Canada has ruled that because labor laws have changed since Walmart workers legally won union representation, those workers are no longer allowed to be represented by a union.

Here's the longer version. Back in April 2004, workers at a Walmart store in Weyburn, Canada voted to allow a union to represent them. Walmart, of course, stalled and threw up every road block they could. Then this year, when it looked like Walmart couldn't stall anymore, they made a desperate last minute attempt to block the union, arguing to the Labor Relations Board that because labor laws had changed the way workers vote on union representation, the certification years earlier should be illegitimate. Let me say that again so it sinks in: Walmart argued that because it had stalled for years and the laws happened to change while it was stalling, the workers should pay the penalty for Walmart dragging its feet. The Labor Relations Board rejected Walmart's absurd argument and granted the workers union representation.

And now, a court ruling has overturned the Labor Relations Board decision. Why, you might ask? Well we're not totally sure. Here's what the article says,

""The board erred in law," in not ordering a vote, Foley said, in his written judgment.

While declaring the certification of the Weyburn union to be void, Foley left the door open to having a union certified at the Weyburn Wal-Mart if a majority of workers support it in a secret ballot.

"The application for certification shall be remitted back to the Board for determination in accordance with the provisions of the Trade Union Act," Foley said."

We're pretty unconvinced by that argument. Why should a perfectly legal unionization drive become void because labor laws changed? It's like saying "well, the laws changed, so Franklin Roosevelt wasn't really the President for four terms...just two like the law says now."

What do you think of the ruling?

It sounds like the county Planning Commission in Orange County, Virginia, will vote for the first time on whether or not to allow Walmart to build on an historical Civil War battlefield. We've been following this particular battle very closely as historians, actors, experts, and local residents weighed in on whether or not Walmart should be allowed to desecrate our national history. As an interesting side note, this story from a local TV station has a poll and nearly 62% who have voted believe the Planning Commission should reject Walmart's proposal.

Here's the story from the Associated Press:

Wal-Mart's proposal to build a Supercenter near a hallowed Civil War battlefield in Virginia is headed to its first vote.

The Orange County Planning Commission is scheduled to take up the retailer's proposal Thursday, with the final decision remaining with the Board of Supervisors.

A who's who of historians and preservation groups have protested the proposed Locust Grove address for the 138,000 square foot store. They have said the store will intrude upon history--the Wilderness Battlefield--where 29,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were killed or injured 145 years ago.

Wal-Mart has said its studies have concluded the store will not actually be on the site of any bloody combat.

Supervisors are not bound by the recommendations of the Planning Commission.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has recalled 16,000 air compressors that were made in China and sold exclusively at Walmart. Apparently there is a piece in the compressor that is supposed to shut the machine off when it gets too hot. The piece can fail, leading to a fire hazard.

While we haven't talked about it recently, this is just a small part of a much larger trend. Walmart pushes its suppliers to cut their prices in their maniacal desire to keep costs and prices low, that they often encourage their suppliers to cut corners on safety. The result is a dangerous air compressor, or lead tainted toys, or poisoned pet food, or countless other dangerous products. In the past year or so, Walmart has had mover 50 products recalled by the CPSC.

Check out some of the past coverage we've had of this issue.

Here's the article with more specific details on the product recall:

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has issued a recall for 16,000 dangerous, Chinese-made air compressors that were imported by Campbell Hausfeld and sold exclusively at Wal-Mart.

According to Campbell Hausfeld, a device within the compressor that is supposed to shut the unit off to avoid overheating can fail, allowing the tool to become dangerously hot. While there is a clear fire risk, the CPSC says no one has been injured from the device so far.

The recall involves the model HU200099AV air compressor with a 20-gallon tank. They were sold at Wal-Mart stores for about $250. Consumers can return the item to Wal-Mart for a full refund.

In the past few days, we've seen a couple of stories about Walmart opening new health clinics. This is nothing new. We knew about a month ago that Walmart was relaunching their walk in clinics. But it's important that these clinics continues to open because Walmart is, as we've noted before, trying to rebrand itself when it comes to health care. They're trying to get their name out of the news for offering notoriously poor health insurance and get their name in the news for offering $4 prescriptions, walk in clinics and the like.

There's just one problem, Walmart still fails to cover more than 48%, or 675,000 of their employees. They insure far fewer employees than your average large business (which insures more than 65% of employees) and forces many thousands of employees to rely on public health insurance like Medicaid which you, the taxpayer, pay for.

Don't let Walmart get away with using flashy PR to short change their workers on health care.

There is a really fascinating, and really great, article in In These Times magazine about Walmart and the Employee Free Choice Act, and union organizing in general. It's well worth a full read, but the gist is that Walmart systematically fires, harasses, spies on, and intimidates its own employees just because those employees happen to want a voice on the job.

The story the article provides is a must read:

Summers are hot in Arizona, and the young men who work in Wal-Mart’s Tire and Lube Express (TLE) department get their hands dirty, have few prospects for promotion and are well aware that similar blue collar jobs in garages and car dealerships pay a lot more. Such was the case in Kingman where an otherwise humane manager, under corporate pressure to keep labor and maintenance costs down, refused to spend the $200 needed to repair an air-cooling system essential in the 110 degree heat. So the TLE workers got in touch with the United Food and Commercial Workers, which on August 28, 2000, filed a petition with the nearby Phoenix office of the NLRB to represent as many as 18 automotive service technicians.

The reaction from Wal-Mart managers, both at the Kingman store and at corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., was virtually instantaneous. Within 24 hours a Bentonville-based “labor team” had flown into Kingman, where they joined a growing cadre of district and regional managers from Arizona and Nevada. In all more than 20 outside executives flooded the store. Wal-Mart replaced the Tire and Lube department manager with a high-level personnel executive, untutored in changing oil or tires but well-versed in the corporation’s union avoidance program. Loss prevention—the company’s shoplifting police—got busy as well, training a new set of cameras on work areas in the tire and lube shop. “I had so many bosses around me, I couldn’t believe it,” rememberes Larry Adams, a union supporter who worked in the TLE at that time. “They weren’t there to help me. They were there to bug me. It was very intimidating.”

The key labor team figures were Vicky Dodson, a 13-year veteran in Wal-Mart’s People division, and Kirk Williams, a young law school graduate from Chicago that Wal-Mart had hired just a few months before. Dodson was a pro, a forceful and controlling “pistol,” remembers one of the assistant managers who came under her authority; “an intelligent, articulate, sophisticated individual” in the more judicious words of an NLRB administrative law judge. Williams, who had worked his way through Kent State as a Wal-Mart assistant store manager, including a stint in loss prevention, was a coldly ambitious functionary who would soon spend enormous amounts of time on the corporate jet putting out union fires throughout the company’s retail empire.

Most people in the store, management and workers alike, called the Bentonville labor team the “union busters” or the “Nazi SS.” Not unexpectedly, Dodson and Williams were contemptuous of the existing store management, whose maladroit handling of layoffs and scheduling issues they blamed for precipitating the union uprising. “They took us out of the store for a couple of days,” Assistant Manager Tony Kuc says, “took us to a hotel, telling us how to handle the union, how to stop them from coming in…what to say, what not to say.” Within a few weeks the store manager had been transferred and demoted, his two assistant managers marked for dismissal, and the TLE district manager fired outright.

Within less than a week Dodson and her confederates met with 95 percent of all workers eligible to participate in the NLRB certification vote. Meanwhile, the labor team held daily meetings at 8 a.m. with all the salaried managers, as well as the hourly department heads, who they falsely claimed were part of the store “management” and therefore ineligible to take part in an NLRB certification election. “We were basically spies, spies for the store, spies for the company,” recalls a disenchanted associate. “We had to run our departments, do everything normally, and then be spies for them. The stress level was so high.”

Unionists complained, at Kingman and elsewhere, that “Wal-Mart has tricked hourly department managers into thinking they were part of the management team and therefore obligated to report any signs of union activity,” even though the NLRB ruled repeatedly against the company about the status of these hourly employees. Observed Michael Leonard, a UFCW official at the time, “Wal-Mart’s M.O. is to test the limits of the law, and to only change its prepackaged anti-union program when it is forced to.”

The labor team screened one of five different anti-union videos every day. “Wal-Mart Under Attack” was a lurid depiction of union thuggishness and disruption directed at a company that was portrayed as merely trying to provide inexpensive goods for ordinary working people. “Sign Now, Pay Later” urged Wal-Mart workers to resist the siren song of the union organizers, who would do and say anything to win another signature on a union card, all the while ensnaring the hapless retail worker in a world of burdensome dues and serf-like subservience to an alien, boss-ridden organization. These videos, always followed by a Q and A with a member of the labor team, were highly effective. A worker later interviewed by Human Rights Watch remembered: “I actually had fears after seeing videos of Molotov cocktails and rocks, pelting rock, hurling bottles.” Another said, “After those meetings, minds started changing” as one-time union supporters turned against the UFCW.

Dodson, Williams and other top managers from the southwest stayed in Kingman for nearly two months. This was the period during which the local NLRB held hearings to determine the size and composition of the TLE unit and in which both the UFCW and the Wal-Mart labor team marshaled their forces for the certification election itself. In minutely detailed reports back to Bentonville, labor team members described every instance of possible union talk, every wavering worker and every meeting. Dodson kept track of the workers who wore union pins and the ones who took them off, what comments were made at the captive meetings and the degree of union sentiment in various departments of the store.

The labor team authorized raises for 85 percent of all workers, fixed the TLE cooling system and repaired other equipment in that same department. On October 9, Wal-Mart senior executive Tom Coughlin jetted into Kingman to tell a group of TLE workers that the Wal-Mart “Open Door,” not the UFCW, was the solution to their problems. This was a clear violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the existing labor law, which forbade management efforts to bribe, promise or cajole employees in the midst of an organizing effort. “If you have any questions or problems, don’t hesitate to call me,” Coughlin told his grease-stained listeners. “I will get you some results. I can override anybody.”

Given all this, it is hardly surprising that the UFCW organizing drive collapsed in inglorious defeat. Although the Labor Board ruled that the TLE was an appropriate bargaining unit, the union lost key supporters there within weeks of the labor team’s arrival in town. Union partisans had virtually no opportunity to counter the propaganda barrage unleashed by the Bentonville labor team. If they sought the telephone number of undecided associates, this violated Wal-Mart’s “no solicitation” rule; if they distributed leaflets in the parking lot or break room in the store, managers immediately called loss prevention and then patrolled the facility to pick up any stray literature.

And when UFCW organizers made evening house calls, Wal-Mart denounced this tactic as harassment and intimidation. So on October 24, UFCW lawyers filed a broad set of Unfair Labor Practice complaints against Wal-Mart, thus postponing indefinitely the NLRB election scheduled for just a few days later. Working life for the remaining pro-union people in the Kingman store became increasingly intolerable. Within little more than a year virtually all would be fired, forced to quit or simply leave in disgust.

The Labor Board eventually ruled, at Kingman and elsewhere, that Wal-Mart had systematically harassed and spied upon numerous workers, that it had threatened employees with a loss of benefits and raises if they supported the union, and that the company had fired outright key labor partisans. But none of this had any real impact on Wal-Mart’s anti-union operation, if only because the penalties were so trivial: a few thousand dollars in back pay for a few unjustly fired employees, plus a formal notice briefly posted in the break room pledging to obey the labor law.

This week in Walmart news:

Walmart has announced that they will buy back $15 Billion worth of shares of company stock, prompting the price of the stock to jump.

The Orange County planning commission held a meeting about Walmart's proposed store on the wilderness civil war battlefield. Walmart is stubbornly sticking to their guns and claiming that other sites won't work.

Walmart finally addressed the layoffs of around 700 employees that happened back in February. CEO Mike Duke said, "this is jut part of the normal Wal-Mart way of doing business."

Walmart's attempt at a small format store apparently didn't go nearly as well as they hoped. Instead of continuing to test them, Walmart is apparently giving up on the idea. The few existing stores will now sport the Walmart name.

Green Washing has been a big part of Walmart's PR recently, and this week Walmart released their sustainability report. We're still looking through it and pulling out numbers. We'll let you know what we find.

Finally we are continuing to get good coverage, both of our actions last week, and about efforts to further organize Walmart stores. Check out the coverage, especially this great video.

Last October Walmart, trying to compete with the British store Tesco, opened a few trial stores called 'Marketside.' The stores were small format, testing out a more neighborhood oriented concept. Well, if there was any hope that Walmart would slowly turn in to a locally sourced, small scale, neighborhood store, that's over now. Eduardo Castro-Wright, Wal-Mart's vice chairman, has just announced that the company will not continue testing out their small format stores. Instead, Walmart is rapidly expanding many of their stores, building new ones (presumably many, if not all, will be the gigantic supercenters).

Here's the article from Supermarket Industry News:

Wal-Mart Not Ramping Up Marketside Trial

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. said last week in the wake of its annual meeting that it wouldn’t step up the trial of its Marketside small-footprint concept in the current economic climate, according to a published report.

“We’re pleased with it, but at this point in time, given the current condition in the marketplace, with a significant reduction in demand ... we are not accelerating that effort until we have better data to make a decision,” Wal-Mart vice chairman Eduardo Castro-Wright told Reuters.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based mega-retailer rolled out four Marketside locations in the Phoenix area in October. The 15,000-square-foot stores carry ready-to-eat meals and fresh produce, and are designed for quick fill-in trips.

In other small-format news, after its U.S. Fresh & Easy division fell short of expectations, Tesco has begun placing more emphasis on value and adding about 1,000 items to the concept’s current 3,500-product assortment.

Last week Walmart announced that they would be remodeling a number of old stores and opening a number of new stores. In all, Walmart says they will be looking to hire 22,000 new employees in 2009. Of course that's a unique situation in this economy. Most companies are laying people off and downsizing rather than expanding and hiring. Walmart has gotten a lot of positive press coverage for this, and rightfully so. It's a good thing that Walmart provides jobs. But it also makes it that much more important that we keep pressing Walmart to do the right thing and change the way they're doing business. Walmart may have created 22,000 more jobs, but those 22,000 new employees will face poverty level wages, expensive and inadequate health care, poor treatment, and no voice on the job.

Here's an excerpt from the AP article:

As Wal-Mart Stores Inc. opens about 150 new or expanded stores in the U.S. in 2009, the company expects to hire about 22,000 people for new positions.

Those positions include plenty of cashiers and stock clerks, but the world's largest retailer will also be adding store managers, pharmacists and personnel workers.

Wal-Mart is holding its annual shareholders meeting on Friday, and employees from its stores around the world are spending the week in Bentonville at company headquarters.

Wal-Mart, still the target of criticism from union-backed groups for its pay and benefits, has improved its health insurance coverage and opened it to full- and part-time employees. The company says 94 percent of its employees have health coverage, either through Wal-Mart or another family member.

Check out the local TV and newspaper coverage we got of our events:

Workers, union rally in Renton about worker rights at Wal-Mart stores nationwide [Renton Reporter]

Washington state Wal-Mart employees hope to unionize [Federal Way Mirror]

Local Walmart employees speak out on union options [Durant Daily Democrat]

Wal-Mart workers attend union rally in Dallas [Dallas Morning News]

Wal-Mart blocking local unionization? [Denver Daily News]

Twin Cities Walmart workers launch organizing drive [Workday Minnesota]

Union targets Wal-Mart in new organizing drive [Finance and Commerce]

TV Coverage

Durant, OK

Washington, DC

Denver, CO

Kansas City, MO

Durant, OK

Little Rock's coverage of the campaign

Cincinnati's coverage

More coverage from Cincinnati

On the heels of Walmart getting initial approval to settle 29 wage and hour violations suits for $85 million comes the news that Walmart is settling another suit in Minnesota. They will pay $54.25 million because, according to the AP they, "cut workers' break times and failed to prevent employees from working off the clock."

While $54 million may sound like a lot, it amounts to very little. The class action suit covers about 100,000 current and former Walmart employees. That means each employee will get only $542 before lawyers fees. In reality, each employee will probably only end up with a few hundred dollars as a result of Walmart's illegal and immoral behavior.

You can read the full AP article here.

A man in a Massachusetts Walmart parking lot crashed his car into the store while looking for a parking spot. The accident took place yesterday morning when the 93 year-old man mistakenly hit the gas pedal rather than the break. The car injured a shopper and her one year-old daughter. Authorities said the car drove between two concrete posts, outside the store entrance, designed to prevent such accidents.

Luckily, no one sustained life threatening injuries. But perhaps Walmart should place their concrete posts closer together in the future…

Here is the article from Boston.com:

Mother and baby injured as car crashes into Danvers Wal-Mart

A 93-year-old man drove his car into the entrance of a Wal-Mart in Danvers today, injuring a mother and the one-year-old baby girl she was pushing in a stroller. A preliminary investigation suggested the driver had stepped on the gas when he meant to step on the brake, police said.

The man drove into the Wal-Mart off Andover Street at 9:59 a.m. He refused treatment, but his 90-year-old wife, who was in the passenger seat, was taken to the hospital as a precaution. The mother and child were also taken to hospitals. Three other people were also transported because of the shock of the accident. None of the injuries were life-threatening, said Deputy Fire Chief Kevin Farrell said.

Police Sergeant Robert Bettencourt said the man and his wife were looking for a parking spot when his Toyota Camry crashed into the store. He said preliminary investigation indicated the driver mistakenly hit the gas pedal when he was trying to push the brakes.

"We were fortunate that there weren't more injuries," said Bettencourt, a department spokesman. "Considering the time of day, 10 in the morning, they're very busy around that time."

Tony Mendia said he was in the electronics department at the back of the store when he heard a shattering sound. "Then I heard the screams and I said, something is very wrong," he said.

He went to the front, he said, and saw people running "everywhere." He saw the car and the couple inside.

"They were just sitting there very calm. They weren't fidgeting or anything," he said.

The car rammed into two cash register stations inside the store, Farrell said.

The car could be seen inside the building this morning, resting in the cash register area, as officials worked on the accident reconstruction. It was pulled out and towed away in the early afternoon. Farrell said there was no structural damage, but the total bill could be $50,000 to $60,000. The store is expected to reopen tomorrow.

Joe Vieira of Peabody said his wife, Donna, usually worked at one of the registers that was hit, but she was moved to another one today.

Tonight, he said, "We'll go play the Lottery because -- imagine! -- that is lucky," he said.

The car narrowly squeezed through concrete posts meant to keep cars from getting into the entrance, authorities said.

"It's amazing that the car actually went through there," Vieira said.

For the first time since March 2006, H. Lee Scott, the former CEO of Walmart, has sold shares of his former company. According to Barrons, the deal is worth roughly $5 million.

After selling 100,000 shares on May 26th, Scott still owns shares of Walmart, though his share is less than 1%. Walmart has not commented on Scott's actions, however, more than 70% of Scott's $30.2 million salary came through compensation from stock and option awards.

Although the sale may raise suspicions on Scott's skepticism of the company's future, many observers such as Streetinsider.com VP Jason Raznick claim that Scott may just be "looking to diversify his assets."

For anyone else, cashing out stocks in this economy would be pretty commonplace. You might need to convert some of your investments in to cash to pay for education expenses or increasingly, just to have some extra cash to make ends meet. For Lee Scott, however, we're pretty sure he doesn't need the extra cash. Last year Scott made a remarkable $30.2 million in total compensation. That included $17.4 million in stock awards, $4.4 million in options, $5.8 million as non-equity incentive compensation and his regular salary. That works out to roughly $14,520 an hour (which is about what many employees see in a year) and about 1,340 times more than the average employee.

Read the article from Barrons:

Former Wal-Mart CEO's $5 Million Sale

This week in Walmart news:

Perhaps the biggest piece of news this week is that Walmart was fined by OSHA. You can check out our official statement about the fine, and go sign our petition.

In international news, Walmart was supposed to open its first store in India this week, but due to violence had to delay the opening. They are now expecting to open the store tomorrow.

Domestically, Walmart says they aren't giving up on building a store in Chicago, despite a long battle, and pretty hard evidence that they won't win.

Walmart was accused of selling alcohol to minors in Florida, along with several other local business.

Walmart has had some issues with fire and electricity recently. A Walmart store had to be evacuated when a clothing rack caught on fire, and police are investigating two fires and suspect arson. Lastly, a man who was working on a remodeling job of a Walmart store and died when he electrocuted himself.

Walmart has delayed the opening of its first cash-and carry store in Punjab, India after intense violence in the area. After news of the killing of a Sikh preacher in Austria, riots broke out throughout the state of Punjab, including the city of Amritsar where the Walmart was scheduled to open.

Here is the article from Reuters:

Wal-Mart defers India cash-and-carry launch

Wal-Mart Stores Inc has defered the launch of its first cash-and-carry store in India, after riots in the northern Punjab state following an attack on a Sikh temple in the Austrian capital Vienna on Sunday.

"We will come back with the rescheduled date shortly," Bharti Wal-Mart, the joint venture of the American retailer and India's Bharti Enterprises, said in a statement on Monday.

Punjab, where the first store was scheduled to open on Tuesday, is a predominantly Sikh state.

There are tentative reports that Walmart will open the store on Saturday.

Malvinder Singh, the CEO of Ranbaxy, a key to Wal Mart's grip on the generic pharmaceutical business, resigned on May 24th after years of FDA investigation into his company. Singh's resignation not only comes after repeated scrutiny by U.S. officials, but also, according to BusinessWeek, he quit a year after a buyout by Daiichi Sankyo, Japan's third largest producer of pharmaceuticals. Daiichi Sankyo had purchased Ranbaxy for its foot in the American market, but after allegations by the FDA that Ranbaxy has falsified reports regarding many of their products, a ban on a number of Ranbaxy medication has severely hurt profit for the Japanese corporation.

Generic pharmaceuticals are drugs that are manufactured and/or distributed without protection from patents, leading the possibility to set a much lower price than what the medication may have been with patent protection.

Ranbaxy was vital to Wal Mart's dominace in the generic drug market, cutting prices to as low as low as $4 for certain products. Soon many companies followed Wal Mart foray into the business, and began to market cheaper-priced drugs themselves.

Wal Mart rewarded Ranbaxy its "Best Supplier award" in 2005 six months before the FDA found serious safety violations by Ranbaxy in two of its Indian-based factories. Despite ongoing investigations of Ranbaxy by the FDA and in some instances, the U.S. Department of Justice, Wal Mart continues to import generic drugs from the company.

Here are some articles about Ranbaxy:

India's Ranbaxy Gives Headache To Japanese Drugmaking Parent

India Pharma Ranbaxy Fights FDA Probe

Daiichi Sankyo replaces head of its Ranbaxy unit

Globalized generics plague Big Pharma

Just a few weeks after Walmart struck a deal with Nassau County's District Attorney to avoid prosecution, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is issuing a serious citation to Walmart for not doing enough to prevent the death of Jdimytai Damour. The citation comes with a rather pathetic $7,000 fine, and that's not even guaranteed. Still, it's a step in the right direction. Here's our press release about the OSHA citation:

IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 26, 2009

WALMART CITED BY OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION

WakeUpWalmart.com calls on Walmart to take responsibility for Jdimytai Damour’s Death and do the right thing

Washington, DC – Today, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced a citation against Walmart in the trampling death of Jdimytai Damour. The temporary employee was crushed by customers in a rush to get to deals on “Black Friday” at a store in Long Island, New York. OSHA is fining Walmart $7,000 for “inadequate crowd management.”

Meghan Scott, Director of WakeUpWalmart.com, released the following statement:

"This citation and fine from OHSA is important because it shows that Walmart could have prevented this death, but did not. Walmart had a responsibility to ensure its workers were safe, but instead put profits ahead of people, and failed its employees, and its customers. The fine and citation are a penalty, but it’s simply the cost of doing business for Walmart. Based on figures from Walmart's most recent annual report, Walmart stores in the U.S. had $255.745 billion in sales in 2008. The average U.S. Walmart had more than $7,000 in sales per hour in 2008. OSHA’s serious citation is an acknowledgement that Walmart was responsible for this tragic death, but a fine of one hour’s worth of sales is not enough.

“Walmart must ensure that a tragedy like this never happens to another family. America’s #1 private employer has an obligation provide a safe work environment for all employees across the country.”

###

This week in Walmart news:

In International news, Walmart will open it's first store in India this week in partnership with Bharti company.

Opposition to Walmart's proposed store near the Wildnerness civil war battlefield is still in the news. The Washington Post ran a piece about the controversial store plan this week.

Walmart has decided to revamp their electronics department in a push to compete more directly with Best Buy in the wake of Circuit City's bankruptcy. The revamp includes special sections to sell Apple products and used game kiosks.

While their electronics section may be growing, their music section will be lacking a major album this week. Green Day's new album won't be sold at Walmart and the band has taken strong exception to Walmart's censorship policy.

Gothamist is reporting that Walmart is no longer actively considering opening a store in downtown New York City in Union Square (ironic, isn't it?) but that Nordstrom's discount clothing store may move in.

The Federal Election Commission voted along party lines on whether to investigate Walmart for violating election laws (three Democrats voted for, three Republicans voted against) and the complaint was thus dismissed.

Walmart settled a lawsuit over their stores mislabeling prices and regularly overcharging customers, they will pay the state of Arizona $1 million.

And in other legal news, Walmart's lawsuit against the state of North Carolina for reimbursement of $33 million in taxes they felt they shouldn't have to pay was dismissed on the grounds that the state was correct in reassessing Walmart's taxable income instead of allowing the company to use a Real Estate Income Trust scheme to cheat the state out of taxes.

An important report was released showing that aggressive and punitive anti union tactics that were once only used by rabidly anti union companies are now widespread through the private sector.

And finally, cantaloupes sold at Walmart stores in North Carolina, South Carolina and South Hill, VA were recalled due to Salmonella risks.

Reports are coming out of Arizona that a young woman was kidnapped in her car outside a Walmart parking lot. She was threatened at knife point and force to drive for four and a half miles, but escaped and ran to safety. The man is still on the loose, and though there is security footage from the Walmart parking lot, it's of no use, because Walmart's cameras were so old, you can only see an indistinct blurry figure.

Of course even if the cameras were better, it's unlikely anyone would have been watching them, and those this has been an issue for several years now, Walmart still refuses to patrol their parking lots where nearly 80% of the crime at Walmart stores takes place. Check out this clip from Walmart: The High Cost of Low Prices, it's got a full explanation of just how widespread this problem is. Keep in mind this movie came out four years ago, and little has changed.

Unlike you, Walmart doesn't pay all the taxes it should. Walmart has a complex system of real estate holdings by which they pay "rent" on stores they own to a company that they own nearly all of, thereby reducing their taxable income. Many states are being cheated out of millions of dollars in tax revenue. When North Carolina decided they'd had enough and charged Walmart the proper amount of money in State taxes, Walmart had the nerve to sue the state to get back the money they felt they shouldn't have paid in taxes. The North Carolina state Court of Appeals just rejected Walmart's arguments, though, and ruled that the state was correct in recalculating Walmart's taxes for four fiscal years and charging them more than $30 million.

According to The News and Observer,

"In his ruling last year, Judge Clarence Horton Jr. agreed with the state Department of Revenue's contention that Wal-Mart tried to game the system by using tax shelters to obfuscate its "true earnings" in North Carolina.

The appeals court tribunal rejected Wal-Mart's definition of true earnings as "flawed because it is too narrow." The decision was written by Judge Donna S. Stroud; judges Sanford L. Steelman Jr. and Barbara Jackson concurred.

...The state's legal victory doesn't mean more money for the state's coffers. Wal-Mart already has paid the taxes it owed, plus interest and penalties, and was seeking a refund."

A New report, out today from a Cornell University professor, shows that corporations are now using more aggressive anti-union tactics when workers want to organize. The report argues that many tactics only used by rabidly anti-union companies like Walmart in the past are now widely used by all companies in the private sector.

The report looked at 1,004 elections supervised by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and a more in depth study of 562 of those campaigns which included interviewing workers and union organizers. The report reveals that private sector companies have started using more anti-union tactics, and that the tactics are more punitive, including threatening and firing workers.

It is interesting to note that Walmart is mentioned as a quintessential anti-union company of the past that has traditionally used these methods, even when they weren't as widespread. It is also interesting to note that, once again, Walmart is a trend setter in the private sector, and in the retail sector particularly.

The report also compared the current sample to post studies of NLRB elections. It found that,

"In the NLRB election process in which it is standard practice for workers to be subjected to threats, interrogation, harassment, surveillance, and retaliation for union activity. According to our updated findings,employers threatened to close the plant in 57% of elections, discharged workers in 34%, and threatened to cut wages and benefi ts in 47% of elections. Workers were forced to attend anti-union one-on-one sessions with a supervisor at least weekly in two-thirds of elections. In 63% of elections employers used supervisor one-on-one meetings to interrogate workers about who they or other workers supported, and in 54% used such sessions to threaten workers."

The report goes on to suggest that workers aren't being properly protected or allowed to organize when they would like to,

"In 2007 there were only 1,510 representation elections and only 58,376 workers gained representation through the NLRB. Even for those who do win the election, 52% are still without a contract a year later, and 37% are still without a contract two years after an election. Yet researchers such as Freeman (2007) are showing that workers want unions now more than at any other time in the last three decades. Our findings suggest that the aspirations for representation are being thwarted by a coercive and punitive climate for organizing that goes unrestrained due to a fundamentally flawed regulatory regime that neither protects their rights nor provides any disincentives for employers to continue disregarding the law. Moreover, many of the employer tactics that create a punitive and coercive atmosphere are, in fact, legal. Unless serious labor law reform with real penalties is enacted, only a fraction of the workers who seek representation under the National Labor Relations Act will be successful. If recent trends continue, then there will no longer be a functioning legal mechanism to eff ectively protect the right of private-sector workers to organize and collectively bargain."

You can read the full report here (PDF) and the fact sheet here (PDF).

Last December, Walmart surprised us by announcing that it would settle 63 class action lawsuits alleging that Walmart violated wage and hour laws by forcing employees to work off the clock, and skip lunch and other breaks. While Walmart announced the total settlement would be somewhere between $255 million and $640 million, depending on how much Walmart ends up paying in each of the 63 cases.

Skip forward to this past weekend, when a Costco employee in California filed suit against her employer for violating wage and hour laws. The suit is for $50 million and, according to the AP, alleges that, "Costco required employees to work off the clock, failed to pay overtime and required employees to remain locked inside the store after they'd clocked out at the end of their shift."

Why is this important? Well first off, anytime workers stand up for their rights, it's a good thing. But more than that, Walmart workers, with the help of campaigns like this one, provided a model for workers everywhere to protect themselves. One of the most common question we get asked here at Wake Up Walmart is why we focus solely on Walmart. The answer is partly because Walmart has a history of abusing workers, paying them poorly, not providing benefits, and being the worst offender in these categories to boot. That's not the whole reason, however. We also focus on Walmart because they are the biggest retailer in the country, and the largest private employer with 1.4 million employees. Walmart's size matters because it makes them a trendsetter in the industry. Our goal at Wake Up Walmart isn't just to stop Walmart from abusing their employees, it's to stop all companies from abusing their workers. We simply think getting Walmart to change their ways is the best way to do it. If we can change Walmart, other companies will follow.

Cantaloupes sold at Walmart stores in North Carolina, South Carolina and South Hill, VA over the weekend are being recalled due to risk of Salmonella. Anyone who bought a Cantaloupe from a Walmart store in those areas between May 10 and May 15 should throw them away.

According to the Triangle Business Journal,

"Fruit and vegetable supplier L&M Companies is recalling one lot of whole cantaloupes due to the potential for salmonella contamination.

The Raleigh company said the cantaloupes were sold between May 10 and May 15 in Wal-Mart Supercenter stores in North Carolina, South Carolina and South Hill, Va. No illnesses have been reported."

This week in Walmart news:

Walmart announced its first quarter earnings which, despite a small drop in sales, stay level as compared to last year at $3.02 billion. They also speculated that their market share was rising as they were one of the few retailers not to see losses in earnings.

In order to boost earnings for next year, Walmart has decided to begin offering $1 items, just like the McDonald's Dollar menu.

Walmart is being sued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for alleged racial discrimination against Latino employees.

In Health Care news, the New York Times has a piece up about Walmart's attempt to rebuild its failed Walk in Clinic push. Walmart has also started a mail order program for prescription drugs that many in the field worry will degrade the quality of care.

A little while back, we told you about Walmart's settlement with the Nassau County District Attorney over the fatal stampede in a New York Walmart store. The settlement included $400,000 for a victim's fund (which, if accepted by the victims, would mean they couldn't sue in a civil court) and $1.4 million that would go to county social services and nonprofits. We were a little baffled by the settlement and wondered why the victims would accept such a paltry amount, and sure enough, they weren't happy with the settlement.

The Retail Industry blog also wonders about the deal in a post about Walmart's legal troubles,

Wal-Mart agreed to spend nearly $2 million rather than be brought up on criminal charges for the trampling death of one of its employees in a Long Island Wal-Mart on Black Friday 2008. Included in the monetary settlement is $1.5 million for Nassau County social services programs and nonprofit groups.

Huh?

I'm not sure how Nassau County social services programs and nonprofit groups are connected to a Wal-Mart employee's death, nor why they should profit from the incident. One might question the integrity of the Nassau County legal system which seems to have proven that if your pockets are deep enough, you can buy your way out of criminal proceedings.

I wonder if this pay-your-way-out-of-prosecution plan is only available to publicly traded retail companies or if it will also be extended to independent mom and pop shops facing criminal charges. Is there a slding scale for exoneration?

The post also discusses the lawsuits over "Norman" the Nutria and over alleged discrimination against Latinos.

The post concludes by wondering, "Isn't it interesting to think how much lower prices could be at Wal-Mart if American consumers weren't paying all the company's legal fees, filings, and settlements? Is that just part of the price we all pay to 'save money and live better?'"

We wonder how much better Walmart could treat their associates, how much of a raise they could give each worker, how much better their health benefits might be if Walmart didn't spend so much fighting legal battles, often against employees. I guess it's just a part of the price workers pay for such a greedy corporation.

Walmart reported its first quarter sales and profits today and the stayed pretty much exactly where they were before. Walmart's sales fell slightly compared to last year, but their earnings of $3.02 billion stayed the same as they were last year. They were one of the few retailers that did well; other retailers fell victim to a lack consumer spending amid high unemployment rates and a lack of credit. Indeed, Mike Duke, Walmart's CEO said of the drop in sales, "Our customers are still concerned about economic issues. Until unemployment eases and confidence really returns, we remain cautiously optimistic about the timetable for economic recovery."

To help put Walmart's insane profits in perspective, over the last three months, Walmart made roughly $32,608,695 a day, $1,358,695 an hour and $22,644 a minute. Just remember that astounding number next time you hear someone claim Walmart can't afford decent and affordable health care, or a small raise for its employees, or a safe work environment, or American made goods, or sourcing goods from somewhere other than a sweatshop.

Here's some coverage of their first quarter numbers:

Wal-Mart posts flat net, forecasts in-line results [Reuters]

Wal-Mart Profit Is Little Changed, Meeting Estimates [Bloomberg]

Wal-Mart's Net Is Flat as U.S. Unit Bucks Recession [Wall Street Journal]

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is suing Walmart over a Sam's Club store they say, "violated federal law by compelling Latino employees to endure a hostile work environment based upon their Mexican national origin." We're not even a little bit surprised. Discrimination has long been a problem at Walmart. Whether it is against women, minorities, the disabled, or other groups, Walmart seems to have a history of illegally discriminating against people.

No one should have to deal with abuse in their workplace, in addition to being illegal, its demoralizing, mean spirited, and wrong. This snippet from the Occupational Health & Safety article sums up our feelings,

"It is appalling that an employer, after becoming aware of the harassment, allowed this type of behavior to continue without taking appropriate and corrective action," said Melissa Barrios, EEOC's Fresno local director. "The EEOC will continue to expand its presence in the Central Valley to ensure that its employers understand the magnitude of their duty to protect employees from discrimination."

Anna Park, regional attorney of the Los Angeles District Office, added, "Particularly in California, tolerance of openly racist behavior towards Latinos should be a closed page in our history books. Since such a moment has not been reached, the EEOC will pursue all available remedies, including litigation, to ensure that Central Valley employees are protected against this sort of intolerable and unlawful harassment in the workplace."

This week in Walmart news:

The fight over Walmart building a store near an important civil war battlefield in Virginia heated up with historians, politicians and actors calling for Walmart to consider a different location for the proposed store. Walmart in turn, refused to even consider a move.

A woman near New Orleans is suing Walmart because a nutria, a large beaver like rodent, was wondering around the store and she injured herself when she encountered it. Apparently the store staff knew about the animal, even nicknaming it "Norman".

Walmart's same store sales for the month of April rose five percent, more than the expected two percent, continuing their streak of doing very well in this bad economy. Despite the cheery numbers for April, Walmart announced they would stop reporting monthly sales numbers and instead only announce quarterly numbers.

The Huffington Post had a piece about Mike Duke, Walmart's new CEO, who apparently signed a controversial petition in support of a ballot initiative that would have, essentially, banned gay people from adopting children.

Walmart opened up 3 small format convenience stores in China as a test for the small format. An anonymous employee says they are considering opening up to 1,000 of the small stores in the next five years.

And finally, the Nassau county District Attorney closed the investigation of Walmart over the fatal and tragic stampede on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving last year. Walmart struck a deal with the DA to avoid admitting any fault and prosecution. In return, Walmart will institute safety standards at their stores in New York state, pay $400,000 to a victims fund, and $1.5 million to the county social services and nonprofits. The victims of the tragic event, however, were not satisfied with Walmart's deal and it sounds like they will go forward with their lawsuits against the giant retailer.

Newsday, a local New York paper is reporting that the victims of the Black Friday stampede are not happy with Walmart's offer of $400,000 in a victim's fund. As we mentioned yesterday the fund was set up as part of a deal Walmart brokered to avoid prosecution. If the Damour family and other victims of the stampede decide to accept money from the fund, they will have to waive their right to sue Walmart in a civil court, and it sounds to us like they're going to go ahead with the law suits they're planning. Here's are some of the reactions from family and friends of Jdimytai who died in the stampede,

"Nicole Jean, 60, of Rosedale, a Damour family friend, said the $400,000 available to victims doesn't begin to compensate for the loss.

"Two million? For somebody's life?" Jean asked. She added: "He was 34 years old. It's nothing! It's nothing! . . . People walked on him, breaking all his bones."

Ogera Charles, Damour's 67-year-old father, who lives in Fresh Meadows, said Damour's mother was "not doing too well" in her grief."

In December Walmart open 3 new stores in China. They weren't your typical megamarts, though, they were small format convenience stores named "Smart Choice". Reuters is reporting that this is a new pilot program that could be the beginning of hundreds of stores.

While a Walmart spokesman says they'll have to wait and see how people like the stores before deciding anything, "An unnamed company source was quoted by Chinese media saying Wal-Mart plans to open 100 of the convenience stores across China this year and 1,000 in five years."

If this program works in China, it raises the possibility that Walmart may finally find a way in to urban markets here in the US. They've been working hard to build stores in New York and Chicago recently, but so far local governments have blocked their efforts.

The investigation in to the trampling death of Jdimytai Damour at a Long Island Walmart store the day after Thanksgiving has ended. According to the Associated Press,

"Wal-Mart will establish a fund for victims and implement improved safety measures as part of a deal with New York prosecutors to avoid criminal charges stemming from the death of a worker trampled by post-Thanksgiving bargain-hunters last year."

A Walmart spokesman and the Nassau County prosecutor will hold a press conference to announce the deal today, and we'll have more details after that happens. It's worth noting that the Damour family still has a pending lawsuit against both the county and Walmart.

This was a big week in Walmart news:

Nearly 100 Walmart workers went to Washington DC to brief congressional staff and press about their wages and benefits. They then met with their senators to make the case for why they need a voice on the job and why they believe the senators should vote for the Employee Free Choice Act.

Last Friday the first article about Walmart workers organizing for a union down in Florida came out, but this week we've seen a few more good articles about their organizing efforts.

Greenpeace investigated fruit and vegetables from China and found poisonous pesticide residue in high amounts. Some of the produce they investigated came form Walmart...which is no real surprise given their connection with China.

CNBC was at a meeting about whether or not to build a local Walmart store in upstate New York. They were filming for their upcoming documentary tentatively titled The New Age of Walmart.

Apparently Walmart's booming business in these bad economic times isn't translating to good times for their suppliers. Proctor & Gamble, Kellogg and Rubbermaid all sell a big chunk of their products through Walmart, and all reported a decline in earnings this year.

Walmart repaid $1.7 million to the state of Ohio who gave them a tax credit to open an optical lab that Walmart then closed.

The Huffington Post has a great piece up about Walmart Workers for Change.

Here's an excerpt:

The Price of Freedom at Walmart

Take 6 minutes out of your day and watch a new video, Walmart Workers for Change. It shows as effectively as anything I've seen what's happened in America where we now have one set of rules for those at the top and another set for the rest of us. It also shows why Walmart workers and lots of other Americans want Republicans in Congress to stop blocking a majority vote in the Senate on the Employee Free Choice Act.

The video starts with a Walmart worker named Gary Arnold talking about how his pay and benefits are so low that "I feel like a high school kid working at McDonald's." Then Mary Watkines tells how after working for Walmart for 10 years she still makes only $11 an hour and qualifies for food stamps.

As other workers in the film point out, Walmart is the biggest company in the country, making $12 billion in profits last year despite the economic crisis. It can afford to pay a wage that supports a family.

There has been a flurry of great coverage of the unionization effort going on at Walmart stores across the country. Walmart workers are standing up and calling for a voice on the job, despite facing intimidation and hostile managers. Here are a few good articles:

Free Choice Doesn’t Need an Act: Wal-Mart Employees Rise Up Against Anti-Worker Policies Despite Fear of Management Retaliation [Barbara's Retail Industry Blog]

North Miami Beach Wal-Mart may be first to unionize [Miami Herald]

Union woos Wal-Mart workers in 17 states, LR [Arkansas Democrat Gazette]

Wal-Mart issue: Understanding the basics of labor law [Miami Herald]

Exxon Mobile took the top spot on the Fortune 500 list this year, beating out Walmart which has held the spot for six of the last seven years. Interestingly Walmart's revenue actually rose seven percent in 2008 to $405.6 billion.

Here's an excerpt from the AP story:

Exxon Mobil overtakes Wal-Mart to top Fortune 500

Exxon Mobil Corp. unseated Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in the 2009 Fortune 500 list, shrugging off the oil price bubble and weathering what the magazine called the worst year ever for the country's largest publicly traded companies.

Fortune's closely watched list, released Sunday, ranked companies by their revenue in 2008. Irving, Texas-based Exxon took in $442.85 billion in revenue last year, up almost 19 percent from 2007. The company also raked in the biggest annual profit, earning $45.2 billion.

Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart had held the top spot for six of the last seven years but fell to No. 2 this year. Still, the retail giant's 2008 revenue climbed 7 percent to $405.6 billion, as the battered economy sent more consumers searching for bargains. The world's largest retailer took in $13.4 billion in annual profit, an increase of about 5 percent.

Although it may have been a good year for Exxon and Wal-Mart, 2008 was far from rosy for most of remaining companies on the list. Overall earnings plunged 85 percent to $98.9 billion from $645 billion in 2007, the biggest one-year decline in the 55-year history of the Fortune 500 list.

"America is getting used to the sound of bubbles bursting," Fortune said.

This week in Walmart news:

The UFCW is making a push to unionize Walmart. Check out the Wall Street Journal story here.

In other union news, an arbitrator up in Canada granted Walmart workers a contract making them the only Walmart workers in North America to be represented by a union. Here's our official statement.

Walmart's same store sales declined in March, a rare low spot for them of late since bad economic times are good for Walmart. In Mexico, however, Walmart (or Walmex as it is known) is doing quite well.

Mike Duke did an interview with Today's Matt Lauer, his first interview since becoming CEO, and said that he doesn't think our economic troubles are over just yet.

Walmart has submitted plans to build a store near a civil war battlefield in Virginia. The plan would inundate the important historic site with traffic. This commenter compares it to building a Walmart next to the Washington Monument.

It looks like Walmart will significantly cut shelf space for Coke and Pepsi bottled water.

Finally, Walmart has had some issues with a few of its products this week. A six year old boy purchased a PlayStation Portable that was filled with pornography and a grilling sauce that poses a threat to those with seafood allergies was recalled from the store.

Al Norman, over at the Huffington Post, has the scoop on a recent deal in Oregon where Walmart was allowed to buy up $11 million worth of green tax credits for just $7.3 million...without doing a single thing to help the environment. I imagine that the idea behind these green tax credits was that the state giving up some revenue was an acceptable cost in order to encourage companies to do something good for the environment. But in this case, Walmart, having done nothing for the environment, just "earned" $3.7 million in reduced taxes. Put it another way, Walmart just cost the state of Oregon, and their tax payers, $3.7 million. Walmart always was good at taking advantage of tax payers.

Here's the story from the Huffington Post:

Wal-Mart Becomes Oregon's Welfare Queen

I received an email late last night from the Governor of Oregon.

I had written to Governor Ted Kulongoski asking him why the taxpayers of his state were subsidizing Wal-Mart with a $3.7 million tax break they didn't deserve. "Thank you for sharing your ideas and concerns," the Governor told me. "I believe citizen input is vital to a strong and healthy society and I urge your continued involvement."

It's doubtful that many citizens in Oregon -- which has a smart growth reputation that far exceeds its actual practice -- had input into the granting of what one newspaper called an income tax "windfall" to the world's richest retailer. The Delaware corporation just snatched a 51% return on a renewable energy tax credit that had nothing to do with renewable energy.

Taking advantage of corporate welfare is nothing new for Wal-Mart, whose employees are heavy users of Medicaid health care, earned income tax credits, and other forms of tax-supported subsidies. Over the years, Wal-Mart has taken advantage of millions of dollars in tax increment financing, job credits, and every conceivable state, federal and local subsidy available. The company has also advantaged itself by shuffling income between related companies to avoid paying state income taxes.

But this Oregon energy tax break involving Wal-Mart has left city and state officials looking foolish. According to the Beaverton Valley Times, Wal-Mart received a fat subsidy at taxpayer's expense by buying a tax credit from Solar World, a German company that makes photovoltaic solar panels. The city of Hillsborough, Oregon was able to attract this large solar production plant, and its 1,000 jobs, by offering a candy store of tax-subsidized incentives to the manufacturer. But some of the profits ended up in Wal-Mart's pocket instead, because of a bizarre arrangement that allows manufacturers to sell their tax credits to companies who are doing nothing valuable for the environment, like Wal-Mart.

According to the Valley Times, Solar World was given an $11 million renewable energy tax credit. Solar World was then allowed to turn around and sell that credit to Wal-Mart for only $7.3 million, two-thirds of its real value. The full $11 million value of the credit was 51% more than what Wal-Mart paid for it. Wal-Mart can now use the full credit to reduce its corporate income taxes on profits owed to the state, earned at Wal-Mart's 32 stores across Oregon. Wal-Mart can spread this $11 million tax credit over the next five years. Oregon taxpayers lose out on $11 million in income taxes that the corporation would have paid, and Wal-Mart makes $3.7 million for merely buying up the credit.
ars. Oregon taxpayers lose out on $11 million in income taxes that the corporation would have paid, and Wal-Mart makes $3.7 million for merely buying up the credit.

Under Oregon law, nonprofits and businesses can apply for this Business Energy Tax Credit, or BETC. The credit is known as "Betsy," and it proved to be Sweet Betsy for Wal-Mart. Solar World was able to apply for a Betsy to pay for the costs of sustainable buildings, renewable energy or other 'green' projects. Betsy pays for as much as 50% towards the first $22 million in project costs.

Even after the public found out that this renewable tax credit ended up in the pocket of Wal-Mart, the state of Oregon allowed Solar World to apply for more Betsy credits -- which have already been approved by the state -- for another $19.4 million. Solar World is now free to sell these credits also, for a total subsidy of nearly $30 million. Wal-Mart's only connection to the project is the fact that it had $7.3 million to buy up another company's credit. It's called taking credit where no credit is due.

This financing credit was designed to stimulate the development of renewable energy, and to attract jobs to Oregon. It was never intended to write down costs for retailers like Wal-Mart, whose fixation with 'green' has nothing to do with energy. One critic of the Wal-Mart deal told the Valley Times, "The BETC is a financing scheme for people with money to make money. There's this whole industry of lawyers and wealthy individuals that sells the tax credits." For Solar World, the tax credit had more value as a commodity to sell -- than as a tax break, because Solar World only pays the state minimum tax of $10 per year. The tax credit was worth little to the company -- unless they sold it. "A tax credit's only good for those people who have a tax liability," explained a representative of the Oregon Department of Energy.

It is puzzling why the state would offer a huge tax break to a manufacturing company that already pays no taxes -- but the real incentive is in the provision which allows the manufacturer to turn around and sell the credit to a company that imports cheap products from China as its mainstay -- nothing at all to do with renewable energy. The state law allows this "pass through" of the credit, which ends up having to be subsidized by state taxpayers, who may not appreciate the fact that Wal-Mart is the wealthiest retailer in the world, and should be able to operate its stores without corporate welfare. The Betsy credit that Wal-Mart bought becomes just one more advantage the big company has over smaller retailers or grocers, who could never have come up with $7.3 million to buy the credit.

The federal government also has an energy tax credit that companies can claim -- but it must all be used in the year it is claimed, and the federal credit, more sensibly, cannot be transferred to another party. Some Oregon lawmakers will cringe as they learn that Wal-Mart was the big winner here for doing nothing related to renewable energy. Lawmakers have discussed reducing the level of tax breaks available through Betsy, but the Wal-Mart deal is already done.

When a super-wealthy corporation like Wal-Mart, controlled by five of the richest people in the world, is able to use the BETC renewable energy credit to make several million off of Oregon taxpayers, its time to rethink the Betsy program, and its usefulness. Instead of allowing companies to sell these tax credits, the company investing in renewables should be given a direct cash payment that is non-transferable. Wal-Mart did nothing to deserve this form of welfare, and in fact has wasted hundreds of acres on energy-inefficient single-story buildings that encourage automobile-dependent shopping, and undermine the smart growth principles of compact, downtown development.

Governor Kulongoski should ask Wal-Mart to sell the credit back to Solar World for $7.3 million, and let Solar World keep the cash. This would save state taxpayers $3.7 million in revenues. If Wal-Mart is a good corporate citizen, they will give the windfall back to the taxpayers. If they don't, maybe Oregon shoppers will find the energy to shop elsewhere.

In the past, Walmart has sold shoes with some nasty chemicals in them that cause extreme chemical burns.

Today Walmart has recalled not one, but two shoes that they sell. The first are 'Cars' children's shoes, sold exclusively at Walmart, due to choking hazards. The second are woman's high heeled shoes that have heels that can easily detach, posing a falling hazard.

While all large corporations have to deal with recalls and sometimes sell inadvertently dangerous products, Walmart seems to have a particular history of selling dangerous products. It's probably because they focus so intently on selling things for cheap, that often times corners get cut in terms of safety and inferior products are sold.

More people may be shopping at Walmart, but that doesn't mean they like it there. According to a Consumer Reports survey that just came out, Walmart ranked near the bottom in customer satisfaction compared to other grocery retailers. Customers were particularly unsatisfied with service at the store, and perishable foods.

Here's the story from Reuters:

Shoppers prefer smaller grocers over Wal-Mart: poll

Wegmans and Trader Joe's draw top marks from shoppers while Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the largest U.S. grocery retailer, is near the bottom in a new survey, Consumer Reports said on Monday.

The rankings come at a key time for grocers, as cash-strapped consumers have been skipping trips to restaurants and buying groceries as they try to cook less expensive meals.

Besides privately held Wegmans and Trader Joe's, other chains that received high marks were Publix Super Markets Inc, Raley's, Ruddick Corp's Harris Teeter, Fareway, Costco Wholesale Corp, Whole Foods Market, Market Basket, WinCo Foods, and Stater Bros, according to Consumer Reports.

Consumer satisfaction improved since the magazine's last supermarket survey in 2005, with service, checkout speed and quality of store brands, baked goods, and produce all scoring better this year.

Still, no store was perfect.

"The few chains that were spotless, offered standout meat and produce, and had helpful and friendly staff and quick checkout earned only average scores for price, at best," according to Consumer Reports, which is published by Consumers Union, an independent nonprofit group.

Respondents said Trader Joe's, Costco, Market Basket, WinCo, Aldi Inc, and Supervalu Inc's Save-A-Lot had lower prices than peers, but were only "so-so" for perishables and service.

Wegmans and Whole Foods were better for meat and produce while Wegmans, Trader Joe's and Raley's earned high marks for service.

Wal-Mart, the chain where the highest percentage of survey respondents shopped -- 14 percent, landed near the bottom of the ratings, with low scores for service and perishables.

Discount rival Target Corp had better satisfaction scores than Wal-Mart, however it has only 200 locations with a full grocery store inside, Consumer Reports said.

The No. 1 gripe from shoppers was the lack of open checkout lanes. Wal-Mart was the worst offender: Half of the respondents who shopped there complained about not having enough open lanes.

Shoppers also groused about congested aisles and out-of-stock advertised specials.

One-third of all respondents reported that they had switched stores as they searched for lower prices.

Consumer Reports asked 32,599 respondents about visits to supermarkets, supercenters or warehouse clubs in the past year. The ratings included information from 48,831 store visits.

While we're on the international business front, we thought we'd highlight some news that came out last week about Seiyu, Walmart's Japanese subsidiary. Seiyu failed to pull a profit for the seventh year in a row, and will be closing down twelve of its locations. Seven years ago, coincidentally (or maybe not) happens to be the time when Walmart entered the Japanese market.

As way of background, Walmart partnered with Seiyu in 2002 and gradually bought up more of the company through the years. Last year, Walmart bought the remaining four percent of the company claiming they needed more 'flexibility' to run the company (we remarked then that apparently owning only 96% of Seiyu wasn't enough). It seems owning the entire company isn't enough either.

Here's the story from Japan Today:

Seiyu falls into red for 7th year; to close 12 stores

Supermarket chain operator Seiyu Ltd posted a net loss of 25.79 billion yen for the year ended in December 2008 as it remained mired in the red for the seventh straight year, according to earnings results posted in a government gazette Monday. As part of its restructuring steps announced in September, the company will shut down 12 more stores as of Tuesday to stem ballooning losses due to sluggish spending amid the recession, company officials said.

The firm also reported an operating profit of 156 million yen and logged a pretax loss of 4.76 billion yen on interest and other expenses. In addition to nine stores that have already been shut down, the latest step to close another 12, including one in Iwamizawa, Hokkaido, will nearly complete its plan to eliminate around 20 stores, or about 5% of its outlet network, by mid-2009.

Seiyu has been trying to get back on track since entering its capital tieup with Wal-Mart.

Sales have shown signs of improvement since late last year after Seiyu launched aggressive price-cutting campaigns, increasingly popular among price-conscious consumers, a Seiyu official said.

While Walmart's center is clearly here in the US, the company is making a slow creep across the world. They've made quite a bit of headway in Mexico and are committed to expanding in Latin America. Walmart has expressed interest in moving in to Russia and from there the former soviet states in Eastern Europe. Walmart has a rather successful outfit in China, and a decidedly less successful branch in Japan. And, come May, Walmart will open its first store in India. In fact, they will open three stores in the next year or so in the North of India. They will all be in partnership with the Bharti company because India has laws barring foreign retailers from setting up stores in the country. We'll be interested to see how the stores do. There has been quite a bit of protest to the idea of a mass retailer like Walmart operating in India where markets with independent vendors has been the norm.

Here's the article from NewWire18 via LiveMint.com:

Bharti Wal-Mart to roll out first store in May

Bharti Wal-Mart Pvt. Ltd, a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and Wal-Mart Stores Inc, will open its first wholesale cash-and-carry store in Amritsar in May, Bharti Enterprises vice-chairman and managing director, Rajan Bharti Mittal told NewsWire18 on Monday.
“In all, three cash-and-carry stores will be opened this year (2009-10, Apr-Mar), all in the north,” he said on the sidelines of the national executive meeting of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
Bharti Enterprises and Wal-Mart Stores had set up the joint venture company in August 2007 for wholesale cash-and-carry and back-end supply chain management operations in India.
Bharti Retail, another Bharti Enterprise subsidiary, has opened 26 stores in Punjab and Haryana so far, and will soon venture into Rajasthan and National Capital Region, he said. Bharti Retail opened its first store in April last year. The company is not fast-tracking retail store rollouts despite fall in rentals over last few months.
“Rentals have come down 25-30%, already. But that’s not the only factor.
Fixing back-end is more important. Further, there have been delays in real estate projects as well,” said Mittal.
He also said there has been some slowdown in sale of lifestyle products over past few months, but consumer goods of ”day-to-day” usage have not been affected much.

This week in Walmart news:

There are more rumors that Walmart or Sam's Club may be carrying a Chinese brand electric car, made in Mexico.

The Labour Relations Board of Saskatchewan ruled against Walmart in a union certification case.

The Guatemalan fast food chicken chain Pollo Campero closed its test location in Walmart.

Reuters reports that Walmart is selling more to higher income customers.

Walmart is looking to expand in Latin America, following up on their success in Mexico. There were also details release about Walmarts future investment in Brazil.

In more international news, Seiyu, Walmart's Japanese subsidiary, has failed to make money for the seventh year.

Pistachio were recalled across the country due to a salmonella risk. Walmart and Sam's Choice brand pistachio are affected.

Walmart is also looking to expand its online PR. They've just hired R/GA to expand Walmart's "Save Money. Live Better" message. Advertising Age wrote an analysis about their PR push.

As a follow up to our post on Walmart's expansion in Latin America a few days back, we just saw this article with a few more details about Walmart's investment in Brazil. Despite the poor economy around the world, Walmart plans to open 90 new stores in Brazil this year. Last year they invested $7.4 billion, U.S., which was a significant increase from 2007.

We'll keep an eye out for more details from other Latin American countries.

For now, check out this article from China View:

Wal-Mart to increase investments in Brazil

The Brazilian branch of U.S. department store chain Wal-Mart announced on Tuesday that it will keep investing in Brazil, despite the international financial crisis' impact on the country's economy.

According to the Brazilian branch president, Hector Nunez, Wal-Mart's investments in Brazil will reach 1.6 billion reais (695 million U.S. dollars) this year. The company intends to open 90 new stores in the country, which will generate about 10,000 new jobs.

Despite the crisis, Wal-Mart registered revenues of 17 billion reais (7.4 billion U.S. dollars) in 2008, up 17.1 percent from 2007.

"It was a growth above the world average, which was of 6 percent," he said, adding the 2009 will be a good year for the company.

"Brazil will keep on growing, we will keep on investing and this global economic crisis will have to end someday," Nunez said.

Besides its main brand, Wal-Mart also owns other five smaller supermarket and department store chains in Brazil. The company also owns two drugstore chains.

Down in Texas, Walmart has been sued for, allegedly, illegally detaining a customer and causing him physical injury. Michael Anthony Harris was thrown to the ground and handcuffed by a Walmart employee after they accused him of shoplifting. They refused to let him leave, even after he gave them his bag, but instead insisted he stay until the police came. When the police did arrive, Harris' injuries were so bad that they took him directly to a hospital.

Of you follow this blog, you'll know that this is certainly not the first time this has happened. Walmart, for reasons unknown, has recently become very harsh with anyone they even suspect of theft or shoplifting. There have been a few deaths from over zealous loss prevention officers, as well as several cases of serious injury from run ins with security guards.

Here's the article from the Southeast Texas Record:

Alleged shoplifter sues Wal-Mart over forceful detention

A Port Arthur man has filed suit against Wal-Mart, claiming he was injured when store employees accused him of shoplifting and used force to detain him.

Michael Anthony Harris claims he was shopping at the Wal-Mart located at 4999 Twin City Highway in Port Arthur on March 13 and paid at a register in the back portion of the store.

Harris alleges he was leaving the store through its front entrance, when he was confronted by four Wal-Mart employees, including defendant David Treml.

The employees accused Harris of having items in his bags for which he did not pay, according to the complaint filed March 25 in Jefferson County District Court. Harris claims he immediately handed the bags to the employees.

"Plaintiff said, 'Just take the bag and let me go,'" the suit states.

However, the employees would not let Harris leave the store until police arrived, the complaint says.

Harris alleges workers then threw him to the floor and placed him in handcuffs.

"Plaintiff's arms were violently jerked as one of the employees secured Plaintiff with handcuffs," the suit states. "Defendants had no legal authority or justification to detain plaintiff."

According to the complaint, Harris asked the employees to release him from the handcuffs because of his pain, but the employees refused to do so until the police arrived several moments later.

When a police officer arrived, Harris claims the officer recognized the severity of his injury and immediately transported Harris to the hospital. Harris states he was told he had a dislocated shoulder.

Because of the incident, Harris claims he incurred medical costs and experienced physical pain and suffering, physical impairment, disfigurement, mental anguish and fear of a future disease or illness.

The plaintiff alleges Wal-Mart and Treml committed acts of negligencee, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, assault and vicarious liability.

Harris is seeking unspecified exemplary damages, pre-judgment interest at the maximum rate allowed by law, post-judgment interest at the legal rate, costs and other relief the court deems just.

He will be represented by Langston Scott Adams of Port Arthur.

The case has been assigned to Judge Milton Shuffield, 136th District Court.

The Latin Business Chronicle is reporting that Walmart is looking to expand in to Latin America this year. Apparently Walmart has announced that it will open stores in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Chile and Puerto Rico. It looks like Walmart will begin setting up stores, or merging with existing stores to begin capturing pieces of the retail market in the countries, particularly the grocery market. According to the article, Walmart may also try to offer credit to its customers. Walmart hasn't been able to break in to the banking business here in the US, but it has started offering more banking services to customers in Mexico.

We wonder if Walmart will treat its Latin American employees any better than it treats its American associates. We also wonder what effect Walmart will have on these local economies. What do you think?

Here's the article from the Latin Business Chronicle:

Wal-Mart's Next Conquest: Latin America

Last May, Michael Bergdahl, former director of human resources at Wal-Mart, told the First Global Forum on Customer Service in Santiago, Chile, “Our strategy of low prices has become a competitive advantage for us. So long as our competition focuses on how much they can get for their products, we focus on how little we can get for ours.” According to Bergdahl, this strategy generated revenues of about $13 billion in 2007, and in 2008, “we open a new store each day, and each week, 176 million customers buy from our stores.”

This year, disruptions from the global financial crisis have forced retailers to discard their earnings forecasts and alter their plans for investment and expansion. Nevertheless, Wal-Mart has emerged unscathed, and has even continued to grow. In February, the company announced its results for 2008, during which it registered $13.4 billion in income -- an increase of 5.2 percent from 2007. That’s quite an achievement in times like these.

CONQUERING LATIN AMERICA

Taking advantage of its strong performance in Brazil and Mexico, Wal-Mart has now undertaken the massive task of conquering the rest of Latin America. The company announced that this year, it will open stores in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Chile and Puerto Rico.

For Claudio Aqueveque, a professor at the business school of Adolfo Ibáñez University in Chile, the current recession represents an opportunity for Wal-Mart. “The problems our region is facing this year will lead to major changes in the behavior of consumers, associated with a greater sensitivity to price; and this means tuning in to [Wal-Mart’s] low-price strategy.”

Nevertheless, Jagmohan S. Raju, a professor of marketing at Wharton, warns that “Wal-Mart will have to face competition from local retailers who can operate on smaller margins and provide more personalized services than the U.S. retailer can offer.”

Alvaro Escobar, professor of economics and management at the University of Concepción in Chile, adds that Wal-Mart also could face barriers of a cultural and economic nature while expanding in Latin America. “Each country is a completely different market, with very dissimilar economic realities. So the great challenge for the multinational will be to figure out how to deal with the recession in each nation.”

CREATING DEMAND

According to Pablo Naranjo, a professor of business at the Adolfo Ibáñez University, income distribution in Latin America has deteriorated a great deal in recent years. “If the current crisis is affecting every layer of society, the most disadvantaged segments of the population are looking for more access to credit in order to stay afloat, especially when it comes to food.”

Naranjo adds, “Wal-Mart can be an attractive alternative for the population because of its leadership in [low] costs. But it will have to accompany its supply [of low-cost products] with options for credit, as it has done in Chile, for example.” He notes that when Wal-Mart recently bought D&S -- an important regional player that owns the Líder supermarket chain -- it set up a credit card known as the Presto Card, which can be used not only by consumers in Lider supermarkets but in other areas of business such as pharmacies, banking and travel agencies. “This approach would appear to be a good way to get closer to the reality of the country,” Naranjo says.

According to Aqueveque, Wal-Mart can take advantage of other opportunities related to the anticipated economic growth of the region. “Projections call for higher growth in developing countries [as a whole]. In fact, Wal-Mart’s financial results in Latin America in 2008 -- especially in Brazil and Mexico -- were quite positive compared with its operations in the rest of the world, so it seems to be a sure bet that the company will deepen its presence in the region.”

Nevertheless, Naranjo warns that in coming months Wal-Mart will have to overcome significant economic barriers. “With the economic outlook deteriorating, there will be less demand for products and services, and there are clear signs of rising unemployment, which affects consumers’ income. So, Wal-Mart will have to fight to maintain its plan [for expansion]. Along parallel lines, it will have to compete vigorously with other retailers that are already established in each country, and who are facing [their own] battle to survive these days.”

David J. Reibstein, professor of marketing at Wharton, agrees: “Although Wal-Mart is well-known for guaranteeing the lowest price on the market, it will face a tough competitive environment in Latin American countries because, in each one of them, it will have to create sufficient critical demand to justify a high volume and rotation of its products.” Given the current economic conditions, it will be very hard to achieve that, Reibstein notes.

MERGER POSSIBILITIES

According to Escobar, one of the most attractive opportunities for Wal-Mart is to grow by acquiring supermarket chains at competitive prices, as the retailer has done in Chile. In January, Wal-Mart bought 58.2 percent of the shares of D&S. “In the rest of Latin America, [Wal-Mart] will have to repeat the same strategy, or at least try to do so,” Escobar says.

Raju notes that “the crisis seems to be helping Wal-Mart but taking a toll on its competitors.” Naranjo agrees. “Without doubt, [Wal-Mart] has a great opportunity to take advantage of the credit-market collapse that other competitors have suffered from, and it can go on to make mergers and acquisitions, incorporating the financing solutions that those companies have already developed.”

Nevertheless, Naranjo says, this game involves some very tough practical challenges, such as managing a new company in a foreign language, installing more up-to-date business software, and maintaining the credit portfolios of local customers “who may be paying their bills later and later as a result of [rising] job losses in the middle and lower classes.”

Naranjo adds that if Wal-Mart manages to maintain the supply of credit offered by its “recently acquired competitors,” its strategy could work. “Credit generates forced loyalty; since the Latin American consumer today is not in a position to pay off his entire bill, he pays off only as much as he can. He continues to buy using credit; he continues to increase his debt, and he is forced to use credit again and again. In short, this source of credit is, in many cases, the only source [of credit] that people can currently obtain.”

ECONOMIES OF SCALE

Aqueveque notes that Wal-Mart also has in its favor the relative cultural homogeneity of the countries in questions. “This can be a positive thing for taking advantage of some product sectors and categories, and for generating regional economies of scale.”

Naranjo disagrees with that assessment, however. In his opinion, each country has its own pattern of consumption, and this will present an important challenge for the U.S. giant. “My impression is that Wal-Mart is still struggling to understand the Latin American consumer and his various ways of buying, which are constantly changing and depend a great deal on the economic instability of each country, which is exacerbated today by the global economic slowdown.”

For Wal-Mart to succeed in the region, “It must recognize the differences between consumers in each country, and stop thinking about Latin American culture as a single entity,” Naranjo says. “To achieve that, it will have to rely on the experience of its business partners in each country.”

POWER OF LOGISTICS

During the Chilean forum, Bergdahl said that logistics management has been a key factor behind Wal-Mart’s strong performance. This includes its modern distribution centers, its rapid turnover of inventory and its fleet of 7,000 trucks. “Our trucks arrived at New Orleans days before the U.S. government did, during the disastrous Katrina hurricane,” which battered the southern United States in August 2005, he noted.

Escobar agrees that Wal-Mart’s mastery of logistics is an important source of strength for the company. However, he argues that the retailer will need to pay even more attention to logistical elements if it wants to increase its presence in the Latin American market.

“The retailer’s business model, supported by its almost perfect logistics, will be difficult to emulate in our region,” Naranjo says. “Having a large number of shops and outlets [in Latin America] means facing a gigantic task in terms of managing assets.” One challenge he alludes to in particular is the delay in infrastructure development that characterizes Latin American countries.

REPLICATE STRATEGY

Aqueveque sees other opportunities for Wal-Mart’s growth. The giant retailer has successfully developed a multi-format strategy in its shops in Brazil and Mexico that it can replicate in other countries. This strategy involves moving into the supermarket business, shopping malls, department stores and financial services. In addition, “[Wal-Mart] can move into the pharmaceutical sector, as it has in the United States,” he says.

All that, says Naranjo, will mean significant costs for the retailer in terms of financing and human resources. However, Wal-Mart could compensate for that by achieving a high return on its investment while balancing the risks described above.

Bergdahl added during his Chilean forum presentation that “Wal-Mart manages to save its customers $2.5 billion in food costs each year, compared with other retailers.” Time will tell if the company will be able to provide the same benefit to its customers in Latin America.

This week in Walmart news:

Perhaps the biggest story this week is that a court is hearing, new oral arguments on the Dukes v Walmart case, the largest gender discrimination case in the US. The Wall Street Journal writes about its import and the effect it could have on future cases while both sides remain hopeful that they will come out on top.

In other legal news a woman is suing Walmart for $1.2 million after their pharmacy mislabeled her prescription. She took too much of the medicine because of the faulty label and her heart stopped several times.

After nine years, Walmart has finally begun talking the the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in Texas. A deli department in a Walmart store coted to form a union nine years ago, but instead of recognizing the union, Walmart shut down the deli, opting to only sell prepackaged meat. In fact, they shut down all of their delis in the state.

Walmart has started a new brand of home furnishing for teens called Your Zone. According to their release, "Your Zone provides a platform for teens to create their own space and express their evolving personality," because nothing says self expression like a big box store.

Following their home office layoffs last month, Walmart has shut down an optical lab in central Ohio, laying off 650 employees.

Finally, there have been lots and lots and lots of stories about theft and crime at Walmart. There are even more stories, but we think you get the idea.

You can always check all the stories we're watching over on Twitter. We follow all the news about Walmart and keep up with the current conversation about Walmart too. Check us out!

Via the Chloregy blog, we learned that BBMG just conducted a study of consumers about green products. BBMG found that while people are still concerned about the environment and want to buy environmentally responsible products, they tend not to believe claims about products.

Of particular interest was that when asked to name companies that are the most and least socially responsible, consumers named Walmart the most in both categories. In other words people think of Walmart as a responsible company and the height of an irresponsible company. We're guessing this was probably two distinct groups of people, but it highlights that Walmart's greenwashing PR is working, at least for some of the population.

Here's the post from the Chloregy blog:

Nearly one in four U.S. consumers (23%) say they have "no way of knowing" if a product is green or actually does what it claims, signaling a lack of confidence in green marketing and revealing a widespread "green trust gap," according to the BBMG Conscious Consumer Report: Redefining Value in a New Economy, the second national study on purchasing behavior and social values by branding and marketing agency BBMG.

Consumers' lack of trust does not mean lack of interest. The BBMG report finds that 77 percent of Americans agree that they "can make a positive difference by purchasing products from socially or environmentally responsible companies," and they are actively seeking information to verify green claims. Consumers are most likely to turn to consumer reports (29%), certification seals or labels on products (28%) and the list of ingredients on products (27%) to determine if a product is green and does what it claims. Consumers are least likely to look to statements on product packaging (11%) and company advertising (5%), signaling deep skepticism of company-driven marketing.

"The economic crisis has created a moment of reflection where consumers are redefining what truly matters and evaluating purchases based on both value and values," said Raphael Bemporad, co-founder of BBMG, an agency working at the intersection of branding, sustainability and innovation. "This is a moment for leadership. By delivering on the multiple dimensions of value - price, performance and purpose - brands will be able to close the green trust gap, weather the economic storm and thrive in the sustainable economy of the future."

Findings from the BBMG Conscious Consumer Report (2009):

* Interest in Green Holds Despite Tough Economy. Nearly seven in ten Americans agree (67%) that "even in tough economic times, it is important to purchase products with social and environmental benefits," and half (51%) say they are "willing to pay more" for them.

* Price and Performance Still Paramount, But Green Gains Ground. Price (66% very important) and quality (64%) top consumers' list of most important product attributes, followed by good for your health (55%) and made in the USA (49%). But green benefits have increased in importance since last year - including energy efficiency (47% very important in 2008, 41% in 2007), locally grown or made nearby (32% in 2008, 26% in 2007), all natural (31% in 2008, 24% in 2007), made from recycled materials (29% in 2008, 22% in 2007) and USDA organic (22% in 2008, 17% in 2007).

* Wal-Mart Tops List of Most and Least Socially Responsible Companies. When asked unaided which companies come to mind as the most socially or environmentally responsible companies, 7 percent of Americans named Wal-Mart, followed by Johnson & Johnson (6%), Procter & Gamble (4%), GE (4%) and Whole Foods (3%). Wal-Mart also topped the list of the least responsible companies (9%), along with Exxon Mobile (9%), GM (3%) and Ford (3%), Shell (2%) and McDonald's (2%). Interestingly, 41% of Americans could not name a single company that they consider the most socially and environmentally responsible.

* Consumers Reward, Punish and Influence Based on Corporate Practices. Seven in ten consumers (71%) agree that they "avoid purchasing from companies whose practices they disagree with"; and approximately half tell others to shop (55%) or drop (48%) products based on a company's social and environmental practices.

"At a time of radical transparency and a growing demand for accountability, consumers are rewarding brands that align with their values, punishing those that don't—and spreading the word with their family, friends and peers," said Mitch Baranowski, co-founder of BBMG. "Brands can close the trust gap by telling authentic stories and empowering a consumer tribe to share ideas, experiences and influence."

We've always known that there was a problem with Walmart and crime. Their parking lots tend to be a particularly high crime area, and while many Walmarts have security cameras (usually for spying on employees they suspect are talking about unions), they tend not to be monitored. Moreover, Walmart does not patrol their parking lots, despite evidence that patrols could dramatically reduce the crime that happens there. Check out the Walmart Crime Report website we put together for more information.

Why do we bring this up now? We've noticed a dramatic increase in stories about theft and violence at Walmart. In the last few days we've seen stories about arrests in the store, hold ups at gun point and knife point in the parking lots, police looking for suspects, and more.

This is probably a result of the poor economy, but it is still troublesome. Walmart should have a security guard patrolling their parking lots occasionally (not a lot to ask, really) for the sake of their employees and customers, but I think we all know that isn't likely to happen.

This week in Walmart news:

There have been several stories about companies stepping up to challenge Walmart for a larger portion of the market. First Target decided to offer more items they consider recession proof in order to compete with Walmart. Then Best Buy stepped up and announced that with Circuit City out of the way, they considered Walmart their big competition.

Walmart announced that they would open two new store that would cater specifically to Hispanic communities. The stores are dubbed Supermercado de Walmart.

Walmart's PR department was busy this week, announcing that they were revamping their store brand to take advantage of customers who are trading down. They also announced they were cutting prices on eyeglasses and contacts.

Also on the PR front, Walmart made a big, flashy announcement that they would be giving $2 billion to hourly employees in the form of bonuses, discounts, and contributions to 401(k) and profit sharing programs. We put out an official statement about the 'bonuses' and got a few good quotes in subsequent news stories.

Someone started a rumor that a gang would shoot three females outside a Walmart and text messages warning of the possible event spread around the country. The rumor proved to be little more than an urban legend or hoax.

Lastly, the Obama administration and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have sided with the women suing Walmart in the largest sexual discrimination class action law suit in history. Walmart has attempted to argue that the class action status denies them the right to defend themselves against each case individually.

Today Walmart announced that it would be giving $2 billion to its hourly employees through bonuses, profit sharing programs and 401(k) retirement programs. It sounds great, and it's a step in the right direction for Walmart, but we took a look at the details and found it sorely lacking.

Here's the statement we put out to the press. We'll have more about this story as we get more research in.

For Immediate Release: March 19, 2009

THE TRUTH ABOUT WALMART'S BONUSES
Statement from WakeUpWalmart.com

Today, Walmart announced that they would pay around $2 billion to their hourly workers through direct bonuses, merchandise discounts, contributions to 401(k) retirement plans and profit sharing plans. While acknowledging that any money in workers’ pockets is a good thing in this economy, WakeUpWalmart.com today reminded shoppers that America’s largest private employer can do better.

"Like most things with Walmart, the devil is in the details," said WakeUpWalmart.com director Meghan Scott. "Four-hundred dollars in the pockets of Walmart workers is a nice gesture, but if Walmart really wants to help their workers move forward in a tough economy, it would offer more than a one-time payment – it would raise wages. Walmart’s 1.4 million workers are the backbone of our economy and they can't survive on 20 hours a week, unaffordable health care and virtually no retirement security. In the midst of crucial public debate over the Employee Free Choice Act, one might question Walmart’s timing and motives.

"As the America's largest retailer with billions in profits, Walmart has the power to raise the floor for all American workers. Today's news is encouraging but Walmart has a responsibility to do more."

According to news reports, Wal-Mart said they are giving $933.6 million in bonuses to their hourly workers.

A WakeUpWalmart.com analysis today found that if all of Walmart's American workers received a bonus, each person would receive around $666 on average.

However, calls from Walmart workers around the country reveal that many received far less than that average. Cynthia Murray, a full-time Walmart worker in Laurel, Maryland, reported that she got a bonus of $169.39. Another full-time associate in Wilton, New York, received $423.

Using Walmart's own figures, a full-time employee at 34 hours per week, making the average wage of $10.86 per hour, will earn $19,200.48 per year. The federal government’s definition of poverty for a family of four is $21,200.

###

Coming on the heels of Target's announcement that they would begin to carry 'recession proof' goods and try to capture some of the market share from Wal-Mart, Best Buy announces that Wal-Mart is their target too. Now that Circuit City has gone out of business, Best Buy has turned its attention to Wal-Mart.

It is, of course, only natural for businesses to want a piece of what Wal-Mar has. They're doing absurdly well in this economy. We just wonder if all these challengers are all talk, or if they'll have any effect.

Best Buy's incoming CEO has been touring stores and will attempt to make branches of Best Buy more interactive to compete with Wal-Mart's prices.

Here's the story from MediaPost:

Best Buy is preparing to fend off Wal-Mart's brutal price competition by giving consumers stores that are more interactive, Miguel Bustillo reports. Instead of being wowed simply by low prices, customers will be able to step into the world of a new videogame or see their faces captured by a high-definition video camera.

The effort will be lead by current COO Brian Dunn, who takes over as CEO in June. A onetime Best Buy stereo salesman, he still believes that the best retail innovations come from front-line workers, and he has embarked on a tour of stores in search of inspiration for remodeling plans that he sees as a way to differentiate the retailer from competitors. "We want our stores to morph into a series of experiences," he says.

Dunn says he intends to win customers by matching Wal-Mart on prices, and to build on Best Buy's existing strategy of helping customers navigate increasingly complicated technology. The key will be making the most of Best Buy's tech-savvy sales force, he feels.

We just thought you'd like to know that Bank of America is using your tax payer money to subsidize Wal-Mart and other big box stores:

Bank of America's Stimulus For Wal-Mart & Target

The head of the embattled Bank of America told members of the Boston College Chief Executive Officers Club this week that his company is now making money.

"Bank of America should generate more than $100 billion in revenue this year," said CEO Ken Lewis, "and close to $50 billion in pre-tax, pre-provision earnings. That kind of cash flow can solve a lot of problems, given time and an improving U.S. economy." Lewis added that his company won't need more money from the U.S. taxpayers than the $45 billion it has already received from the Treasury's bank recapitalization program (a.k.a. Troubled Asset Relief Program). "While some banks may need more public support in the future," Lewis promised, "I don't believe we will."

Bank of America used around $20 billion of loan money to acquire Merrill Lynch. But the bank has made its first dividend payment on its TARP loan back to taxpayers. "Bank of America already made our first payment of $400 million on February 17," Lewis told the CEOs gathered at Boston College. "Our goal is to pay back the TARP funds as soon as we possibly can."

Indeed, the bank appears to be so confident in its future that it is giving some money back directly to its customers. Branch offices of the Bank of America are distributing fliers announcing the corporation's new "Add It Up" program, which gives cash back to customers who shop at select big box stores like Wal-Mart, Target and Home Depot. The giant bank is not only planning to pay back Uncle Sam as soon as possible, but it will also give cash back to people who buy Chinese imports at Wal-Mart. The Bank's stock may have been rolled back more than 80% over the past year, but customers can still make a deal if they shop at chain stores like Dick's, Sears, Staples and Sam's Club.

According to Bank of America, the Add It Up program "maximizes your purchasing power by giving you cash back awards when you make purchases at participating retailers using your registered Bank of America credit or check card." Once a customer signs up for the program, they receive an email notification to start shopping either online or in-store at over "250 leading retailers." You have to use your Bank of America card, of course, when you make the purchase, but if a $250 camera is being sold at a retailer's discount price of $200, and the retailer and the Bank have agreed to a 4% cash back---you get $8 back. Cash back earnings are then credited to your checking or credit card account.

You can only be linked to retailer sites through the Bank of America Add It Up website. Online purchases made at participating Retailers by going directly to the retailer's website, rather than going through the Add It Up website, will not earn any Add It Up cash. If you shop online at Walmart.com you earn 2% cash back per dollar spent. If you shop at Target's website, you earn 4% cash back per dollar spent. If a customer enrolls by July 12, 2009, Bank of America will match 100% of the cash back rebate for 45 days after the date of enrollment. The maximum total match that may be accrued during the double cash back rebate period is $250 per customer for all enrolled cards.

This somewhat clunky, bureaucratic Add It Up rebate program really adds up to little more than a promotion of Bank of America credit cards, and shopping at big box or national logo stores. It's not surprising that America's largest bank can only set up deals with America's largest merchants. The program includes Apple, Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, Bloomingdales, Borders, Dell, Gap, Home Depot, Kmart, Kohl's, Lord & Taylor, Macys, Office Depot, Staples, Target, Saks, Sam's Club, Sears, Wal-Mart, and other giant retail chains. The Add It Up program is just one more inducement for shoppers to skip over their local merchants, who are not big enough for Bank of America to bother with.

But this blackout of local businesses is exactly the reason why Add It Up does not compute on Main Street. After taxpayers gave Bank of America a gigantic stimulus payment, the corporation turned around and created a stimulus program for many of the companies who already have the advantage of scale over the smaller retailers. There are probably many logistical reasons why Bank of America is unable to interface with local merchants, or help out the independent business owner who feels forgotten by the Big Bank. But in the end, Add It Up ignores almost all of the businesses that make up the backbone of Small Town, U.S.A. Add It Up displays one of the weaknesses of the megabank---it's inability to participate in the life of grassroots America.

Wal-Mart does not need the help of Bank of America, but many of the small towns that host a Bank of America branch, do. Instead of helping big boxes get bigger, Bank of America should come up with a Main Street Program that provides low-cost capital or bridge loans to the little businesses or retail start ups--like the $20,000 loan Sam Walton used to buy his first Ben Franklin store in Newport, Arkansas.

Ken Lewis is right: Bank of America can solve lots of problems. But subsidizing Wal-Mart isn't one of them.

Today Forbes released their list of the World's Billionaires and, surprise, surprise, the Walton family is still on it! Not only are the on the list, but they have jumped up in rank significantly. Put together the family's fortunes and they would easily top the list.

Last year the four children of Sam Walton all held ranks in the world's billionaires list. Jim, Christy and Rob Walton tied to the humber 26 rank (all with a worth of $19.2 billion) and Alice Walton came in at number 29 with $19 billion. This year the four rank numbers eleven through fourteen. Their worth has decreased slightly (Jim is now worth $17.8 billion while the other three are all worth $17.6) but in comparison to others on the list, they have lost very little. Bill gates, who tops the list, is now worth $40 billion down from $58 billion a year ago. Warren Buffet (number 2) lost $25 billion and is now worth $37 billion. Of course if you add up the Walton's fortune it comes out to a staggering $70.6 billion, easily topping Gate or Buffet.

Of course there's nothing wrong with being absurdly rich like the Waltons. No, our issues is more that this money, mostly coming from Wal-Mart stores, is made off the backs of mistreated employees and the poor. The Waltons are more than happy to keep the billions Wal-Mart reaps for them, but they should also step up and take responsibility for the negative impact the company has. They should demand that Wal-Mart treat its employees well, pay them a living wage and offer them adequate benefits. They should demand that Wal-Mart stop using sweatshops and exploiting workers around the world. And they should demand that Wal-Mart not cut hours and layoff workers.

Wal-Mart has set off what is being described as a 'massive' public relations review. It seems they are looking for a new company to represent them to focus on online market and social media, and various other duties that come along with working for the world's largest retailer. It's not clear if the new agency will replace Wal-Mart's current agency, Edelman, but the job will be 'significant'.

We're not sure what set this review in to motion. Perhaps it's just the new CEO shaking things up. Or, perhaps it's the hugely public and all to frequent PR nightmares Wal-Mart has faced in the last few years. We're talking about things like the tragic death of Jdimytai Damour in a stampede on Black Friday, or the case of Debbie Shank who was left permanently brain damaged by a car accident and then was sued by Wal-Mart to reimburse their already bloated coffers, or when Wal-Mart held mandatory meetings to tell their employees not to vote for President Obama or democrats, or when Wal-Mart dropped it's production company who then started selling previously secret tapes.

Regardless of who Wal-Mart's PR company is, we expect them to keep spinning Wal-Mart's actions on health care and the environment.

Reuters has an article about how citigroup has changed its advice from 'buy' to 'hold' for Wal-Mart stock because of the potential for Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. Citi speculates that the new law would lead to a unionized Wal-Mart which would lead to higher labor costs and lower profits. We're not totally sure the Employee Free Choice Act would lead to unionization. Wal-Mart has proven that they respond quickly and viciously when they feel there is a threat of unionization. They fire or threaten employees, forestall organizing by any means necessary (including spying on associates) and simply refuse to negotiate with workers if they do choose a union. They've gone as far as simply shutting down stores to avoid giving their employees a voice on the job.

More to the point, however, is that Wal-Mart isn't going to be irreparably damaged if they have to pay their employees a little better and provide them with adequate benefits. In fact, a study done at the University of California at Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Education showed that Wal-Mart could raise it's minimum wage for all 1.4 million American employees to $10 an hour and it would have little effect on the company. Likewise, Wal-Mart could easily provide adequate and affordable health care with little effect on their profits. Wal-Mart made over $12 billion in profits last year. They can afford to take care of their employees the way they say they do.

Welcome to the first installment of Wake Up Wal-Mart's weekly news roundup, where we recap the week in Wal-Mart news. Fridays are a good day to look back on the week and reflect on all that has happened. Here then, is what's been going on with the world's largest retailer:

There was a rash of violence associated with Wal-Mart this week. A shooting outside a Wal-Mart in Arizona left one dead and another wounded, the suspect in the case then killed himself when police pulled him over. Another shooting in Florida City sent one woman to the hospital. Wal-Mart also sold ammunition after 11 pm, against store policies, which lead to two deaths. Wal-Mart later destroyed the surveillance tapes that showed the transaction.

On the stranger side of news, a man found 10 human teeth in a wallet he was going to purchase at a Wal-Mart. Another man, upset that his wife had been injured at a Wal-Mart, climbed in to the rafters of his local store and began cutting down banners and yelling at employees and police officers. An escape artist nicknamed "Little Houdini" escaped from police after stealing a Wal-Mart truck and several other vehicles, including a tour bus.

On the site fight front, Wal-Mart is looking to build in New York City (in Union Square, no less...oh the irony) and Chicago, but aren't likely to make much headway. Wal-Mart also lost their battles to build in Blacksburg, Virginia and Leslieville in Ontario, Canada.

Lastly, Wal-Mart has been doing quite well even in this rough economy. This week they announced that their same store sales for the month of February were up 5.1%. Their board also decided to increase the payment of dividends associated with the company's stock by 15%.

Today Wal-Mart announced their same store sales numbers for the month of February. You probably wouldn't be surprised to hear that most companies aren't doing well in this economy. Wal-Mart, however, remains the exception. Wal-Mart's sales rose just over five percent compared to last year. Wal-Mart's sales also increased nearly ten percent internationally. Yes indeed, as their Chief Financial Officer once said, "tough times are actually a good time for Wal-Mart." Adding to the cheery news, Wal-Mart announced that they would increase the dividend their stock pays to shareholders by fifteen percent.

It would seem, then, that Wal-Mart is doing pretty well. Their shareholders are being rewarded. No doubt their new CEO will be making a salary in the tens of millions plus bonuses and the like. How about the workers, though? How has the company rewarded the more than one million Americans that make the company so successful? Well, there have been layoffs at the home office, and, from what we've heard, massive cutbacks in hours across the country. Also, since the company is doing so well, these lucky associates also still have to deal with poor pay, inadequate or unaffordable benefits, poor treatment and discrimination.

If Wal-Mart were truly serious about taking care of their associates and treating employees like family, they'd improve on some of these areas since they are doing so well at the moment.

While Wal-Mart has been the undisputed victor in this economy, they may soon have a challenger in Target. While the two have been long time competitors, Target is now changing their strategy to more closely mirror Wal-Mart's. Targets CEO said recently that due to the changing economy and changing consumer habits, Target will now start to sell items that are more or less recession proof, chief among them is perishable foods. Wal-Mart has been thriving on these types of products and Target wants a piece of the action.

BNET reports that consumers may be wary of buying perishable items at first, but that won't stop them from trying to cash in on those items people just can't live without:

So if the meat, produce, bakery troika represent a long-term adaptation to changing consumer behavior, Target will deal with the immediate issue of consumer wariness in the recession by expanding the existing assortment of products consumers shop regularly, including health-related items, commodities such as paper towels and laundry soap, groceries and existing perishables. The company is devoting more shelf space to those categories in the hope of getting more frequent store visits from consumers, and it is taking it from apparel, seasonal and home.

Target also will feature its food private labels more prominently including the budget Market Pantry and Archer Farm, which was developed to compete on a quality level with national brands. Target has used Archer Farms to introduce trendy items at lower prices than gourmet brands charge for the latest taste sensations to provide cost-conscious shoppers with an alternative.

The Denver Post is reporting that a judge has approved a third settlement in the 63 wage and hour class action law suits brought against Wal-Mart. Like the second settlement, this one involves Missouri workers and the cost to Wal-Mart on this one is $90 million. That brings the total to $194 million in just three cases.

It is also interesting to note that the Denver Post says the estimate for the total price tag is between $352 million to $640 million, far higher than the initial $255 million Wal-Mart estimated. We will keep you up to date on settlements, and the rising tally of how much Wal-Mart has to pay up because of their abuse of workers.

Here's the piece from the Denver Post:

A Missouri judge has preliminarily approved a settlement of up to $90 million in a wage and hour class-action suit against Wal-Mart, said Denver attorney Steve Long of Polsinelli Shughart.

Long represented the class of more than 178,000 current and former Wal-Mart and Sam's Club employees in Missouri with a team that included Denver lawyers Frank Azar and Gerald Bader. The lawsuits accused the company of forcing employees to work off the clock, changing employee time cards and preventing workers from taking breaks. Azar, Bader and Long represented 69,000 Colorado plaintiffs in a similar suit against Wal-Mart that was settled in 2000.

It seems that Wal-Mart is on a settling kick. Fresh off their announcement that they will settle 63 wage and hour class action law suits, Wal-Mart has decided to settle a class action suit on behalf of African Americans who felt they were being discriminated against in Wal-Mart's trucking fleet. The settlement calls for Wal-Mart to pay $17.5 million and improve their hiring practices. Among their new practices will be appointing a diversity recruiter, hiring minorities proportionate to applicants, and stepping up recruitment for African Americans.

We hope this means that Wal-Mart is trying to clear the air and start fresh with a new CEO who won't break the law quite so much, but we're not holding our breath.

Here's a piece of the article from the Dow Jones Newswire via CNN Money:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) has agreed to pay $17.5 million to settle a class- action lawsuit accusing the world's largest retailer of discriminating against African-Americans in recruitment and hiring of truck drivers for its private fleet.

The company also agreed to priority job placements for 23 of the plaintiffs who submit approved claim forms, provide direct notice of all future job opportunities to all interested members of the class-action suit, establish benchmark hiring goals so future hires are proportionate by race to the composition of applicants, select a diversity recruiter, and improve its recruitment efforts and advertising aimed at African-Americans.

Wal-Mart denied that it engaged in any policy or pattern or practice of unlawful discrimination.

The settlement is subject to approval by federal court in Arkansas.

Yesterday we told you that Wal-Mart had settled a South Carolina law suit for $49 million. It was one of 63 suits Wal-Mart promised to settle back in December. Today we have news that Wal-Mart also settled a suit in Missouri for $55.53 million. As discussed yesterday, Wal-Mart has estimated that they will have to pay $255 million to settle these 63 lawsuits. Thus far, Wal-Mart has already paid $104.53 million to settle just two suits. We're pretty sure Wal-Mart is going to have to shell out more than $255 million.

Yet another way to look at these settlements is by how much each plaintiff could possibly get for the wrong done to them by Wal-Mart. In theory, Wal-Mart should have to pay back wages to any employees they wrongfully denied overtime to, or made work through breaks. Ideally, the should also be forced to pay punitive fines for each case where they broke the law. Instead, if all of the 330,000 plaintiffs claim their share of the $55.53 million payout in Missouri, they will each get $168, and that's before the lawyers take their fees. I don't know about you, but to me, that seems like an awfully low number.

Here's some of the article from Kansas City Star:

Wal-Mart workers in Missouri will get $55.53 million or more under a settlement approved last week as part of a nationwide resolution of overtime claims against the company.

The Missouri portion of the settlement affects as many as 330,000 former and current hourly employees who worked at a Wal-Mart Store, Wal-Mart Supercenter or Sam’s Club store in Missouri between Aug. 15, 1996, and Jan. 2 of this year.

The settlement, which received preliminary approval from Jackson County Circuit Judge Sandra Midkiff on Feb. 11, resolves a long-running lawsuit alleging the retail giant forced workers to work through rest and meal breaks.

The lawsuit in Jackson County was one of scores ofsuch actions nationwide seeking damages from Wal-Mart for wage and hour violations.

Wal-Mart just released their numbers for last year. This includes sales numbers, profit, and all the rest. The big number from all this is that Wal-Mart topped $400 billion in sales for the year. For those of you who can't quite comprehend that number, I'll break it down in to more manageable pieces. It means that last year, on average, Wal-Mart sold:

$1,095,890,410 worth of goods a day
$45,662,100 worth of goods an hour
$761,035 worth of goods a minute and
$12,683 worth of goods a second.

Wal-Mart also reported that they made $3.79 billion in profits in the fourth quarter, which is down slightly from last years fourth quarter despite the increase in sales through the year. That's right, in a roughly three month period, Wal-Mart made nearly four billion dollars, and that was a decrease from last year. Next time you hear someone claim Wal-Mart can't afford to do something simple like pay their employees slightly more, or provide affordable health care, just remind them of these numbers.

Reuters has even more details on Wal-Mart's yearly numbers.

A federal appeals court has decided to rehear a case granting the Dukes vs. Wal-Mart case, the largest class action case over sexual discrimination, it's class action status. Of course Wal-Mart is jubilant claiming it is a "positive step" (towards what, we're not sure...other than Wal-Mart not having to pay for possibly breaking the law) and that:

It is important to note that the merits of this case have not been considered by the courts, and we believe the experiences alleged by the six individuals who brought this suit are not representative of the experiences of our female associates.

We hope the court allows this case to proceed representing the many, many women who have been wronged by Wal-Mart. To do otherwise would allow Wal-Mart to get away with discrimination on a grand scale.

Today Wal-Mart announced that it's sales grew for the month of January, exceeding its own prediction. They were one of the few retailers to see sales increase, proving once again that when the American people are struggling, Wal-Mart is poised to profit.

Interestingly, Wal-Mart also announced that they would not be making monthly sales forecasts anymore. This is curious for several reasons. First, Wal-Mart met or exceeded its predictions for the last several months. They're clearly doing pretty well, so why stop touting your success? Second, with the recent transition of CEO, could this be a cautious move by the new chief executive, Mike Duke? Third, cutting such a forecast tends to indicate a lack of confidence in future sales, does Wal-Mart see trouble ahead?

BloggingStocks certainly thinks Wal-Mart has a lack of confidence:

If Wal-Mart is not comfortable making monthly forecasts, that probably can only mean two things: it expects consumers to cut spending and it doesn't want to signal that to investors, or it has absolutely no idea what consumers will do. Either reason for cutting the forecasts is disconcerting.

Here's an excerpt from the Reuters article:

U.S. retailers mostly reported lower monthly sales for January, although discounter Wal-Mart Stores bucked the trend with a stronger-than-expected increase as shoppers stocked up on necessities like food.

At the same time, Wal-Mart said it would no longer
issue monthly sales forecasts because of volatile consumer
habits, in a new sign of concern over the economy. Instead, the
world's largest retailer will give forecasts on a 13-week basis,
four times a year.

Wal-Mart's U.S. sales at stores open at least a year rose
2.1 percent, excluding gasoline -- better than Wall Street
estimates of a 1.1 percent rise. The company's shares rose 4.6
percent, while the Standard & Poor's Retail Index .RLX
advanced 3.5 percent.

"Wal-Mart is proving that price is king and value leadership
is a real benefit in this environment," said retail analyst Todd
Slater of Lazard Capital Markets.

But the discount giant's decision to reduce sales forecasts
shows retailers' increased skittishness as a deepening recession
leads consumers to shop and spend less. Pacific Sunwear of
California (PSUN.O) and Chico's FAS (CHS.N) said they would stop
reporting monthly same-store sales.

"Wal-Mart follows a long line of companies deciding not to
provide guidance," Slater said. "It suggests a significant lack
of visibility."

After releasing an exclusive album through Wal-Mart, Bruce Springsteen is now saying that it was a mistake to do so. He admits that he "dropped the ball" and cites Wal-Mart's labor record as a reason he should not have made the deal with them.

Here's the full article from the AP:

Springsteen calls Wal-Mart CD deal a mistake

The Boss is owning up to a mistake. In an interview with Sunday's New York Times, Bruce Springsteen says he shouldn't have made a deal with Wal-Mart. This month, the store started exclusively selling a Springsteen greatest hits CD.

Some fans were critical because Springsteen has been a longtime supporter of worker's rights, and Wal-Mart has faced criticism for its labor practices.

Springsteen told the Times that his team didn't vet the issue as closely as he should have, and that he "dropped the ball on it."

Springsteen went on to say: "It was a mistake. Our batting average is usually very good, but we missed that one. Fans will call you on that stuff, as it should be."

Springsteen released his new CD "Working on a Dream" this week and is performing the halftime show at the Super Bowl.

This Sunday Lee Scott will officially retire as CEO of Wal-Mart and Mike Duke will take over. The transition, according to reports and Lee Scott's comments, won't be eventful or groundbreaking. That's partly because Scott will stay on as the Chairman of Wal-Mart's board and work with Duke for a few years. Still, it is a transition and we'll be watching closely to see how Mr. Duke runs Wal-Mart. This blog post from Reuters Shop Talk asks what you would add to Mr. Duke's To Do list. When we first heard about the change of CEOs back in November, this is what we had to say:

We invite Mr. Duke, as the new CEO of Wal-Mart, to live up to the company's responsibility to pay its workers a living wage, especially in this dire economy where working people are struggling and Wal-Mart is profiting. We invite Mr. Duke to improve Wal-Mart's employee benefits so that all of its associates can afford quality health care. Lastly, we invite Mr. Duke to make a real commitment to the American economy by keeping manufacturing jobs here in the United States, not pressuring its suppliers to go overseas.

What about you? What would you add to Mr. Duke's To Do list?

Here are a few articles about the transition of power:

Mart's new CEO Duke needs to build on momentum [Reuters]

CEO brings merchandising to Wal-Mart leadership [Associated Press]

Top 25 Company's Headquarters

You can check out the full list of companies here.

Both Lee Scott, Wal-Mart's soon to be ex-CEO, and Mike Duke, who will take over as CEO on February 1st, were in the news today. Lee Scott was in the news because he's considering going to teach at Stanford University. While he said on Charlie Rose a week or so back that he's stay involved in Wal-Mart for the next two years and probably stay on the board after that, it seems he's also considering other projects. Mike Duke is in the news because he's made some of his first public remarks since he became the heir apparent to Mr. Scott. He spoke at a Sustainability Milestone Meeting and reiterated his support for the environmental initiatives Wal-Mart has started. Of course, this is somewhat akin to a presidential candidate telling the NRA they'll continue to support gun rights: It's probably mostly true, and it doesn't necessarily mean it'll happen. We sincerely hope that Mr. Duke is sincere, but based on Wal-Mart's past environmental record, we're not holding our breath for a truly environmentally friendly Wal-Mart. Any progress is good, but Wal-Mart has a history of green washing and using the "environmentally friendly" label simply to drive up consumption. We look forward to February 1st when the exchange of power happens. We'll be watching Mr. Duke very closely.

Here's a piece of the article about Mr. Duke's remarks from Reuters:

Wal-Mart's incoming CEO to expand environmental push

Wal-Mart Stores Inc's new leadership (WMT.N) plans to expand efforts to reduce waste, use renewable energy and push suppliers to clean up their act, the company's incoming chief executive officer said on Monday.

"We want to accelerate our efforts in sustainability. We want to broaden our efforts," said Mike Duke, who will become Wal-Mart's CEO on Feb. 1 when Lee Scott retires from that position.

Speaking at a "Sustainability Milestone Meeting," which was broadcast over the Internet, Duke said Wal-Mart's suppliers and employees need to make sustainability a priority.

"I am very serious about it. This is not optional," Duke said. "It's not something of the past. This is all about the future."

Scott began the retailer's environmental push in 2005, outlining plans to one day use only renewable energy and creating zero waste. The efforts have been seen as a way for Wal-Mart to improve its reputation, help the environment and cut costs.

To that end, Wal-Mart has increased its use of solar and wind power, pushed vendors to make electronics more energy-efficient and switched to selling only concentrated laundry detergent in its U.S. stores.

Newsday has been printing a lot of very good articles about the Black Friday stampede that killed Jdimytai Damour, a temporary Wal-Mart employee. They recently published an interview with Leana Lockley, the pregnant woman he protect from the crowd when he was crushed, and today, they have an interview with Jdimytai's mother, Marie Telismond. It is a heartbreaking article. We're glad Newsday is being so diligent about getting this story out there. We think it needs to be shared.

Here's the article. Check out the picture they published with it as well. It really gives you a sense of what it might have been like to be there:

Wal-Mart worker's mom laments loss of only son

The last time Marie Telismond saw her only son was Nov. 14, when he took her to the airport and waited with her until she was checked in for a trip to her native Haiti.

Jdimytai Damour then made sure his mother had safely arrived in Port-au-Prince.

"He called me three times," Telismond said Tuesday morning at her lawyer Andrew Libo's Manhattan office. "He said, 'Mommy, did you come in yet?' "

Damour told his mother that he had gotten a job, but she didn't know that he would be working as a temporary security guard at the Wal-Mart in the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream.

"He said, 'I just got a job,' but I didn't ask him where," she said.

Damour, 34, who lived with his mother in Rosedale, was trampled to death on Black Friday as shoppers broke down the doors of the store, authorities said.

he Damour family is planning a suit against Wal-Mart, the security firm and Green Acres Mall, according to Libo.

Known as "Jimmy," Damour was a generous man who would give his last dollar to aid a friend, his mother said.

"He liked to help people," Telismond said.

The news that Damour tried to help a South Jamaica woman who was five months' pregnant at the time of the stampede was not surprising to his mother, who said it was completely in his character.

Leana Lockley, 28, said last week that she owed her life to Damour, who tried to protect her but ended up trampled to death himself.

"He was a very, very good person," Telismond said.

Damour grew up in Brooklyn and Queens, and attended Freeport High School. He studied at Nassau Community College for a year and talked about becoming a teacher someday, his mother said.

He was a quiet man with a love for watching football and a bottomless appetite for his mother's cooking, she said.

Since the day her son died, Telismond said, she has lost sleep and stopped eating.

"I don't have anybody else," Telismond said, dabbing her wet eyes with a tissue. "It's very hard for me."

The Canadian Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments today in a case that will decide whether Wal-Mart illegally shut down a store in Quebec after the store was unionized. While Wal-Mart claims they shut the store down because it was unprofitable, the closure came right before they would have to begin working with the union and listening to their workers. The lawyers for the former employees of the store want the court to find that Wal-Mart violated labor laws by shutting down the store, and that it violated their right to freedom of association. Wal-Mart, on the other hand, wants an old ruling to stand which essentially gives them the power to shut down any store for any reason they want thus preserving their ability to fire groups of workers for no reason.

Of course we think that Wal-Mart closing down a store because it was unionized should be a labor violation. It's pretty simple, really. If workers in a store want to be in a union, Wal-Mart shouldn't be able to threaten, fire, intimidate, or otherwise prevent them from being in one, and that includes shutting down stores.

Here's a bit of the article from Canadian Business:

U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart is heading to the Supreme Court of Canada on Wednesday to defend a nearly four-year-old decision to shut down a Quebec store in the wake of a labour dispute.

Citing a loss in profitability, the company closed the Saguenay outlet in April 2005 just before an arbitrator was to impose a collective agreement for some 190 recently unionized employees.

The high court will be asked to decide whether closing the store contravenes the federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees freedom of association.

"We say the right of a business to close is not an absolute right," said United Food and Commercial Workers spokesman Louis Bolduc said.

"We don't think the Supreme Court will order the store to reopen but we think the Supreme Court will confirm that the closure, be it partial or total when a (labour) group organizes, must be viewed as a reprisal and should not be allowed."

The appellants want the court to confirm that it is in fact against the law for an employer to shut down in response to an organized labour dispute and that there are consequences for those who do.

Wal-Mart's outgoing CEO Lee Scott will sit down with Charlie Rose tonight for an hour long interview. The show airs tonight at 11 pm on PBS. It should be an interesting interview. I'd look for them to talk about the current economic troubles, health care, China and perhaps Wal-Mart's move in to Russia, but most interestingly, I'm sure unions and the Employee Free Choice Act will come up. We look forward to hearing what Lee Scott has to say about his company's union busting activities. We're sure he won't say anything particularly new about unions; the company line is that they aren't needed because Wal-Mart has a wonderful 'open door' policy where employees can bring up issues with managers. Of course it doesn't work that way.

We'll let you know tomorrow if Mr. Scott says anything interesting or noteworthy.

In the meantime, we want to know what questions you would ask Mr. Scott. Leave your questions in the comment section.

It looks like Wal-Mart is moving closer to expanding in to Russia. They have just established a legal entity in the country and joined the Russian Association of Retail Trade Companies. It appears that they'll also use Russia as a jumping off point to expand into Eastern Europe and former Soviet countries. As we are when Wal-Mart looks to expand in the US, we're concerned for the communities Wal-Mart could affect in Russia.

Here's the article from The Moscow Times and Reuters:

Wal-Mart Moves Closer to Russia

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, has registered a legal entity in Russia and joined a local retailers' organization, the latest in a series of moves indicating its interest in expanding into the country.

The company registered a subsidiary under the name WM Eastern Europe Holdings and joined the Russian Association of Retail Trade Companies, or AKORT, which includes the 28 largest commercial organizations in the country.

"Wal-Mart is working on the Russian market," Ilya Belonovsky, the executive director of the 28-member industry group said Dec. 29. He declined to elaborate.

Members of the association include French retail giants Carrefour and Auchan, Germany's Metro, as well as local firms X5 Retail Group and Magnit.

In April, Wal-Mart appointed an executive to head its efforts to explore business opportunities in Russia and neighboring markets.

In June, the company said it was "exploring opportunities in Russia," weeks after it acknowledged taking "active steps" to research Russia and nearby countries in Eastern Europe.

A source with an investment bank advising Wal-Mart said Dec. 29 that the U.S. company was in acquisition talks with Russian chains that may need a cash injection.

"It's a very opportune moment for Wal-Mart now that assets are getting cheaper," he said.

The Russian retail sector has been badly hit by a credit squeeze triggered by the global economic crisis, which analysts say could speed up consolidation within the fragmented sector.

A source with a headhunting agency familiar with Wal-Mart's expansion plans in Russia said the U.S. giant had been hiring administrative staff. "There are already about 30 managers working in their team," the source said.

Several months ago FlowingData made a map of where you can watch Wal-Mart spread across the country from its founding in 1962 up to today. It's been kicking around for quite some time but just recently lots and lots of blogs have discovered the map and it's gone viral, kind of like Wal-Mart's expansion across the US. If you haven't seen it yet, it's worth watching. Hopefully they'll do a new map soon and update it with all the stores that were build in 2008.

You can watch a YouTube version of the map here:

Wal-Mart has been dealing with a lot of lawsuits recently. It seems that since we've been back, we've seen legal news nearly every day, and today is no exception.

Today, Wal-Mart is being sued by a construction company from central Ohio for allegedly breaching a contract. They could get more than $2 million.

Here's the story from Columbus Business First:

Area construction firm wins suit against Wal-Mart

A Central Ohio construction company could be in line for a more than $2 million payout from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. after winning a jury trial in a breach of contract lawsuit against the retail giant.

Thomas & Marker Construction, which has offices in Bellefontaine and Marysville, was awarded $1.55 million Dec. 23 under a unanimous jury verdict in Dayton federal court. The company had sued Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT), alleging the retailer breached a $9.6 million contract by not paying for extra costs for removing bedrock during construction of a Springfield store.

Thomas & Marker accused Wal-Mart of failing to indicate the hard-to-remove bedrock in a geotechnical report it provided before construction. Wal-Mart countersued, alleging a subcontractor didn’t properly install a water line during construction, but the jury also ruled in the firm’s favor on that count.

Wal-Mart has recently agreed to pay $637,000 in fines because it seems they failed to keep correct pharmaceutical records in several Southern Texas stores. We're not quite sure what was going on. Fivestores seems like a lot for just employee mess ups, but not a lot for a company-wide problem. We're also pretty concerned, pharmacy records are serious business. People can get hurt, or die, from botched prescriptions. Hopefully this hefty fine will shock them in to doing things right. Between recalled products, lead in toys and other goods from China, footwear that causes severe chemical burns, and now pharmacies with no records, it's getting dangerous to shop at Wal-Mart.

Read the story from Business Week here:

Wal-Mart settles drug records accusation

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has agreed to a $637,000 fine to settle allegations that it violated drug record keeping regulations at its pharmacies in south Texas.

Federal prosecutors said Wednesday that Wal-Mart paid the fine on Dec. 29 and that the settlement was made final on Tuesday.

Acting U.S. Attorney Tim Johnson says the case began with five Wal-Mart and Sam's Club pharmacies that allegedly didn't have records the government requires to help prevent diversion of controlled substances. Johnson said the problem with the records violated the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, under which the complaint was brought. More Wal-Mart pharmacies in the region were then audited, he said.

"The accountability audits did not match the drugs on hand, revealing major overages and shortages in the accountability of controlled substances, and there were missing invoices for controlled substances all in violation of the CSA," Johnson's office said in a news release.

"Because of the pharmacies' lack of proper record keeping, a variety of Schedule II, III, IV and V controlled substances were lost or stolen and possibly diverted," the release said.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Daphne Moore said the settlement was limited to discrepancies between records and inventory involving a small number of pharmacies in Texas. The company has more than 4,000 pharmacies in its U.S. stores.

Moore would not directly address questions about whether any drugs were missing.

"We provide our managers with training regarding controlled substances. Of course, we'll continue to review those practices," Moore said.

She said Wal-Mart is eager to comply with the law.

"We take record keeping seriously and we cooperated fully with the U.S. Attorney's Office and the (Drug Enforcement Administration) in the investigation. We continuously review our processes at our pharmacies to ensure they are accurate and in full compliance with the law," Moore said.

Wal-Mart has been sued for a lot of things. They've been sued for discrimination, wrongly firing an employee, violating tax laws, violating labor laws, attempting to build a store when a town doesn't want them, causing injury, wrongful death, tainted goods, and more. But one we hadn't seen yet was anti-trust, but that's just what Wal-Mart is being sued for.

Apparently Wal-Mart made some sort of deal with Netflix in which Wal-Mart agreed to shut down its online rental service and direct its hordes of customers to Netflix and in return, Netflix would promote Wal-Mart as a DVD retailer. The lawsuit accuses the companies of conspiring to create a monopoly.

Add one more lawsuit to the pile. Can you think of anything else strange Wal-Mart has been sued for? Let us know!

Here's the full article from Bloomberg via the L.A. Times

Wal-Mart, Netflix conspired to create monopoly, suit alleges

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Netflix Inc. were accused of conspiring to create a monopoly for online video rentals in a consumer lawsuit alleging that the collusion drove up prices.

The two companies agreed in 2005 that Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, would close its online rental business and refer customers to Netflix, which would promote Wal-Mart's DVD movie sales, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco.

The accord eliminated competition, enabled Netflix to maintain monopoly power and led Blockbuster Inc. to raise subscription rental prices by $3 to meet Netflix's higher prices, the Jan. 2 complaint alleges.

The Saskatchewan Labor Relations Board has just ruled that workers at a Wal-Mart store will be allowed to be represented by a union, specifically the United Food and Commercial Workers union. This comes after years of legal battles between Wal-Mart and the union.

And now the Mayor of Weyburn, where the store is located, is worried that the Wal-Mart store will close down. It's understandable. A lot of communities don't have a whole lot of options for shopping, and there's a decent chance the town offered Wal-Mart tax waivers or building incentives to move in. And of course Wal-Mart has a history of shutting down stores when their workers unionize. Wal-Mart would much rather shut down, abandoning a community and their employees, than negotiate and listen to input from their workers.

Wal-Mart has pledged to appeal the ruling of the Labor Relations Board on the grounds that new labor laws have come in to effect and that most of the workers who voted for a union are now gone. Of course, Wal-Mart was the one who dragged the whole process out for 4 years, so those reasons seem pretty bogus.

We're taking bets on the likelihood the store closes down. Leave your bet in the comments.

Here's the article from CBA:

Sask. mayor worried Wal-Mart will close unionized store The mayor of a southeastern Saskatchewan community is worried the area's biggest retailer could close, following a decision by the province’s labour board allowing employees to unionize.

In a 71-page decision dated Dec. 4, the Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board approved a request to certify the Wal-Mart in Weyburn. All employees, except pharmacy, office staff and department managers, are affected.

Wal-Mart was criticized after it closed a store shortly after employees unionized in Jonquière, Que., in 2005, a move the company continues to blame on poor performance by the store.

Now, concerns are being raised about the future of the outlet in Weyburn, a city with a population of about 9,400.

“We're very concerned about losing a major retailer in our community,” Weyburn Mayor Debra Button said. “We worked too hard to get the Wal-Mart here … If the decision by Wal-Mart is to close the store, we'll certainly be feeling that.”

Both Button and Weyburn-Big Muddy MLA Dustin Duncan said they have received phone calls from residents worried about the future of the store. Button said she has written the CEO of Wal-Mart Canada to ask about the company’s intentions.

Wal-Mart Canada said it will appeal the ruling to unionize, pointing out that many of the employees who signed union cards no longer work at the Weyburn store.

“The fact that you’ve got a store now with 104 associates … and only 29 of them were even there at the time of the union’s application, really speaks to the fact that it would be a bit of a stretch to assume that there is widespread support for that store for this union,” said Andrew Pelletier, spokesman for Wal-Mart Canada.

Changes to Saskatchewan’s Trade Union Act this year made it a requirement that a secret ballot vote be held, open to all employees in the proposed bargaining unit, before a union can be certified.

Paul Meneima, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1400, said the decision to unionize the Weyburn store fits with the pre-2008 act, which allowed for union certifications when 50 per cent of employees, plus one, signed union cards.

Meneima stressed that the majority of employees wanted the union at the time of the application, but said workers have the right to seek decertification of the union if they wish. He said he expects Wal-Mart to delay negotiations of a collective agreement using the courts as long as possible.

The UFCW and Wal-Mart have been trying to negotiate a collective agreement in Ste-Hyacinthe, Que., Canada’s only other unionized Wal-Mart, for almost four years.

The decision to unionize the Weyburn Wal-Mart came after almost five years of legal wrangling. The UFCW applied for certification on April 14, 2004. During labour board hearings, some employees made claims that the union intimidated them into signing union cards. The board dismissed those claims, saying there was no evidence.

Anthony Bianco, a writer for Business Week and author of The Bully of Bentonville: How the High Cost of Everyday Low Prices is Hurting America, said the unionization of the Weyburn store has significance, not only for Canada, but also for North America.

“Wal-Mart has always offered stiff resistance to any attempts to organize,” said Bianco, pointing out that the UFCW “basically gave up trying to organize in the United States in 2003.”

Bianco said Wal-Mart is worried that by having a store with union members, it will “entice” other workers across North America to organize.

“There’s no doubt that Wal-Mart recognizes that, and that’s why they fight so hard to thwart the efforts of their employees to get a union,” said Meinema.

The UFCW is awaiting labour board decisions to unionize Wal-Mart stores in the Saskatchewan communities of North Battleford and Moose Jaw.

The Public Safety Committee of the Nassau County Legislature is holding a hearing into what exactly happened at the local Wal-Mart on 'Black Friday' when a temporary employee was trampled to death after a crowd of around 2,000 customers broke the door and rushed in to the store. The chairman of the committee said the hearing was an attempt to find out what happened in order to prevent similar tragedies in the future.

A major theme in the hearing was an insistence that Wal-Mart was responsible for crowd control at their own store, not the county or the police because the store is private property.

Here's the article from newsday:

Cop: Customer safety 'onus' on retailers

Stores, not the police, are responsible for protecting customers when large crowds form, as happened on Black Friday in Valley Stream when a security guard was trampled to death by a surging mob of shoppers, Nassau County officials testified Wednesday.

"These types of situations in the box stores and these door-buster type sales, the onus or responsibility for the security and the safety of the customers falls with the retail establishment," Nassau County Police Insp. Thomas Krumpter told members of the Public Safety Committee of the Nassau County Legislature.

The county's commissioner of emergency management, James Callahan, sounded a similar theme, testifying that, "being on private property, it really is the responsibility of the stores themselves."

Legis. Joseph Scannell (D-Baldwin), chairman of the committee, said prior to the hearing that he hoped to, "shine a light on what happened so we can prevent it from happening in the future."

However, Scannell and Legis. John Ciotti (R-North Valley Stream) said they would be careful in their questioning of witnesses because of possible lawsuits against the county and the police.

Krumpter, the department's liaison to the legislature, told the committee that he would not testify about details of the incident, in which a store security guard was killed and five other people injured in the stampede on the day after Thanksgiving.

None of the committee members asked questions about what happened that day.

Scannell said during a break in the hearing that he was "attempting to strike a balance" between the county's potential liability in a lawsuit and the need for legislation.

After the meeting, he said staff lawyers were drawing up legislation, to be introduced in January, that would require stores to erect barriers a distance from the front doors when large crowds form. He said the would require stores to file crowd control plans with the Police Department.

Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey has scheduled a meeting with Wal-Mart and officials of other stores next week to discuss crowd control, Krumpter said.

Wal-Mart was invited to testify, according to Scannell, and instead sent Ted Potrikus of the Retail Council of New York State, which has about 5,000 members, including Wal-Mart.

Potrikus said his group generally opposed local regulations on retailers, and he expected the Wal-Mart death would come in the next session of the state legislature.

The family of the victim of the 'Black Friday' stampede is going to sue Wal-Mart, Nassau County and the county's police department. Here's the article from The Associated Press:

Victim's kin file suit in Wal-Mart stampede death

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (AP) — The family of a New York man who was trampled to death the day after Thanksgiving by a stampede of bargain hunting Wal-Mart shoppers has filed a wrongful death lawsuit.

The family also filed notice that Nassau County, on Long Island, and its police department will be sued.

The lawsuit against Wal-Mart and the Long Island mall where it is located was filed Wednesday in state Supreme Court in the Bronx on behalf of Elsie Damour Phillipe. Phillipe is the sister of victim Jdimytai Damour (DHMEE'-tree Di-MOHR'), and is the court-appointed administrator of his estate.

Damour, a temporary worker hired for the holiday season, was crushed to death when some 2,000 customers stormed into the Valley Stream store.

None of the defendants in the lawsuit immediately responded to requests for comment.

Wal-Mart often comes up against opposition when it tries to move in to town. Local residents and activists rightfully fear Wal-Mart will make their community less safe, less economically sound, and crowded with traffic. But recently, there's been a site fight with a whole different spin: historic preservation. It seems Wal-Mart wants to build a store on a Civil War battlefield. Now historians are throwing their hats in the ring to fight Wal-Mart too.

The Civil War Preservation Trust and Friends of Wilderness Battlefield are opposing the store at this sight. Here's what Friends of Wilderness Battlefield spokesman Craig Rains had to say about the site in an interview with the Orange County Review:

"I just think it’s absolutely the worst place to put it is on the battlefield."

Instead, Rains suggested alternative locations could protect the Wilderness Battlefield area, while better serving the county with no negative aspects for the Wal-Mart corporation.

"There are plenty of places for them to move we think they’re creating the wrong environment at the battlefield," Rains said.
Two possible substitute sites could be at the intersection of Routes 20 and 611 in Locust Grove, or further down Route 3 on an area behind the Bloom grocery store. Suitable existing traffic patterns, and site plans are already in place at both locations. And, he added, engineering improvements to traffic at a Locust Grove location, or at an intersection nearer to Lake of the Woods would be far simpler than trying to improve travelways at routes 3 and 20.
"We’d like to see them get away from this intersection [routes 3 and 20] and move down the road," he said. "If they would move it up here to LOW and put it behind the Bloom there’s already a traffic light there."

The Civil War Preservation Trust has set up an action page where you can let county supervisors know what you think and donate to their fund to stop Wal-Mart from marring a piece of our history. Go check it out and help them keep Wal-Mart off a Civil War Battlefield.

As the previous blog entry, and countless others, testify, Wal-Mart has a tenuous relationship with the American legal system. Whether its forcing their employees to work off the clock, discriminating against women, or violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, Wal-Mart can't seem to stay on the right side of the law.

Well today is no exception. Wal-Mart is being sued, again, for demoting a worker because she took time off for a medical emergency. In addition to being immoral, this action was probably illegal. Lynda deBarros, the employee suing Wal-Mart, took time off through the Family and Medical Leave Act which is designed, specifically, to protect someone's job if they have to take time off due to a medical emergency.

Here's the full article from The Oregonian:

Employee in Oregon sues Wal-Mart

A Wal-Mart employee in Oregon has accused the mega-store chain in federal court of demoting her because she took time off during the Christmas shopping season to undergo an emergency hysterectomy.

Lynda deBarros filed suit Tuesday against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in U.S. District Court. She joined the chain in 2000 as a photo technician in Eugene. In 2002, she became an assistant manager of Wal-Mart's store in McMinnville. In 2005, she was sent to Lebanon to oversee the construction of a store. In August 2007, she was made assistant manager of the Springfield store.

On Nov. 14, 2007, deBarros went to her gynecologist because of excessive menstrual bleeding, documents show. DeBarros "had a strong family history of cancer and was very worried that cancer was the cause of her excessive vaginal bleeding."

On Dec. 3, 2007, her doctor recommended an emergency hysterectomy, which was scheduled for Dec. 10. When deBarros notified her boss, Kenneth Hutchison, about her medical condition, the suit said, he scolded her and told her to go to the doctor on her time, not his.

The suit also alleged that Hutchison berated her about the timing of the operation because it "is our busiest time of year" and noted that two other assistant managers were out. He also asked, "Are you sure that you can't take it later?" the suit said.

DeBarros went ahead with the procedure, taking time under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. She returned to work Jan. 21.

Two weeks later, deBarros was demoted from assistant manager, a salaried position paying $46,000 a year, to associate, a job paying $12.50 an hour. She also was moved to the Cottage Grove store.

DeBarros accused Wal-Mart of retaliating against her for taking time under the federal leave law. She seeks reinstatement to her management job and back pay.

Wal-Mart officials at the company headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., did not return a phone call seeking comment on the lawsuit.

Here at Wake Up Wal-Mart, we love to hear from our activists and from regular Wal-Mart customers. We frequently get e-mails from folks asking to hear more about our campaign, or wanting to know what they can do about specific topics. We also get quite a few complaints about Wal-Mart, as you woud imagine. One frequent complaint we've received is pricing mistakes, overpricing, and pricing difference from area to area. Today, we saw this story from Reuters and it backed up what we've been hearing.

Wal-Mart settle Calif. pricing suit for $1.4 mln

Wal-Mart Stores Inc agreed to pay $1.4 million and refund $3 per customer for future pricing mistakes to settle a lawsuit by California authorities over price scanning errors at the chain's stores statewide, the California Attorney General said on Monday.

An investigation into allegations that Wal-Mart checkout counters were scanning items at higher prices than those advertised on store shelves and signs began in 2005, followed by a lawsuit filed earlier this year in San Diego.

Through random price checks, state investigators found that 164 Wal-Mart stores in 30 California counties had made scanning errors, which averaged $8.40 per customer, according to California Attorney General Edmund Brown and San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis.

The investigators found that customers were overcharged on a variety of items, ranging from sports bras to cereal.

"Wal-Mart always strives for 100 percent pricing accuracy," Wal-Mart spokesman Greg Rossiter said. "If we do find pricing discrepancies, we're committed to making it right for our customers, and we are instituting additional measures to do just that."

As part of the settlement, Wal-Mart agreed to implement a pricing accuracy program in its California stores for at least four years. The chain must designate employees to handle consumer complaints and do weekly price accuracy checks.

The company also must post signs describing the refund program at each cashier's stand and offer immediate discounts of $3 for every item that is priced incorrectly.

If the accurate price is less than $3, the overcharged customer will receive it for free, the attorney general said.

Wal-Mart has agreed to pay $1.4 million in restitution, civil penalties and reimbursement for the cost of the probe, plus $50,000 to the state Consumer Protection Prosecution Trust Fund.

Wal-Mart just announced that on February 1, H Lee Scott Jr. will be retiring as the Chief Financial Officer of Wal-Mart, inc. He will stay on as the chairman of the executive board. Replacing Mr. Scott as CEO is Mike Duke. It was also announced that Eduardo Castro-Wright was promoted to Vice-Chairman of Wal-Mart stores. The news was quite a surprise and created quite a buzz in the press. Here are just some of the stories:

Wal-Mart names Duke as next chief executive (Washington Post)

Wal-Mart Names Its Next Chief Executive (New York Times)

Wal-Mart taps Duke as CEO in surprise move (Market Watch)

Wal-Mart names new CEO (CNN Money)

Wal-Mart names Duke to be CEO in February (USA Today)

Wal-Mart Replaces Chief Scott With Overseas Head Duke (Bloomberg)

Wal-Mart names Duke to succeed Scott as CEO (Associated Press)

The Detroit Free Press is reporting that Wal-Mart, and other stores are cutting prices on food, in particular on turkey and other Thanksgiving dishes. For Wal-Mart, it's part of their new campaign called, without any irony, "Operation Main Street." Perhaps they missed it, but Wal-Mart has essentially destroyed Main Streets it has come in contact with for quite some time now.

But the name is less important that the campaign itself. In addition to discounting Thanksgiving dinner, they are giving all their employees a 10% discount on food. Of course, we applaud the spirit of treating your employees nicely. But the point here is that Wal-Mart has to give its employees a break on food because they are so vastly underpaid that they couldn't afford a hearty (to use Wal-Mart's words) Thanksgiving on their own.

Here's an idea for Wal-Mart: instead of discounting food for your employees, how about paying them a decent wage? Not only would it vastly improve your employee's lifestyle, but they wouldn't have to rely on government assistance for health care and food any longer. And they'd have a little extra cash to spend at your store. It's the right thing to do. In this economy where people are truly having trouble putting food on the table while you are raking in billions, isn't it your responsibility to make sure your employees are paid a decent wage?

When Wal-Mart comes to town, they often make a pitch to the local government in order to get the rights to the land. They tell local officials that they'll create jobs, be a big boon to the economy, and that they'll be a huge boon to the local tax coffers. Well if a Wal-Mart is coming in to your town, be sure to tell your local officials that Wal-Mart could end up with a bunch of that tax money in its own bank account.

According to a new report by Good Jobs First, Wal-Mart and other corporations end up skimming tax money off for themselves through a variety of programs and antiquated laws. They estimate that Wal-Mart makes about $73 million nationwide from state and local government taxes.

Of course, Wal-Mart also skips out on a lot of taxes. Through shady tactics like renting their buildings from themselves, Wal-Mart is able to avoid a large chunk of their taxes.

So here's the bottom line: Wal-Mart gets rich by skipping out and getting refunds for their taxes while you, the average American, have to pay your fair share of taxes. And who knows, there could be even more programs out there we don't know about.

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving when Christmas sales start and retailers begin raking in money, is nearly upon us. Retailers are gearing up and deciding what hot products to discount. In years past, these sales have been leaked ahead of time and the internet has been abuzz with what you can buy where for how much. This year is no exception. Sites have sprung up to give you an easy place to see all of the sales for this year.

But Wal-Mart, strangely, has assembled a legal team to go after any site that posts their sales and any search engine that lists those sites.

Now for all the talk recently of Wal-Mart getting on the Web 2.0, social media band wagon, how far they've come, and how well they understand this new brand of marketing, Wal-Mart has just proven they don't get it, at all. In such a sluggish economy where Wal-Mart's main asset is cheap stuff, a leaked list of big sales is a gold mine. Far from stifling it, they should be leaking it themselves, having their undercover PR folks play it up, and creating a huge, viral buzz around it. They would rake in tons of money, and what's to lose?

I guess Wal-Mart is still clinging to that old school "I own this information" mind set.

Here's the article from Marketing Vox:

Wal-Mart Forbids Search Engines from Linking to Black Friday Ads

Last week select Black Friday websites received "leaked" Wal-Mart ads regarding what deals will be available at the big-box after Thanksgiving. But less than two weeks before the shopper's holiday, Wal-Mart has deployed a legal team to convey takedown notices to all such sites.

If that weren't enough, it is also targeting search engines that linked to the content. Lawyers told SearchAllDeals.com, a search engine/aggregator of various deals sites, that indexing and linking to the illegal content puts them in violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. But claims of copyright infringement and trade secret violations are not likely to stand up in court — if they ever got there — so TechDirt dubbed it a mere scare tactic.

View the takedown notice.

The language in the letter also indicated Wal-Mart wants to shake down Black Friday websites to find the source of the leak, demanding that each "advise as to how you came into possession of the information and/or materials," lawyers wrote.

Last year Wal-Mart was the brick-and-mortar retailer that benefited most from Black Friday ad sites. The sites — which drew 52% more traffic than the year-ago period — sent the most consumers to Wal-Mart's website, according to Hitwise data for Nov. '07. (Sears and Best Buy were second and third, respectively.)

And unfortunately for Wal-Mart, its legal warnings seem to be doing the job. A search for "Wal-Mart" on BlackFriday.info, Black-Friday.net and Bfads.net all came up empty. What listings appear are old deals for previous years.

Other sites are less quiet about how they perceive Wal-Mart's actions. "By legally going after the sites that are spreading the buzz about the Wal-Mart specials on big screen TV’s and other deals, Wal-Mart is showing that they do not only understand Internet marketing, but also don’t get viral buzz and social media," wrote Search Engine Journal.

Apparently, in addition to holding mandatory meetings with employees to tell them not to vote for then Democratic Presidential Nominee Barack Obama, Wal-Mart also instructed employees in some stores not to speak his name.

We're not sure what the political purpose was of this move, other than potentially creating a bad feeling among employees. It seems unlikely that many people in the nation wouldn't have heard Barack Obama's name at some point during the campaign.

According to the Clarion Register, a Mississippi paper,

Wal-Mart, in response to reports that it had banned employees from speaking Obama's name while at work, said it is discouraging its employees from engaging in certain political discourse on the job.

"One of the basic beliefs of our company is respect for the individual," Wal-Mart corporate spokeswoman Ashley Hardie said in an e-mail statement.

"We are a bipartisan company and our associates reflect the wide range of attitudes and political diversity of this country. We prefer to maintain a politically neutral working and shopping environment in our stores," Hardie said. "As such politically charged discussions are discouraged in order to ensure individual beliefs are respected."

Sure, it makes sense for an employer to stay away from political endorsements or having its employees campaigning on the job. But if their end goal was discouraging their employees from alienating customers by espousing a different political view, why didn't they ask employees not to discuss the presidential election while on the job? Why, instead, did they ban their employees from using Barack Obama's name? And why didn't they ban John McCain's name? Oh, and if they truly were "bipartisan" and wanted to avoid alienating customers, why did they hold mandatory meetings where they told employees not to vote for Barack Obama?

The FDA has just issued a recall for a specific acne cream which is sold under different names at Wal-Mart, Dollar General, and Kroger. The cream apparently has a bacteria in it that can affect the immune system of people with cuts or rashes.

If you have recently bought acne cream, check out the recall notice to make sure it's safe.

This is simply too entertaining not to share. A man in Canada is suing Wal-Mart, Microsoft, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (the Mounties) for alleged mind control, satanism and witchcraft. The man claims he was "subject to invasive brain computer interface technology, research, experiments, field studies and surgery." He is seeking $2 billion (that's not a typo) in damages. The weirdest part of this story, though, has to be that the judge refused to throw out the lawsuit, so the case will, at least for now, continue.

Now we're not totally sure where Wal-Mart fits in to this case. Were they involved in the brain control, the satanic worship, the witchcraft, or a combination?

For the record, we don't think Wal-Mart is satanic, just greedy and terrible to their workers.

Here's the story from Canada.com:

Judge hears $2-billion lawsuit against Wal-Mart, Microsoft over brain control

A judge has refused to dismiss a "bizarre" civil suit brought by a Nanaimo man, who is seeking

$2 billion in damages from Microsoft, Telus, Wal-Mart, the RCMP and other defendants over alleged brain-wave control, satanic rituals and witchcraft.

Justice Fraser Wilson heard from five lawyers on Monday, arguing that the case brought forward by Jerry Rose is so outrageous it should have been dismissed immediately.

Rose's claim states "that he has been subject to invasive brain computer interface technology, research, experiments, field studies and surgery" and also named the University of B.C. and the B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons as defendants.

Jennifer Millbank, a Nanaimo lawyer hired to represent Microsoft in the case, said that Rose's two-page statement of claim is "nothing short of bizarre" and that it would be "impossible this would ever be a case for trial on the merits."

But Wilson, while admitting the case was "certainly an unusual one," said he had to be convinced there was nothing in Rose's claim that could not be litigated.

Millbank said there is no scientific evidence to prove brain control is a possibility.

"I think this is akin to someone saying they sustained injuries because their boat fell off the edge of the world," said Millbank. "My clients ought not to be subjected to what is a nuisance lawsuit."

Wilson raised the notorious case of a CIA-sponsored experiment at McGill University between 1957 and 1964 in which people without their consent were given LSD and other drugs. But Millbank said that in this case there are no material facts that a court could act upon.

Microsoft had no direct contact with Rose, and his statement of claim gives no details on how or when the defendants may have harmed him, Millbank said.

Rose, reading from a three-page statement, said the mind-control harassment continues with "brain-drain technologies" under the RCMP and tactics to prevent his case from going forward. Rose said he is asking for $2 billion because of a computer technology he invented that was stolen from him.

"I'm not a lawyer, but I have proof," said Rose.

We all know that Wal-Mart is obsessed with saving money, but this is a little absurd. According the the Saint Louise Post Dispatch Political Fix blog, instead of hedging their bets and contributing to both candidates for Missouri Governor (an oft used tactic among companies), they waited to see who won and then donated $10,000 to the winning candidate's campaign. That's right, they donated money after the election had been decided.

Perhaps it's not about saving money, though. Perhaps it's about buying access to a governor. It would certainly make sense to do so since Wal-Mart has been cheating Missouri out of, potentially, millions of dollars in property taxes. If they can gain a friend at the state capitol, maybe they won't have to pay all that money back and they can keep stealing from the state? Or maybe they think the governor will overlook various other issues that may come up in his term, like union busting, violating labor law, or costing the state millions by forcing employees on to state aide by not providing adequate benefits.

Either way, we hope Wal-Mart's late donation does not absolve them from their very real responsibilities in the state of Missouri, like property taxes, providing workers with health care, and not breaking the law.

Here's the blog post from Political Fix:

Bargain bin: Wal-Mart gives to Nixon — two days after election

Political donors will often hedge their bets by giving to both candidates in a competitive race.

But, in this month’s contest for Missouri governor, Wal-Mart found a way to make sure it was backing the winner: Wait until the polls close.

Campaign reports for Gov. elect Jay Nixon show that the retail giant gave the Democrat’s campaign $10,000 on Nov. 6 — two days after the election.

Though based in Bentonville, Ark., Wal-Mart has strong ties to Missouri — founder Sam Walton went to high school in Columbia, Mo.

However, that bit of history may not hold much sway for members of organized labor — early and active supporters of Nixon — who for years have battled Wal-Mart’s attempts to keep unions out of their stores.

Al Norman has a story up on Huffington Post about a recent Wal-Mart press release talking about how Wal-Mart is helping Main Street. Normal points out the absurdity of the statement since Wal-Mart irreparably harms Main Street as opposed to helping it. It reminded us of a Press Release we saw a few weeks back. The release said that they, Wal-Mart, had been "relentlessly non-partisan" during the election. Of course if you read this blog, you know that Wal-Mart has been anything but non-partisan. They had been, possibly illegally, telling their employees to vote against Barack Obama in the election in order to forestall the Employee Free Choice Act. Both of these press releases are such outrageous distortions of Wal-Mart's actions, we wonder if Wal-Mart's PR folks have simply gone off the deep end.

Here's Al Norman's piece:

Thank You, Wal-Mart, For A Cheap Christmas

The headline on Wal-Mart's press release this week simply makes no sense: "Wal-Mart Backs Main Street."

After having ravaged Main Street merchants for the past 46 years, how could Wal-Mart "back" Main Street by any stretch of the imagination?

It turns out that Wal-Mart's promise is not to Main Street---but to "thousands of rollbacks...targeting the needs of American families and communities." Wal-Mart has vowed "to lead on delivering a Christmas that costs less."

Wal-Mart's PR team thought that helping "Main Street" sounded good--even though businesses on Main Street will tell you that Wal-Mart is the Grinch who stole their Christmas. This October alone, 38,000 jobs were lost in the retail sector. Those bells you hear ringing are definitely not coming from Main Street cash registers.

As part of Operation Main Street, Wal-Mart is cutting prices for the next seven weeks, with a particular focus "on the prices of items families want and need most." Wal-Mart says that shoppers will be "amazed" at the depth of their price cuts on such essential items as: Betty Crocker potatoes; a General Electric 14 speed blender; and the board game Battleship. Most American families need Battleship, and it's hard to imagine what life on Main Street is like without the Littlest Pet Shop Play Pack.

A cheap Christmas is perfectly timed for those "Wal-Mart Moms," many of whom must have voted last week for Obama. The New York Times magazine described these white woman as "slightly older and more downscale...more culturally conservative and more attuned to economics--who look most like the pivotal swing-voting bloc in 2008." If Wal-Mart Moms were supposed to pivot the election to McCain---they blew it! What has been pivotal for many of these Wal-Mart Moms is that their husbands have lost work, and the Moms themselves have had their hours cut back. Wal-Mart cannot help these families with their mortgage costs, or with their hospital and doctor bills---but the retailer is bringing down the cost of Betty Crocker potatoes.

Many Wal-Mart shoppers are working less, thanks, in part, to Wal-Mart's lack of appetite for American products, and a relentless pursuit of cheap labor in Third World sweatshops. We'll celebrate a cheap Christmas by default this year, as the American economy sours, and families cut back on their presents. If Wal-Mart were willing to be brutally honest, their Main Street press release would proclaim: "Our price rollbacks have led to American job rollbacks."

Wal-Mart's aim is to cut the cost of Christmas with "deeper values" for customers. But what Americans deeply value is a steady job at a decent wage--and those are hard to find at Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer. GM may be laying off hundreds of workers and running out of cash, but Wal-Mart is doing its part for transportation by taking $10 off the Power Wheels Barbie Princess Lil Quad Ride-On.

So thank you, Wal-Mart, for bringing us a cheap Christmas. As America's manufacturing base hemorrhages to China, Thailand, and Vietnam, and Wall Street implodes, it's comforting to know that we can still get an 8" Home Decor Digital Picture Frame with iPod-Ready Input for only $99.

Wal-Mart, we thank you from the bottom of our Main Streets.

According to a new report, Wal-Mart is among the most criticized companies. They are widely criticized in the news media for environmental, societal, and health impacts. Of course, this isn't terribly surprising. Wal-Mart has never been all that interested in gaining a good reputation on any of these topics. It wasn't until recently that Wal-Mart claimed they were green, but despite their new PR talking points, Wal-Mart's actions speak for themselves. You can't expect a good reputation on health when you don't offer adequate health care to your employees, and import dangerous toys from China (including lead tainted toys and toys with dangerous chemicals in them). You can't expect a good reputation on community impact when you are responsible for closing down local stores and shipping American jobs overseas. And you can't expect a good reputation on the environment when your business model is based on selling lots of cheap stuff shipped from around the world.

If Wal-Mart really wants to rehabilitate their image and not be criticized so much, they have to do more than just talk a good game. They have to change their actions. We hope they do, but until then, the criticism isn't likely to stop.

Here's the article from The China Post:

Wal-Mart, China milk firm on most-criticized list

BERLIN -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s biggest retailer, and Fonterra Cooperative Group Ltd. have been named to a list of the largest companies most criticized for their impacts on the environment, health and communities.

Wal-Mart was blamed for contaminants found in its bottled water last month while Fonterra, a New Zealand diary, has been involved in a scandal over tainted milk in China, according to a study by RepRisk, a consulting firm that analyzes companies’ exposure to controversial issues and news.

Other companies named in the study include BP Plc, whose refinery in Indiana was singled out by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for higher air pollution leading to asthma and heart disease, Exxon Mobil Corp., Monsanto Co. and BAE Systems Plc.

Imagine going to the store to buy something, lets say a blender. You get it home and it doesn't work properly. So you take it back and exchange it for one that works. Imagine that the store wants to charge you for tax on the new blender even though you've already paid the sales tax for the product.

The Hartford Courant has uncovered just such a trend at Wal-Mart stores across Connecticut, and now the Governor has promised to investigate.

Here's the story from The Courant:

Consumer Protection reviewing Wal-Mart's double tax policy

Despite complaints from customers of its stores throughout Connecticut, Wal-Mart insists that it's following state tax laws by requiring them to pay tax again on exchanges made without receipts.

My conclusion is that not only is Wal-Mart violating state laws by charging tax again without receipts, but is letting its employees falsely blame the state. But you be the judge.

The law seems clear:

"When a retailer exchanges or replaces taxable merchandise with identical or similar merchandise for no additional consideration because of a defect or because the item is otherwise unsatisfactory to the customer, no additional sales tax is due from the customer regardless of whether the customer is unable to produce the original sales receipt or other verification of the date and place of purchase, and/or the exchange or replacement takes place more than 90 days after the original retail sale," the state Department of Revenue Services states in its 2005 ruling.

The state tax department -- which refuses to say whether Wal-Mart is violating its laws -- says the critical question is whether a store has an even exchange policy.

"If a retailer allows even exchanges, then sales tax should not be charged on the second item," department spokeswoman Sarah Kaufman wrote me this month when I asked similar questions about Home Depot.

Wal-Mart says on its website: "You can replace, exchange, or get credit for an item immediately in a store, pending product availability."

A Wal-Mart spokeswoman refuses to discuss the issue, despite several requests for clarification about its policy:

"George, I believe I've answered your question already, but I'll gladly do it again. Walmart's policy is to satisfy the customer and follow the law. Thanks again," Ashley Hardie, Wal-Mart spokeswoman, wrote me in an e-mail.

We probably aren't talking about a lot of money here and the second tax goes to the state, but customers who are charged the additional tax are furious.

During the past two weeks I have had written complaints from customers who shopped at Wal-Mart stores in Manchester, Cromwell, East Windsor, Torrington, Norwalk, Willimantic, North Windham, Newington and Southington.

Shirley Cleveland of Newington wrote me that a month ago she purchased a toaster from Wal-Mart in her town, but returned it after learning on a television news program that it was defective and could start a fire.

She returned to the store without a sales slip, but took her charge statement from her credit card account.

"I asked for a credit on my credit card and was refused, they would only give me a gift card and would not credit me the tax I paid. The amount was only under two dollars but it's in someone's pocket not mine," she wrote me.

Another customer, C. William Lee of Wethersfield, said he and his wife were told by a Wal-Mart manager Saturday in the Newington store that there can be no tax refund if cash was used, even though they had a receipt.

I went to the East Windsor Wal-Mart this week and confirmed what others have told me, that employees who work at the return desk say that state law prevents them from returning sales tax on an even exchange without a receipt.

On Friday, a spokesman for Gov. M. Jodi Rell said she believes that consumers shouldn't needlessly pay double taxes and would have the tax department review the issue.

But, since it's the Consumer Protection Department that is supposed to enforce return and exchange laws, the hot potato has been dropped into Consumer Protection Commissioner Jerry Farrell Jr.'s lap, to determine whether stores are properly charging taxes on exchanges.

Based on my dealings with Farrell, I think we will have a fair decision.

Yesterday, we told you about Wal-Mart's new push for getting good coverage about the election. But what of the videos themselves? New York Times blogger Virginia Heffernan weighs in:

Go to the Wal-Mart’s homepage these days, and up come two videos, one for Barack Obama and one for John McCain. These are the two campaigns’ Wal-Mart-only pitches. Presumably, they reflect what each candidate thinks that Wal-Mart shoppers — regular folk? Flyover folk? Poor people? — want from them. They’re fascinating. The differences between them are fascinating.

Here they are. First up — following the left-to-right order on the site, is Barack Obama. In his tinny-audio video, he’s all alone, talking straight to regular folks about “what we need to do.”

(Spoiler: grow the economy, middle-class tax break, let workers unionize for fair wages and health care, protect pensions, strengthen Social Security, supply health care universally, educate every kid so he can compete globally, make jobs with made-in-America energy initiatives, end the war and quit needing Middle Eastern oil in 10 years.)

Those things we need to do are written so straight, but they’re also very self-assured and respectably specific. (Still, you can’t help wishing that he pulled a Palin-wink when he mentioned organizing workers.) They’re under the rubric of restoring the American dream, which Obama says is slipping away.

Next up, John McCain. His is one of his extra-lush campaign videos, beginning with the young P.O.W. McCain barely choking out his name and turning to voiceover thereafter. In fact, you never hear from the candidate again. His “video” is in fact a slide show with fades — no moving pictures — and it’s elegantly produced, unlike Obama’s video, which almost looks as if it were shot in a Wal-Mart itself.

McCain doesn’t say anything just for Wal-Mart; he hits the melodrama of his “common-sense conservative” character. He’s tough; he’s a fighter; he “abhors waste” (like bargain shoppers?); he evinces “a faithful, unyielding love for America.” The big strings section surges. The audio trounces Obama’s. Where Obama’s surprise step is to renounce production values, McCain’s video’s weirdest quality is its superstitious streak: “The stars are aligned. Change will come.” Wha—?

And “What good fortune that America will choose this leader at precisely this time.” Will choose? Voters, you are getting sleepy. … Does this kind of salesmanship work on anyone anymore? Did it ever?

Fresh off of their stint intimidating their employees, Wal-Mart wants you to be informed about the candidates. Wal-Mart just launched "a non-partisan, video voter guide in the form of a series of three-minute educational videos from Senators Barack Obama and John McCain." You can see the videos the candidates gave Wal-Mart here.

Of course it's pretty obvious that Wal-Mart is trying to generate some positive press surrounding the election for themselves. It's great that they now want their employees and customers to know where the candidates stand, but it doesn't erase their illicit meetings, the lies they told about the Employee Free Choice Act during those meetings, or their insistence that their employees vote against Obama. Wal-Mart got caught telling their employees how to vote, and suddenly they'd like everyone to know that they are really just bipartisan. I'll believe that when their employees get decent affordable health care.

You can see the press release about the new videos here.

BloggingStocks weighs in on Wal-Mart's Tire and Lube shop closing. They frame the issue in a 'personal responsibility' versus 'corporate responsibility' light. While the blog doesn't draw a strong conclusion on the situation, they seem to suggest that closing down any location with a union is no way to run a business. Their reasons are mostly practical: your customers will be upset if you just go closing stores they're used to shopping in, and if Wal-Mart really can't afford the small increase in wages to 6 employees, how are they going to keep up with a sharply rising cost of living? We would add that shutting down a store and firing the workers simply because they are advocating for themselves is wrong.

Here are a few excerpts from the BloggingStocks piece:

...the retailer would rather see the operation shut down entirely instead of having employees with any kind of power.

That may sound harsh, but it has to be the feeling around a Wal-Mart tire and lube shop in Gatineau, Quebec, which was literally closed due to its unionization last week. What better a way to leave consumers in the lurch than to close up shop on something that brings in revenue even if its employees decide to stray from Wal-Mart's "non-union" stance in its retail locations.

Is Wal-Mart's perspective on labor costs "simply unworkable" too? With costs going up for fuel, food and everything in between, Wal-Mart employees will feel the pinch first. That pinch will turn into a tourniquet. At that point, those who can't leave Wal-Mart employment may try to work in some kind of union activity into more of the retailer's North American locations. Wal-Mart can't just shut those locations down when this starts happening. Or, can it?

As they did in 2005, Wal-Mart is shutting down a location because the workers voted to form a union. Back in '05, Wal-Mart suggested that they were closing the store because it wasn't making enough money. This time, they didn't even pretend there was another reason.

Here's the Reuters article:

Wal-Mart Canada closes auto shop after union win

TORONTO, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Canada (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) closed an auto center in one of its stores in Gatineau, Quebec, on Thursday, two months after employees won the right to unionize the tiny operation.

The six employees at the local Tire Lubrication Express won a three-year court battle in August to be represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada, with the court imposing a 33 percent wage increase for the workers to an average C$13.76 an hour.

Wal-Mart Canada spokesman Kevin Groh said the company could not justify the wage hike.

"We think the numbers speak for themselves when the imposed contract would increase operating costs by more than 30 percent and combined with the fact that TLEs (Tire Lubrication Express) operate under very narrow profit margins, such a large increase could have raised consumer prices by more than 30 percent," Groh said.

"No business can afford to run an unprofitable unit and it's unlikely customers would accept a 30 percent price increase."

In 2005, the company closed a Wal-Mart store in Jonquiere, Quebec, that had been the first in North America to win union certification. The store had employed 190 people.

Union representatives were not immediately available for comment.

Five associates and one manager of the tire and lubrication bay at the store were offered jobs at other local Wal-Mart automotive shops, Groh said. The larger retail store in Gatineau that housed the Tire Lubrication Express remains open.

And here's the press release from the United Food and Commercial Workers:

The closure of a unionized Wal-Mart Tire and Lube Express in Gatineau, Quebec "is another attack on its workers, on the community, and one more example of its blatant disregard for Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms," says Wayne Hanley, the National President of UFCW Canada.

"Wal-Mart thinks a cheap oil change is more important than the Canadian constitution."

Wal-Mart Canada announced Thursday that it was shutting the Gatineau outlet because a union contract, which came into force in August, didn't fit with its business model. It is the second time Wal-Mart has shut a Quebec outlet after its workers decided to form a union.

In April 2005 Wal-Mart shut its store in Jonquiere, Quebec and terminated more than 200 workers just as binding arbitration for a first-contract was set to begin. Later this year the Supreme Court will hear arguments that the shutting of the Jonquiere store was a violation of those workers' rights.

In June 2007 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that under the Charter's Freedom of Association protections, workers in Canada are guaranteed the right to organize for the purposes of collective bargaining, "but once again Wal-Mart has proven the only rules it respects are its own, " said Hanley.

"For Wal-Mart to say its employees are free to unionize, but then declare that a contract produced through mediation just doesn't work for their business model, means as far as Wal-Mart is concerned, the rights of its American shareholders are more important than the human rights of its workers in Canada."

"Now it is up to the Supreme Court to tell Wal-Mart that it is not above the law and that it must respect the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively."

Back in June, Adidas sued Wal-Mart for selling shoes that were similar in design to their own copyrighted shoes. They had sued Wal-Mart before over the same issue. Wal-Mart settled with Adidas instead of letting it go to court, but we haven't heard how much they gave the shoe company. Now Nike is suing for, essentially, the same thing. It is pretty clear that Wal-Mart is continuing their tactic of taking popular products, having them manufactured incredibly cheaply, and undercutting the original product by selling the knockoff for cheaper. Only this time companies are pushing back.

Here's the article from Reuters:

Nike sues Wal-Mart, alleges patent infringement

NEW YORK, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Nike Inc has sued Wal-Mart Stores Inc, saying the world's largest retailer is selling athletic shoes that infringe on its design patents.

In a complaint filed on Monday, Nike claims Wal-Mart is selling shoes that infringe on its Shox line, which is designed with what looks like springs in the heels.

"Wal-Mart knowingly and intentionally sold and continues to sell the infringing Shoes as simulations of Nike shoes," the Nike complaint states.

Nike is seeking an order to bar Wal-Mart from selling items that infringe on its patents and "damages adequate to compensate Nike for the patent infringement that has occurred."

Wal-Mart could not be reached for an immediate comment.

The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

It seems that Wal-Mart's bottled water is neither saving money, or living better. The Environmental Working Group released a report where they tested bottled water of various brands. They did not release all the brands, but they did release the name of Wal-Mart's Sam's Choice bottled water. What they found is disturbing. Apparently in addition to being bad for the environment, drinking Wal-Mart's bottled water could also be bad for your health. The Environmental Working Group also found that some of the water sold at Wal-Mart came from Las Vegas public water supplies. In other words, Wal-Mart is charing you for tap water. And they're charging an arm and a leg for it. Bottled Water can cost 1900 times more than tap water.

So let's recap, Wal-Mart's bottled water is:

-bad for the environment, like all bottled water
-bad for your health because it contains dangerous pollutants, toxins, and pharmaceuticals
-sometimes just tap water in a bottle
-incredibly expensive compared to tap water

Yup for a company that wants you to save money and live better, this product is sure a winner.

Here are a few excerpts from the San Fransisco Chronicle:

The Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization with offices in Oakland, tested 10 brands of bottled water and found that Wal-Mart's Sam's Choice contained chemical levels that exceeded legal limits in California and the voluntary standards adopted by the industry...

...Some findings from the study:

-- Three samples of Sam's Choice bought in Oakland, Mountain View and Fayetteville, N.C., contained levels of total trihalomethanes between 14 ppb and 37 ppb, exceeding the state and industry standard of 10 ppb.

-- One of the byproducts, bromodichloromethane, also a carcinogen, is even more toxic to lab animals and is more strictly controlled. The state's cancer safety standard is 2.5 ppb. Three bottles of Sam's Choice purchased in Mountain View and Oakland contained the contaminant at levels from 7.7 ppb and 13 ppb.

-- Also present in bottled water were caffeine and the pharmaceutical Tylenol, as well as arsenic, radioactive isotopes, nitrates and ammonia from fertilizer residue. Industrial chemicals used as solvents, degreasing agents and propellants were also found in the tests.

-- Trace amounts of synthetic chemicals or degradation products from the manufacture of PET, or polyethylene terephthalate, plastic bottles were found, including acetaldehyde, isobutane and toluene. At those low levels, scientists can't ascertain the health effects.

Business Week reminds us, once again, that Wal-Mart's low prices come at a high cost. The article exposes Wal-Mart's relationship with a factory in Bangladesh where workers were paid less than the $24 a month minimum wage, were punished for being late to work with beatings and worked excruciating hours. The story gets more disturbing because Wal-Mart tried to stop the report from being published. Wal-Mart's connection to sweatshops are nothing new. We've discussed it on this blog here and here. Indeed this is the very model Wal-Mart is based on.

Here's an excerpt from the Business Week article:

The world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), is being accused of buying school uniforms that were made under extreme sweatshop conditions at a factory in Bangladesh.

The JMS Garments Factory in Chittagong, Bangladesh, produces school uniforms that are sold in Wal-Mart stores under the Faded Glory brand name. A report from SweatFree Communities, an anti-sweatshop activist group based in Bangor (Me.), found that workers at the factory work up to 19-hour shifts to finish Wal-Mart's orders under tight deadlines; are made to stand for hours as punishment for arriving late to work; and are frequently subject to verbal abuse and kicking or beatings. Some workers earn as little as $20 each month, the group says—even lower than the country's legal minimum wage of $24 per month.

The report is based on interviews with more than 90 workers conducted away from the factory in workers' homes by a Bangladeshi nongovernmental labor research organization on behalf of SweatFree Communities, a five-year-old nonprofit group funded by activist foundations such as the Solidago Foundation, CarEth Foundation, and Presbyterian Hunger Program. The group works to get commitments from schools, cities, and other employers to buy goods with employee rights in mind.

Read the full article here

According to the Associated Press, Wal-Mart has reached a settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency after violating the Clean Air Act by selling cans of silly string with a banned ozone-depleting substance. The EPA is fining Wal-Mart $199,000 for the violation.

This is just more evidence that Wal-Mart's basic business model isn't good for the environment. Sure, they can sell lots of eco-friendly or "eco-friendly" products, but keeping prices down means cutting corners, ignoring regulations, or pushing manufacturing to places that don't have regulations. Wal-Mart doesn't know why the banned substance was in the cans, but if they paid half as much attention to going green as they did to cutting costs they probably would.

Here's the article the AP via Forbes:

Wal-Mart and EPA reach settlement on violations

ATLANTA -The Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday it and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. have reached a settlement over alleged violations of the Clear Air Act, which prohibits the sale or distribution of nonessential products containing ozone-depleting substances.

Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people ) will pay $199,000 in penalties under the settlement.

According to the agency, EPA investigators bought cans of a party string product called "Glow-in-the-Dark Looney String" from Wal-Mart stores between November 2005 and January 2006, and results of an analysis showed the products contained a banned ozone-depleting substance.

Wal-Mart violated the Clean Air Act by distributing and selling the product, according to the EPA.

The EPA said Wal-Mart has taken action to investigate the cause of the violation, meet compliance and ensure that violations do not happen again.

Greg Rossiter, a representative for Wal-Mart of Bentonville, Ark., said once notified by the EPA, Wal-Mart inspected its inventory and conducted a full review of other party string products to make certain that no other similar items being sold contained the banned substance.

"Product safety for Wal-Mart customers is our top priority," Rossiter said.

Rossiter said Wal-Mart is no longer conducting business with the unnamed supplier.

Shares of Wal-Mart slipped 94 cents to $53.63 in afternoon trading.

There is yet another dangerous Chinese made product being recalled from Wal-Mart. 210,000 General Electric brand toasters have been recalled because of an electrical problem. The toasters can short circuit and cause electrical shock and fire. This joins the long list of recalled products made in China and sold at Wal-Mart. Indeed Wal-Mart is the number one importer of Chinese goods in the US with roughly 70% of their goods coming from China. According to the Dallas Morning News, there were 140 reported cases of shock or fire from the toaster.

If you bought a toaster from Wal-Mart recently, please read the story from the Dallas Morning News, and be sure to review Wal-Mart's recall notice.

Christmas shopping usually starts on "Black Friday" the day after Thanksgiving. It is traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year as folks head out to catch early sales. Last year, however, Wal-Mart bucked the trend and put popular items on sale a few weeks before Thanksgiving, and, because they are the leader in the retail industry, other stores followed. But this year, Wal-Mart is putting popular toys on sale by October 10th. That's right, October 10th. That's three weeks before Halloween and seven weeks before Black Friday! SEVEN! For those of you keeping track, it's also just two and a half weeks after the start of fall, and 11 weeks before Christmas. The reason for this crazy move? Well, in short, Wal-Mart, and the rest of the retail industry, is desperate. With the economy in such dire straights this could be the worst holiday shopping season in more than 15 years.

What do you think? Will we see Christmas shopping starting in September next year?

Here are a few stories from Reuters and the Associated Press.

Wal-Mart has been plagued with lawsuits over denied breaks and time card tampering. They have been found guilty and paid out hundreds of millions of dollars so far, and more suits are still coming to judgment. Recently a class action suit filed in 2001 was reinstated in Massachusetts and the lawyer says Wal-Mart owes $600 million in fines for breaking the law over a million times. This is a simple matter of enforcement. The state mandates that anyone who works a 6 hour shift must have at least 30 minutes off. Wal-Mart denied their employees these breaks.

We'll keep an eye on this decision and if Wal-Mart is made to answer for its abuse of the law. No matter what your position on the retail giant is, they shouldn't be allowed to break the law and get away without consequences.

Here's an excerpt of the article from the Boston Herald:

The state is being deprived of as much as $600 million in fines from Wal-Mart alone by failing to enforce a Massachusetts law requiring companies to give employees meal breaks, according to a Medford lawyer waging a class-action lawsuit against the retailer.

Attorney Robert Bonsignore won a key Supreme Judicial Court appeal this week that reinstated the class-action lawsuit on behalf of 67,500 current and former Massachusetts employees of Wal-Mart. The suit alleges that Wal-Mart systematically withheld workers’ wages and cut short or denied their meal and rest breaks.

As part of the case, first filed in 2001, an expert statistician witness analyzed Wal-Mart’s paper and electronic payroll records from 1995 to 2005 and documented more than 1 million instances when Bay State employees were denied meal breaks.

Wal-Mart has announced it will cut 6% of its work force and close 20 stores in Japan. Wal-Mart acquired full ownership of Seiyu in March, but the move didn't improve its poor performance. One factor in the business losing money is, ironically, its focus on cheap products, which Japanese culture considers inferior.

When Wal-Mart upped its ownership of Seiyu from 96% to 100%, it claimed it needed more flexibility in order to save the failing company. Apparently they meant they needed the flexibility to cut jobs, close stores, and let the company continue to fail. Huh. We wonder how long Wal-Mart will last in Japan.

Here's and excerpt from the Reuter's article:

TOKYO (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc's (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Japan unit Seiyu Ltd said it will close about 20 unprofitable stores and cut 6 percent of its workforce as it struggles to gain traction in the world's second-largest economy.

But Seiyu, which became a fully-owned subsidiary of the world's largest retailer earlier this year, said it would also look to open stores in new regions and consider acquisitions to help it expand.

Seiyu Senior Vice President Ryo Kanayama said targets may include supermarket chains with a nationwide network.

The current issue of The New Yorker has a great article about illegal Russian timber and Wal-Mart's connection to it (in particular, how that cheap wood toilet seat might be made from illegal wood). As you may recall, back in December we told you about the initial report by the Environmental Investigation Agency, which suggested that Wal-Mart was essentially propping up the illegal timber industry by demanding cheap goods. Now there is even more detail about how Russian forests are logged, smuggled in to China and made in to various household products sold at Wal-Mart. The world's largest corporation may talk a lot about going green, but their actions show their true motivator: profit.

Check out the video that goes with the New Yorker article, it is quite enlightening. In particular, notice that the Chinese importer mentions he pays "protection money" to get the wood into the country.

"Wal-Mart Women" are the soccer moms of this election. They are that magical demographic that both candidates covet and pundits claim will make or break a candidate. The Wall Street Journal has a particularly good take on the political demographic. In particular the article hits the nail directly on the head when it says of the recently released customer poll done by Wal-Mart, "But the poll was clearly an exercise in public relations. The discount retailer sought to play up the notion that Wal-Mart's customers have a key role in November's elections to show that it is a political force to be reckoned with."

As you probably recall, a little over a month ago Wal-Mart was caught holding meetings designed to intimidate employees into voting against Barack Obama. Wake Up Wal-Mart filed an official FEC complaint against Wal-Mart for these despicable meetings. Reeling from the bad press they got in the aftermath of their shady meetings, Wal-Mart is desperate to capitalize on the excitement surrounding "Wal-Mart Moms."

Here's the full article

Al Norman thinks Wal-Mart is making progress in pushing Hanes to move manufacturing jobs out of America to places with cheaper labor like Vietnam and Thailand. Of course he notes that they still have some work to do since Hanes still operates 11 plants in the US with 10,000 jobs.

Check out his article over at The Huffington Post. Here's a small piece of it:

Wal-Mart has helped drive another American manufacturing icon offshore.

This week Hanes (HBI, Hanesbrands Inc) announced that it was abandoning four production plants in North Carolina, and five more in Central America. Chasing cheap labor, the Hanes jobs will shift to Thailand and Vietnam. According to MarketWatch, Hanes is attempting to lower costs to remain competitive, "and answering to the demands of retailers such as No. 1 discounter Wal-Mart Stores Inc."

The American consumer knows Hanes as the company that makes T-shirts, bras, panties, men's and children's underwear--the same underwear that Michael Jordan wears. Hanes boasts that its brands "can be found in eight out of 10 American households." Brands such as Playtex and Wonderbra, Hanes, Champion and L'eggs. Most Americans think that Hanes products are as American as Michael Jordan. But the Winston-Salem, North Carolina-based Hanesbrands long ago quietly shifted to a new vision for the company: "to be a world-class consumer goods company with a distinctive competence in operating a low-cost global supply chain." That sure ain't North Carolina.

Over at The Consumerist, a Wal-Mart employee writes in from Kentucky where 300,000 folks lost power in the aftermath of hurricane Ike. It seems that right after the storm phone chargers went from $10-15 to $19. He couldn't come up with a reason other than the hurricane and people really really needed them with no power.

The worker is particularly upset about this because it goes against the companies "Save Money. Live Better." slogan. We are also upset that Wal-Mart is attempting to squeeze extra money from hurricane victims. We're not surprised in the least, however, that Wal-Mart's actions don't match Wal-Mart's talk. On everything from paying their employees for the time they've worked, to offering affordable and quality health care, to a commitment to the environment, Wal-Mart consistently says one thing and does another.

Here is an excerpt from the employee's letter:

Here in KY, we didn't get the rain, but we did get high winds on Sunday morning, which knocked out power to some 300,000 people here. The next day when we opened, people bought every car charge and battery we had because they were still without any power. Now today all of our car chargers go up nearly 50%. In fact, every charger, car or wall, in our store is a flat $19.00, when car chargers were $10.00 and wall chargers were $15.00 yesterday. This is hardly a coincidence, and it's so blatently obvious to our customers.

The Walton family, heirs of Sam Walton's fortune made with Wal-Mart stores, rank numbers 4 through 7 on this years Forbes 400 list, the list of wealthiest Americans. While Bill Gates tops the list with $57 billion, the Walton family's combined worth is $89.9 billion.

Of course there is nothing wrong with this family being so absurdly wealthy. No, our objection is that they make their profits on the backs of their workers by mistreating them and paying them poverty level wages. Contrasting a typical Wal-Mart workers wage with the Walton families wealth is mind boggling, and more than a little depressing. For example, it would take someone making $20,000 a year (which is a relatively high wage for your typical Wal-Mart cashier) on million years to net the amount of money one Walton sibling is worth. Of course, they would have to spend nothing in order to actually have that much money after a million years, oh, and they'd have to live for a million years.

Here's an excerpt from The Morning News article:

Jim Walton, son of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. founder Sam Walton, reclaimed a leading spot this year at No. 4 with a $23.4 billion fortune after falling off last year. The 60-year-old is chairman of Arvest Bank Group and Community Publishers Inc., which owns a chain of small daily newspapers in Arkansas and surrounding states.

Eldest brother Robson Walton, 64, comes in a close second with $23.3 billion, landing him in the No. 5 spot. He is chairman of Wal-Mart.

Sister Alice Walton came in at No. 6 with $23.2 billion. The 59-year-old heiress has been investing her riches in the Crystal Brides art museum in Bentonville.

Christy Walton and family collectively ranked at No. 7 with $23.2 billion. The 53-year-old is the widow of John Walton, who died in 2005.

The New York Times recently reported that the All China Federation of Trade Unions, the only union allowed by the Chinese government, is pressuring companies to accept the union. This essentially amounts to the Chinese government pressuring major companies into accepting the union. The story reports that Wal-Mart is complying with the request. Indeed, about a month ago, Wal-Mart reached an agreement with the union in two cities.

This news might not sound quite right to many who know Wal-Mart. Typically when you hear Wal-Mart and Union in the same breath it has something to do with firing workers, espionage, closing stores, intimidation, or some other nasty anti-union activity. Wal-Mart really really REALLY hates unions. So this piece of news poses some questions:

Why is Wal-Mart cooperating with the Chinese union but still using their same dirty tricks here in the US?

Will this raise production costs in China as we suggested a few weeks back?

Will Wal-Mart agree to the unions and then simply leave causing thousands to lose their jobs?

We'll keep an eye on the situation and let you know what the answers might be.

A Mexican court recently ruled that Wal-Mart de Mexico's practice of paying its employees with electronic cards, valid only in Wal-Mart stores, was unconstitutional. The court likened the practice to companies paying employees with money only valid at company stores, which was common during the dictatorship of President Porfirio Díaz.

Can you really blame Wal-Mart though? Afterall, they were just trying to live up to their slogan "Save Money. Live Better." They were saving their money by keeping it in the store, and everyone knows that being paid with gift certificates is living better.

Here's the story from Reuters via The New York Times:

Mexican Court Rules Against Wal-Mart

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) — Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled Friday that Wal-Mart de México, the country’s top retailer, violated the Constitution by paying a worker in part with store cards usable only in Wal-Mart stores.

Wal-Mart de México, which is also known as Walmex and is a unit of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., gives employees electronic store cards as part of their salaries. The court said the practice harked back to exploitative wage schemes of a century ago.

For now, the ruling applies only to the worker who brought the lawsuit and will not require Walmex to stop giving store cards to other employees.

But if enough other workers decide to bring a similar case to court, the ruling could guarantee similar decisions in the future, a court spokesman said.

During the long dictatorship of President Porfirio Díaz, which ended in 1911, wealthy landowners and businessmen paid employees with special currency valid only in company stores.

Walmex said that its store card program was voluntary but that it would study the court ruling.

Wal-Mart has been sued more than 70 times across the country on behalf of hundreds of thousands of current and former employees for tampering with time cards and not paying its employees for lunch and other breaks. Yesterday the appeals court of Pennsylvania upheld a jury's decision that Wal-Mart was guilty of violating the law in not compensating their workers. The judge also ruled that Wal-Mart should pay more than $62 million in statutory liquidated damages. That brings sum Wal-Mart owes to over $186 million.

Here's an excerpt from The Legal Intelligence article:

A Philadelphia judge has affirmed a $185 million award against retail titan Wal-Mart in a class action alleging underpayment of Wal-Mart employees as part of an opinion written for an appeal now pending with the Pennsylvania Superior Court.

Common Pleas Judge Mark I. Bernstein's opinion under Pennsylvania Rule of Appellate Procedure 1925(a) said the appeals court should affirm a jury verdict finding over 186,000 current and former Pennsylvania Wal-Mart employees were not properly compensated for off-the-clock work and missed rest breaks between March 19, 1998, and May 1, 2006.

The jury found that Wal-Mart employees were owed $1,462,910.35 in damages for off-the-clock work and $27,715,964 for rest break violations between March 19, 1998, and Dec. 31, 2001, and $1,031,430 for off-the-clock work and $48,258,111 for rest break violations between Jan. 1, 2002, and May 1, 2006, Bernstein wrote in his opinion from Wednesday.

Bernstein also said that the Superior Court should affirm his judgment that Wal-Mart should pay $62.2 million in statutory liquidated damages, $10.2 million in prejudgment interest, $33.8 million in statutory attorney fees and $11.9 million in nonstatutory attorney fees.

The total judgment against Wal-Mart now stands at $187,648,589.11.

Back in June we told you about a police officer who was injured on the job and fighting to get disability benefits. In the midst of his fight for benefits, Wal-Mart swooped in and filed a brief with the court asking them not to give him benefits. This was an incredibly crass and despicable act. It was a blatant attempt to avoid paying their own workers more disability benefits in the future, and it could have jeopardized this police officers chance at getting benefits.

We just learned, however, that the court has rejected the briefs filed by Wal-Mart and other companies. It is nice to know that the court won't stand for such blatant disregard for humanity and lack of empathy. Perhaps there's a more legal argument for why the brief was rejected, but we still think Wal-Mart showed poor taste in filing this brief. Not only did they show a complete lack of empathy, but they also proved they care way more about profits than their workers (no surprise there).

Here's an excerpt from The Morning News article:

LITTLE ROCK -- The state Supreme Court on Thursday denied motions by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Tyson Foods and three business organizations to file briefs in a former Pine Bluff police officer's lawsuit seeking disability benefits.

Jimmy Singleton, now retired, of Pine Bluff is seeking disability benefits for physical impairment he says he received on March 1, 2003, when he was beaten and shot while struggling with a suspect.

The state Court of Appeals has twice ruled in Singleton's favor, and the Supreme Court is considering a request to review the case. Wal-Mart, Tyson and the business groups had sought to submit briefs in support of state workers' compensation procedures.

Full article here.

This is the second entry in a series of posts looking at China as it relates to Wal-Mart in the aftermath of the Olympic games.

Today, we'll take a look at product safety.

Wal-Mart's business model is based on low prices. That means both how much they pay for a product, and how much they sell a product for. In the first post in this series, we looked at how this frenzied urge to reduce labor costs drove manufacturing to China. Today, we look at how Wal-Mart, based on the same desire for cheap goods, is responsible for a myriad of dangerous products.

When Wal-Mart goes looking for the cheapest products, or forces their vendors to do so, they don't consider things like safety, treatment of workers, or labor violations. They are looking for the lowest price, period. And as they pit factories against other factories to get the cheapest price, factories start to cut corners in order to keep their prices down and make an acceptable profit.

This has resulted in an astounding list of unsafe products reaching consumers, often with terrible consequence. Pet food sold at Wal-Mart, for instance, sickened or killed what could be thousands of pets. Wal-Mart had Aqua Dots on their top toys for Christmas list, but it turns out that when kids ate the little plastic pieces they went into a coma. Wal-Mart sold lead laced Christmas lights and Christmas trees and Key Chains. Wal-Mart was also selling salmonella tainted snack food that was made in China. This is just a small sample of the dangerous products sold at Wal-Mart. You can see a full list of recalled products here.

The problem got so bad that it was announced just a few days ago that the United States would be posting product safety inspectors in three Chinese cities.

This is great news in terms of products coming from China. In the future, products coming from that country will likely be less dangerous. Unfortunately, as mentioned in the last post of this series, China is swiftly becoming a more expensive option for manufacturing, and this will only serve to make it more expensive. That means major companies like Wal-Mart will simply move to other countries with lax guidelines and cheap labor. It means Wal-Mart will continue to put its consumers at risk by manufacturing and selling dangerous goods.

Wal-Mart has long been plagued with recalls of dangerous products, and it has often been implicated in taking too little action about such products. Now it seems Wal-Mart is still selling a dangerous crib that is responsible for two deaths.

Consumer Affairs has the story, here are a few excerpts:

Simplicity bassinets that are still being sold at Wal-Mart and on Wal-Mart's Web site have been blamed for killing two babies...

...The product appears to be sold exclusively at Wal-Mart and on Wal-Mart's Web site. As of yesterday, ConsumerAffairs.com found the product at two Washington, D.C.-area Wal-Marts we visited. The bassinet comes in two different Winnie the Pooh fabrics with the product identifications 3123DOH8 and 3112DOH7 and sells for between $100 and $110.

It seems that not only is Wal-Mart set to run ads during the conventions to try and capitalize on undecided voters, but they are also pulling out an old line they've been trying to push, that of "Wal-Mart as government". Of course their ads come right after they were caught trying to intimidate their employees into voting against Democrats.

The new ads will apparently be in a campaign style and focus on Wal-Mart's ability to save consumers money and gas, and cast themselves as a champion for its consumers. In other words, Wal-Mart is playing at government once again, this time with their very own campaign ad.

Check out the article from The Morning News:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Friday it is launching a series of economy-focused TV ads during the Democratic and Republican national conventions.

The 15-second ads highlight some of the company's top initiatives, including its $4 prescription drug program, and communicate how supercenter shopping saves on gas.

The ads will run on cable news networks including CNN, MSNBC and Fox News during the Democratic convention in Denver and the Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn.

The campaign is part of a larger effort by Wal-Mart to communicate price savings, the company said.

The ads, stylized like campaign ads, cast Wal-Mart as a consumer advocate in a challenging economy.

Wal-Mart declined to say how much the company is spending on the ad campaign, but reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it spent $540 million in advertising last year. Wal-Mart is the fifth largest spender on retail advertising behind Macy's, Nextag.com, Target and Sears, Roebuck and Co., which owns Kmart.

Data collected by The Nielsen Co. shows the retailer last year spent 25 percent of its advertising budget on network TV, 20 percent on cable TV and another 18 percent on other TV broadcasts, including Spanish-language channels.

Wal-Mart U.S. Chief Executive Eduardo Castro-Wright said in a release that the new ad campaign reinforces for its customers that the company is "there for them" through economic hardship.

Analysts had months ago predicted that Wal-Mart would fare well as consumers became increasingly strained by inflation, as well as housing and credit woes. Many continue to be encouraged by its strong quarterly sales compared to the retail industry overall.

"While we still think it is too soon to say that Wal-Mart is back on top of its game, the company is posting its strongest sales numbers in recent memory despite, or potentially because of, the weakening economy," Joseph Beaulieu, analyst with Chicago-based Morningstar, said in an Aug. 7 note.

For the last few weeks, all eyes have been on China. They hosted a stunning Olympic games and won tons of gold medals to boot. It is understandable, then, that there would be a renewed focus on China in the media and in the minds of the American people. We thought we'd take a look at China too. Over the next few days, we'll look at China as it relates to Wal-Mart.

Today, we'll look at the role of China in manufacturing.

If you've followed our campaign you undoubtedly know that more than 70% of the goods Wal-Mart sells come from China. If Wal-Mart were a country, it would be China's 8th largest trading partner ahead of Canada, Russia and Australia. They are responsible for roughly a tenth of the US imports from China, and import almost twice as many products from China as any other company.

Wal-Mart has a long history of forcing it's suppliers to accept low prices for its goods. Suppliers typically accept these prices because of the number of products Wal-Mart can sell. But when they aren't making quite as much as they should be, they have to make up the difference somehow, and that means looking for cheap labor. Wal-Mart pits its vendors against one another to look for the cheapest labor, creating a race to the bottom. Recently, looking for cheap labor means going to China, and that is just what many Wal-Mart vendors have done.

But with China's rapidly modernizing economy, there has been quite a bit of speculation recently that China will no longer be the cheapest source of labor anymore. Today's Kansas City Star had an article about manufacturers looking elsewhere for cheap labor and speculating that Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and others were set to become major centers of manufacturing in the future.

As manufacturing shifts from China to other countries, Wal-Mart and its vendors are sure to follow. It is important to remember that it is not China that is the problem. Rather the problem stems from a system that takes advantage of workers to benefit large corporations like Wal-Mart. The labor in these countries is cheap because factories cut corners on safety, and are not regulated and can demand long hours of workers and pay them little.

A recent Reuters article starts with this paragraph:

TV viewers may be undecided about how they will vote in the upcoming presidential election, but if Wal-Mart has its way, they should not be undecided about where to shop.

If Wal-Mart has its way, you'll also vote against Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

While the article goes on to mention the FEC complaint we filed, it seems to miss the massive amount of irony involved, so we'll point it out.

Wal-Mart has been intimidating their employees into voting a certain way, and now they're trying to capitalize on the party's conventions, and in particular undecided voters.

We'll keep an eye out for these ads and let you know just how hypocritical Wal-Mart is being.

Here's the article from Reuters:

TV viewers may be undecided about how they will vote in the upcoming presidential election, but if Wal-Mart has its way, they should not be undecided about where to shop.

As the Democratic and Republican National Conventions get underway, Wal-Mart is preparing to launch a series of TV ads that will highlight how consumers, worried about the economic climate, can save money by shopping at the discount retailer.

The ads will run on cable news networks like CNN and MSNBC during the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, and the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. The ads will start on Aug. 25 and run through Sept. 7.

In rolling out the ads, Wal-Mart cited a survey by Voter/Consumer Research of Washington, DC according to which more than half of all Americans surveyed – including three quarters of African-Americans and about two thirds of Hispanics — said they are more likely to shop at Walmart discount stores now compared with six months ago. It also said that nearly half of registered voters who are currently undecided between presidential candidates Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain say they are more likely to shop at Walmart today than they were six months ago.

“Americans are facing unprecedented financial challenges and we see them in our stores every day — working men and women living paycheck to paycheck and faced with difficult decisions,” said Walmart U.S. CEO Eduardo Castro-Wright in a statement. “… This new advertising campaign reinforces that we will continue to be there for them.”

The ads will highlight Wal-Mart’s $4 generic prescription drug program, which it says has saved Americans an estimated $1 billion. It will also tout how consumers can save money and gas by taking a one-stop shopping trip to its stores.

It is an interesting time for Wal-Mart to link itself with the presidential election.

Labor groups have asked federal regulators to look into whether Wal-Mart broke the law during company meetings with store managers where it warned about the consequences of a proposed labor law backed by Democrats. At issue is whether Wal-Mart’s discussion of the law, which would make it easier for workers to unionize, amounted to an effort to dissuade employees from voting for Obama.

Wal-Mart denies that it tried to influence voting.

The battle between Wal-Mart and Coughlin has finally ended.

You may recall that Coughlin embezeled from the company, was fired, and convicted of stealing from Wal-Mart. And after all that, he pushed to keep his retirement package of more than $17 million. Now you may be thinking "wow, this guy stole from the company AND he wants millions in retirement benefits, what gall!" You'd be right, but Wal-Mart just settled with Coughlin and will cough up $6.7 million.

I guess Wal-Mart can afford millions for a former executive who stole from them, but paying their hard working hourly associates a little more? Or providing affordable health care for them? That is simply out of the question.

Here's the article from The Morning News:

BENTONVILLE - Tom Coughlin settled with Wal-Mart for $6.75 million Thursday, minutes before jury selection was to begin in a lawsuit the retailer filed to void a 2005 retirement agreement worth more than $17 million to the former executive.

Terms of the settlement won't be released for 20 days, by court order, but the retailer filed a report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday afternoon disclosing the payout amount.

"Mr. Coughlin will forego all outstanding rights and claims under the Retirement Agreement, as well as any additional unpaid or withheld benefits ... estimated at a value of approximately $17 million, not including health benefits," the filing stated.

Coughlin is satisfied with the outcome, although he was looking forward to his day in court, attorney Tim Brooks said shortly after the mid-day settlement announcement.

Wal-Mart attorneys wouldn't speak to reporters, but a spokeswoman issued a brief comment Thursday afternoon. "We are satisfied the settlement is fair to both parties and we are ready to put this one behind us," said Daphne Moore.

Carl Tobias, a civil litigation specialist at the Richmond School of Law, said Thursday he wasn't surprised the case settled, as neither side would gain from trial publicity. He called the payout amount reasonable.

"When you go to trial, it's always risky. I'm sure the Wal-Mart lawyers would have been good, and aggressive, and may have new information," Tobias said. "That sounds like a lot of money in the abstract but, if I were he, I'd feel pretty fortunate - given that he pled to the criminal charges."

Questions that remain include whether Coughlin will receive health benefits, and who will pay two years' worth of attorney fees. Coughlin's reported poor health led a federal judge to sentence him to home confinement, rather than prison.

Wal-Mart filed the fraud, misconduct and breach of fiduciary duty lawsuit in 2005 in Benton County Circuit Court, attempting to void the retirement agreement made with Coughlin, now 59, when he ended his 28-year employment in January 2005.

An internal investigation uncovered years of fake invoices and expense accounts for items ranging from all-terrain vehicles and hunting club memberships to a taxidermy bill for stuffing a wild boar for Coughlin.

Results of that internal investigation were forwarded to federal authorities and led to a criminal conviction in U.S. District Court.

Coughlin is serving a 27-month sentence of home confinement and was ordered to pay $411,218 in restitution to the company and a $50,000 fine.

As executive vice president, Coughlin was earning more than $4 million annually in salary and bonuses. He was vice chairman of the board of directors and reported to Lee Scott, president and chief executive officer.

The retirement deal promised medical care until age 65, millions of dollars in transition payments, and 186,407 shares of restricted stock Coughlin otherwise would have forfeited, according to the suit.

Coughlin maintained rights to the retirement deal, which was drafted by Wal-Mart attorneys and released both parties from liability for claims related to Coughlin's employment, "whether known or unknown."

Jury selection in the civil trial was to begin at 1 p.m. Thursday. The settlement was announced minutes before, and prospective jurors were turned away from the courthouse steps.

For three hours Thursday morning, Coughlin sat at a courtroom conference table with attorneys Steve Vowell and Tim Brooks. Coughlin's wife, Cynthia, and daughter were also in the courtroom, which was otherwise empty. His other two attorneys, Bill Putman and W.H. Taylor, went in and out of the courtroom throughout the morning.

Coughlin and his family left the courthouse about 12:30 p.m. He moved slowly, which Taylor attributed to recent surgery to have both knees replaced.

In Sunday's New York Times editorial section, the paper called on the FEC to investigate Wal-Mart's voter intimidation and union busting meetings. We're glad the Times is with us. As you'll recall, last week we filed an official complaint with the FEC. If you haven't already, go sign our petition. Over 60,000 concerned citizens have already signed, add your voice!

Here's the Time's editorial:

Mixing Politics and Wal-Mart

It is hardly news that Wal-Mart will do whatever it takes to keep unions out of its stores, from closing down a unionized outlet to firing pro-union workers. The National Labor Relations Board has already ruled several times that Wal-Mart has violated the law by retaliating against workers for supporting a union.

Facing the prospect that union-friendly Democrats could win both the White House and Congress, the retail giant is now turning its attention to this year’s election.

Last week, several labor groups filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, accusing Wal-Mart of violating election rules. They acted after The Wall Street Journal reported that thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads had been called to mandatory meetings and told that if Democrats won in November they would likely pass a law to make it easier to unionize companies. According to The Journal, Wal-Mart executives warned that could force the company to cut jobs, while workers would be forced to pay union dues and might have to go on strike.

Telling workers who are paid by the hour — Wal-Mart department supervisors are hourly workers — how to vote is prohibited under the Federal Election Campaign Act.

Wal-Mart acknowledges that it summoned employees around the country to warn them about the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow unions to organize companies if more than half the workers signed cards agreeing to join, dispensing with the need for a secret ballot. But in a memo to managers, Bill Simon, the chief operating officer, said that any executive who might have appeared to be suggesting how to vote was “acting without approval.” Employees, a spokesman said, were merely told which members of Congress supported the legislation.

The vast majority on that list are Democrats, including Senator Barack Obama, who co-sponsored the bill.

The Federal Election Commission should investigate the allegations swiftly and aggressively. The “rogue executive” defense is a well-trodden excuse that should fool no one. Providing workers with a list of members of Congress who, in Wal-Mart’s view, support bad legislation that would worsen workers lives seems indistinguishable from telling them who to vote against.

Even if the F.E.C. eventually rules against Wal-Mart, the case underscores what a paltry deterrent election law provides. According to legal experts, the rules call for fines of only a few thousand dollars per violation. Even if thousands of violations were committed, the fine would amount to pocket change for Wal-Mart.

The F.E.C. needs to tighten its rules. Companies like Wal-Mart need to respect those rules and their workers.

The news that Wake Up Wal-Mart and other worker friendly groups filed a complaint with the FEC is making quite a splash. Check out all the articles about the complaint so far:

WakeUpWalMart.com asks FEC to investigate Wal-Mart [Reuters] This piece was also picked up by Forbes

Labor Groups File Complaint Against Wal-Mart [Washington Post's The Trail Blog]

Unions Seek Probe of Wal-Mart Over Election Law [Wall Street Journal]

Groups to File Complaint Against Wal-Mart [New York Times Politics Blog]

Unions seek Wal-Mart probe over election law: report [Washington Post]

Did Wal-Mart Violate Federal Election Laws? Labor Groups Want to Know [Wall Street Journal Law Blog]

AFL-CIO files complaint against Wal-Mart [The Hill]

Groups file elections complaint against Wal-Mart [Associated Press]

Wal-Mart busted on video for lying to employees about their rights [The G-Spot Blog]

Unions Demand Investigation Of Wal-Mart “Info” Campaign [Donklephant Blog]

Groups file election complaint against Wal-Mart [USA Today]

Unions file complaint against Wal-Mart in labour law dispute

Also, our official statement is up on Digg, can you digg it and help get the word out?

Today Wal-Mart posted their 2nd quarter sales figures and it seems they are doing quite well. They've posted a 17% rise in net income over last year. What is the explanation for this? Well, according to Tom Schoewe, Wal-Mart's Chief Financial Officer it is because "tough times are actually a good time for Wal-Mart" (AP 10/24/07). Yes, Wal-Mart does well when American citizens are struggling.

Here's the article from Dow Jones Newswire via CNNMoney:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) posted a 17% rise in fiscal second-quarter net income, topping raised expectations and prompting the company to boost its fiscal-year target.

But the company gave cautious initial guidance for the current quarter, largely falling below analysts' estimates, as the world's largest retailer expressed some caution about how U.S. shoppers will fare in coming months now that a boost from federal stimulus checks is running its course.

Nonetheless, Chief Executive Lee Scott said, "While inflation and higher fuel costs are pressuring suppliers, retailers and customers worldwide, we're confident that Wal-Mart is well positioned for this economy."

For the quarter ended July 31, Wal-Mart reported net income of $3.45 billion, or 87 cents a share, up from $2.95 billion, or 72 cents a share, a year earlier.

Earnings from continuing operations, excluding gains last year, rose to 86 cents a share from 73 cents a share. In July, Wal-Mart boosted its earnings outlook to a range of 82 cents to 84 cents a share.

Net sales climbed 10% to $101.6 billion.

Gross margin edged up to 23.6% from 23.3%.

Excluding fuel sales, U.S. same-store sales increased 4.5%, better than the company's May estimate for flat to up 2%. The increase was 4.6% at namesake stores and 3.7% at the Sam's Club warehouse chain.

International sales and profits both jumped 17%. Meanwhile, earnings at Wal- Mart U.S. stores grew 11%, but Sam's Club's profits fell 2.9%.

Looking forward, Wal-Mart expects fiscal third-quarter earnings of 73 cents to 76 cents a share; analysts, on average, were expecting 76 cents a share. Wal- Mart also projected U.S. same-store growth will be 1% to 2%. Chief Financial Officer Tom Schoewe said same-store sales will reflect "some sales volatility from week to week."

For the fiscal year, the company boosted its earnings guidance to a range of $ 3.43 to $3.50 a share, up from February's forecast of $3.30 to $3.43 a share. Analysts' latest estimate was $3.49 a share.

Wal-Mart, which is often viewed as a barometer for the retail industry, has been faring better than most non-discount retailers as economy-battered consumers trade down and seek bargains. The big-box chain has benefited from its strategy of focusing on low prices, using the tagline "Save Money. Live Better." to lure budget-conscious shoppers grappling with rises in food costs and gasoline prices. Federal rebate checks, as well as store-layout improvements and recent product launches, have been cited for helping boost Wal-Mart's performance.

In contrast, sales at department stores and specialty retailers have been lagging, in part because of their bigger exposure to discretionary merchandise. But after Wal-Mart issued a cautious outlook last week for its August same-store sales, shareholders have begun worrying the big-box chain may stop standing out so far from the pack as the effects of the stimulus checks wane and as commodity costs continue to rise.

That presents Wal-Mart - which has pegged much of its success to its low-price advantage - with a common retailer dilemma: whether to raise prices at the risk of losing shoppers or to hold price increases in check at the cost of profit margins.

But Eduardo Castro-Wright, chief executive of Wal-Mart's U.S. division, has maintained that Wal-Mart "will do whatever it takes to retain price leadership." Instead of announcing any price increases to cope with the tough economy, the company has slashed its expansion plans. In June, Wal-Mart cut its forecast for capital outlays this year, as it continues to put the brakes on its once- breakneck growth in building stores.

Shares of Wal-Mart closed Wednesday at $57.88, and there was no premarket activity.

Check out this piece about Wal-Mart's illegal political meetings from the American News Project. In particular take note of the comments they got from folks they talked to outside of Wal-Mart. The consensus from regular people is "Wal-Mart should stay out of politics." We agree, and we also think they should stop union bashing and they should treat their workers better...much much better.

The news that Wake Up Wal-Mart and other worker friendly groups filed a complaint with the FEC is making quite a splash. Check out all the articles about the complaint so far:

WakeUpWalMart.com asks FEC to investigate Wal-Mart [Reuters]

Labor Groups File Complaint Against Wal-Mart [Washington Post's The Trail Blog]

Unions Seek Probe of Wal-Mart Over Election Law [Wall Street Journal]

Groups to File Complaint Against Wal-Mart [New York Times Politics Blog]

Unions seek Wal-Mart probe over election law: report [Washington Post]

Did Wal-Mart Violate Federal Election Laws? Labor Groups Want to Know [Wall Street Journal Law Blog]

Also, our official statement is up on Digg, can you digg it and help get the word out?

AFL-CIO files complaint against Wal-Mart [The Hill]

In 2004, Wal-Mart employees in Jonquière, a city in the Canadian province of Quebec, made history when they became the first workers to successfully unionize an entire Wal-Mart store in North America. Rather than bargain with their workers in good faith, in 2005 Wal-Mart decided to close the store instead, just as contract negotiations were entering a period of binding arbitration.

Three years later, The Gazette reports that the Wal-Mart workers who lost their jobs when the company closed its 190-employee Jonquière store have taken their case all the way to the Canadian Supreme Court. They contend that, in closing the store, Wal-Mart violated their right to freedom of association and the Quebec labor code.

The court's decision will be hugely important, not just for the laid off workers in Jonquière, but for Wal-Mart employees throughout Canada. 10 employees at a Wal-Mart garage in Gatineau (another Canadian city) recently formed a union and there have been rumors that Wal-Mart may close that store as well, rather than negotiate a union contract.

I, and likely anyone concerned with justice and workers' rights, hope the Canadian Supreme Court will rule on the side of the workers.

Blogger Kathy G just published her first in what will be a series of posts titled "Wal-Mart: Why They Stink" (I edited the last word of the title to make it more PG). Kathy G has decided to write this series because she believes Wal-Mart is:

the single institution that, above and beyond all others, represents the despotism, moral depravity, and sheer viciousness of American life in the 21st century

Needless to say, it's a pretty scathing indictment of the Behemoth from Bentonville and I strongly encourage our readers to check it out.

Also, if you haven't yet, please take a minute to write a letter to the FEC and demand that they investigate Wal-Mart for their possibly illegal and certainly immoral intimidation of its workers. Thanks a lot to everyone who's already written a letter!

Back in 2005, a Wal-Mart in Canada voted to unionize and just a few months later Wal-Mart shut the store down. Wal-Mart claimed the store wasn't profitable, but it's not terribly hard to put 2 and 2 together. It looks like the same thing may happen again. Today's Montreal Gazette has a story about a mechanic shop run by Wal-Mart that has voted to unionize. They've been waiting for the union to start negotiating for a collective bargaining agreement and now that it's on the horizon, Wal-Mart has started talking about shutting the garage down.

It is not a surprise, they've done it before. Not only did they shut down the store in Canada, but they've also decided to fire meat counter workers and only sell prepackaged meat because a meat department in a Texas store voted to unionize. It is not surprising, but it is deplorable. Wal-Mart should not be allowed to fire workers just because they want 3rd party representation. They should be held to their responsibility to provide fair wages and affordable benefits to their employees.

Here's the article from the Montreal Gazette:

Union expects Wal-Mart to shut soon-to-be unionized garage

MONTREAL - Union leaders say they expect Wal-Mart Canada Corp. to shut down a garage it operates in Gatineau after workers are presented with their first collective agreement.

Guy Chénier, president of the union local representing garage workers, said Wal-Mart has already hinted it will close the shop. In 2005, Wal-Mart came under fire for closing a store in Jonquière after workers won union accreditation.

In Gatineau, across the river from Ottawa, Wal-Mart garage workers have been unionized since 2005, and are now waiting for their first collective agreement following binding arbitration that ended in June.

It's not clear when the contract will be imposed, but the union says it expects it to be soon.

The contract will be a first in North America and is expected to have an impact on Wal-Mart unionization efforts across Canada.

"I have the impression that they will want to close the garage," said Chénier, president of local 486 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada. "But if they do this, we will help the workers find other places right away."

A Wal-Mart executive has already said the retailer might be forced to close the garage, depending on what's in the agreement, said Louis Bolduc, a UFCW spokesperson in Quebec.

"We are eager to see how Wal-Mart behaves," Bolduc said.

"We hope they will act like good corporate citizens."

Yanik Deschênes, spokes-person for Wal-Mart in Quebec, said the retailer could only comment on the arbitrator's decision when it's announced.

"The arbitrator is now working on the file, so we cannot speculate on the outcome," Deschênes said. "We respect the process and we want to wait for the decision."

Arbitrator Alain Corriveau's decision will have implications not only for the 10 garage employees in Gatineau, but potentially for Wal-Mart employees elsewhere in Canada and around the world.

Corriveau is also overseeing the arbitration process for Wal-Mart workers in St. Hyacinthe, who are waiting for their first collective agreement.

While Wal-Mart workers in China belong to a state union - as is required by law - the world's largest retailer is opposed to its employees unionizing.

"If this happens in Quebec, this will be a big shot in the arm for Wal-Mart workers everywhere," said Andy Neufeld, a spokesperson for UFCW local 1518 in British Columbia.

"If this had been a regular file, we would have had a collective agreement in 2005," Chénier said. "A few years later, we wouldn't even be talking about it any more."

At stake are salaries and benefits. On average, workers at the Wal-Mart garage in Gatineau earn $9.25 an hour.

In a front page article, The Wall Street Journal exposed today that Wal-Mart has been holding shady meetings throughout the country in which workers are effectively intimidated into voting against Democrats this fall. Since the story broke, it has become a veritable media sensation.

It's one of the top stories on The Drudge Report, The Huffington Post, even Fox News

Reuters has written not one but two articles

It's also been the subject of blog posts on/from

Salon.com,
Matt Yglesias,
Ezra Klein ,
MSNBC First Read,
The Guardian,
The Moderate Voice,
The Raw Story,
Go Earth,
Think Progress,
Blogging Stocks,
Clusterstock.com,
Digg,
The Arkansas Times,
Christian Political View,
US News and World Report,
Businessmemo.com,
Booman Tribune,
WataugaWatch,
CBS's Political Animal

and many, many more.

Wal-Mart's coercive behavior is nothing less than unconscionable, but it's great to see that Wal-Mart is being exposed for the vicious, utterly irresponsible behemoth they truly are.

The following article is from the front page of today's Wall Street Journal

By ANN ZIMMERMAN and KRIS MAHER

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they'll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies -- including Wal-Mart.

In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized.

According to about a dozen Wal-Mart employees who attended such meetings in seven states, Wal-Mart executives claim that employees at unionized stores would have to pay hefty union dues while getting nothing in return, and may have to go on strike without compensation. Also, unionization could mean fewer jobs as labor costs rise.

The actions by Wal-Mart -- the nation's largest private employer -- reflect a growing concern among big business that a reinvigorated labor movement could reverse years of declining union membership. That could lead to higher payroll and health costs for companies already being hurt by rising fuel and commodities costs and the tough economic climate.

The Wal-Mart human-resources managers who run the meetings don't specifically tell attendees how to vote in November's election, but make it clear that voting for Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama would be tantamount to inviting unions in, according to Wal-Mart employees who attended gatherings in Maryland, Missouri and other states.

"The meeting leader said, 'I am not telling you how to vote, but if the Democrats win, this bill will pass and you won't have a vote on whether you want a union,'" said a Wal-Mart customer-service supervisor from Missouri. "I am not a stupid person. They were telling me how to vote," she said.

"If anyone representing Wal-Mart gave the impression we were telling associates how to vote, they were wrong and acting without approval," said David Tovar, Wal-Mart spokesman. Mr. Tovar acknowledged that the meetings were taking place for store managers and supervisors nationwide.

Wal-Mart's worries center on a piece of legislation known as the Employee Free Choice Act, which companies say would enable unions to quickly add millions of new members. "We believe EFCA is a bad bill and we have been on record as opposing it for some time," Mr. Tovar said. "We feel educating our associates about the bill is the right thing to do."

Other companies and groups are also making a case against the legislation to workers. Laundry company Cintas Corp., which has been fighting a multiyear organizing campaign by Unite Here, relaunched a Web site July 14 called CintasVotes. The site instructs visitors to take action by telling members of Congress to oppose the legislation.

"We feel it's important that our employee partners fully understand the implications that the Employee Free Choice Act could have on their work environment and benefits," said Heather Trainer, a Cintas spokeswoman.

Business-backed organizations are also running ads aimed at building opposition to the bill, including the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, which counts several hundred industry associations as members. Another group, the Employee Freedom Action Committee, is run by former tobacco lobbyist Rick Berman. The groups, which aren't affiliated with each other, say they have a total of $50 million in funding. Neither will disclose which companies or individuals have provided funding.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has made defeat of the legislation a top priority. In the past six months, it has flown state and local Chamber members to Washington to lobby members of Congress. On Thursday, the Chamber began airing a television ad in Minnesota and plans to run ads in other states as part of a broader campaign.

The bill was crafted by labor as a response to more aggressive opposition by companies to union-organizing activity. The AFL-CIO and individual unions such as the United Food and Commercial Workers have promised to make passage of the new labor law their No. 1 mission after the November election.

First introduced in 2003, the bill came to a vote last year and sailed through the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, but was blocked by a filibuster in the Senate and faced a veto threat by the White House. The bill was taken off the floor, and its backers pledged to reintroduce it when they could get more support.

The November election could bring that extra support in Congress, as well as the White House if Sen. Obama is elected and Democrats extend their control in the Senate. Sen. Obama co-sponsored the legislation, which also is known as "card check," and has said several times he would sign it into law if elected president. Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, opposes the Employee Free Choice Act and voted against it last year.

Wal-Mart's labor-relations meetings are led by human-resources managers who received training from Wal-Mart on the implications of the Employee Free Choice Act.

Fine Legal Line

Wal-Mart may be walking a fine legal line by holding meetings with its store department heads that link politics with a strong antiunion message. Federal election rules permit companies to advocate for specific political candidates to its executives, stockholders and salaried managers, but not to hourly employees. While store managers are on salary, department supervisors are hourly workers.

However, employers have fairly broad leeway to disseminate information about candidates' voting records and positions on issues, according to Jan Baran, a Washington attorney and expert on election law.

Both supporters and opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act believe it would simplify and speed labor's ability to unionize companies. Currently, companies can demand a secret-ballot election to determine union representation. Those elections often are preceded by months of strident employer and union campaigns.

Under the proposed legislation, companies could no longer have the right to insist on one secret ballot. Instead, the Free Choice, or "card check," legislation would let unions form if more than 50% of workers simply sign a card saying they want to join. It is far easier for unions to get workers to sign cards because the organizers can approach workers repeatedly, over a period of weeks or months, until the union garners enough support.

Employers argue that the card system could lead to workers being pressured to sign by pro-union colleagues and organizers. Unions counter that it shields workers from pressure from their employers.

On June 30 the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Wal-Mart illegally fired an employee in Kingman, Ariz., who supported the UFCW and illegally threatened to freeze merit-pay increases if employees voted for union representation. The decision came eight years after the organizing campaign failed, and four years after the case was originally heard.

"We've always maintained the termination was not related to the union and that there was nothing unlawful about an answer provided an associate about merit pay," said Mr. Tovar, the Wal-Mart spokesman. "Following the decision, we were considering offering reinstatement, but that is on hold, since the [union] appealed the decision."

Unions consider the Employee Free Choice Act as vital to the survival of the labor movement, which currently represents 7.5% of private-sector workers, half the percentage it did 25 years ago. The Service Employees International Union said the legislation would enable it to organize a million workers a year, up from its current pace of 100,000 workers a year.

The Underdogs

The business-backed lobbying groups are running ads in states where a win by a Democratic Senate candidate would boost support for the legislation in the Senate, saying the loss of secret ballots exposes workers to bullying labor bosses. In one, they use an actor from the "Sopranos" TV series about mob life to hammer home their point.

Business groups say they're the underdogs since they will be outspent by unions by a wide margin. Labor has pledged to spend $300 million on the election and securing passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, compared with under $100 million by business groups, according to Steven Law, chief legal officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber's strategy is to focus on the Senate, where labor needs eight more supporters of the legislation to reach the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.

"This is a David-and-Goliath confrontation, but we believe we'll have enough stones in the sling to knock this out," said Mr. Law.

Wal-Mart is a powerful ally. Through almost all of its 48-year history, Wal-Mart has fought hard to keep unions out of its stores, flying in labor-relations rapid-response teams from its Bentonville, Ark., headquarters to any location where union activity was building. The United Food and Commercial Workers was successful in organizing only one group of Wal-Mart workers -- a small number of butchers in East Texas in early 2000. Several weeks later, the company phased out butchers in all of its stores and began stocking prepackaged meat. When a store in Canada voted to unionize several years ago, the company closed the store, saying it had been unprofitable for years.

Labor has fought back with a campaign to portray Wal-Mart as treating its workers poorly. The UFCW helped employees file a series of complaints about the company's overtime, health-care and other policies with the National Labor Relations Board. Dozens of class-action lawsuits were filed on behalf of workers, many of which are still winding their way through the courts.

Wal-Mart has been trying to burnish its reputation by improving its worker benefits and touting its commitment to the environment. On the political front, it's hedging its bets, spreading its financial contributions on both sides of the political divide.

Twelve years ago, 98% of Wal-Mart's political donations went to Republicans. Now, as the Democrats seem poised to gain control in Washington, 48% of its $2.2 million in political contributions go to Democrats and 52% to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan organization that tracks political giving.

Last week, Wal-Mart reached an agreement with the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) in two Chinese cities to provide its workers with an 8 % annual raise this year and next year. At first this sounds pretty good but if you look at the political and economic context in which this agreement was negotiated, it turns out that Wal-Mart's workers are getting a pretty raw deal.

To provide some background, I should first note that yes, Wal-Mart's Chinese employees are represented by a union. However, the ACFTU is quite different from unions in the United States and other democracies. Firstly, the ACFTU is the only official, state sponsored union federation in China and it is illegal to form independent unions. Activists who attempt to form independent unions suffer harsh repression and have repeatedly been jailed. Furthermore, the ACFTU does not engage in strikes or other traditional union tactics because according to the China Labor Bulletin, an NGO based in Hong Kong, strikes in China are effectively illegal. According to the International Herald Tribune the Chinese government has been pushing to expand the ACFTU and establish its presence in foreign-owned companies in recent years. Labor activists like Robin Munro, research director of the aforementioned China Labor Bulletin, believe that the push to expand the ACFTU is basically an effort by the government to gain firmer control of increasingly militant Chinese workers, who have staged numerous illegal strikes and protests. In an interview with the Tribune, Munro stated:

"They [the Chinese government] are afraid that public protests or strikes might get out of hand. Hence the big drive to impose unions and provide greater union coverage. I think this is seen as a way of crisis management."

The recent agreements reached by the state-controlled ACFTU and Wal-Mart are their first collective bargaining agreements, which provide workers in Shenyang and Quanzhou with 8% raises in 2008 and 2009. Unfortunately for the workers, China is currently experiencing severe inflation, much like we are in the United States. According to the China Labor Bulletin,

Inflation nationally [in China] has been consistently above eight percent this year, reaching 8.5 percent in April, with food prices in April increasing by 22.1 percent year on year

As such, the entire wage increase received by Wal-Mart employees will likely be eaten away by inflation and if current trends continue, they could actually end up worse off next year than they are now. Further, being relatively low wage employees, Wal-Mart workers in China will be especially hurt by rapid food inflation.

Moreover, Wal-Mart's collective bargaining agreement with the ACFTU only covers workers at its retail outlets and excludes workers in manufacturing, who make the vast majority of products sold at both Wal-Mart's in China and in the United States. Working conditions at many of Wal-Mart's Chinese suppliers are particularly atrocious and they have made no legitimate effort to improve them.

Wal-Mart apparently does not see the contradiction between its business model which relies so heavily on Chinese labor and its utter disregard for the dignity of the Chinese people. Wal-Mart, the World's largest retailer and the largest importer of Chinese goods in the United States, can and must do better.

From the El Paso Times

The Paso del Norte Civil Rights Project, a civil rights group in El Paso, Texas has just launched a lawsuit against Wal-Mart for violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

According to the Paso del Norte Civil Rights Project, Wal-Mart stores:

"lack safe and accessible pathways for people with disabilities" from the bus stops and parking lots to the stores.

As a result:

"Inaccessible businesses [like Wal-Mart] are sending the message that people with disabilities and their business are not welcome."

Wal-Mart just can't catch a break! This is yet another lawsuit against Wal-Mart, of which there are dozens
alleging violation of everything from civil rights to labor laws. We hope that Wal-Mart is brought to justice and the Paso del Norte Civil Rights Project and every organization with a legitimate grievance against Wal-Mart win their cases.

While most of the media naturally focused on the speeches by Senators Barack Obama and John McCain at last week's NAACP convention in Cincinnati, Sprawl-Busters founder Al Norman says that Wal-Mart was the subject of the most intense debate. In the end, the NAACP passed a resolution calling on Wal-Mart to address several aspects of its socially irresponsible business model. Here's the full text of NAACP Resolution #14:

Oppose Wal-mart and Other Retailers Unfair Labor Practices Resolved: That the NAACP will challenge Wal-Mart and other retailers to overcome any of their practices that are inconsistent with the highest standards of Labor and Civil Rights, to ensure equal opportunity and equal pay for Women, people of color and other minorities, and work with local communities to effectively address Wal-Mart's and other retailers negative impact on issues like the environment and local businesses, and establish a 'Buy American' program that annually increases the percentage of 'Made in America' goods purchased by Wal-Mart and Other retailers to help protect American Jobs.

Norman points out that Wal-Mart has donated extensively to the NAACP as a PR move to improve its image among the African American community. The NAACP should be commended for taking a strong stand against Wal-Mart's terrible business practices despite this fact.

According to the NAACP, African Americans contribute $700 billion to the American economy every year. The NAACP, and all Americans for that matter, are right to demand that giant corporations like Wal-Mart behave responsibly in exchange for profiting so handsomely from American workers and consumers. Until Wal-Mart cleans up its act, I hope more and more organizations follow in the NAACP's footsteps in calling on Wal-Mart to do better.

KSL TV, a station in Salt Lake City, Utah, has just reported a tragic story about Jessie Scott, an eighteen-year old high school graduate and former 4.0 student who has been in a coma since April 30th, after ingesting pain medication which was wrongly labeled. Where was the prescription for the medication filled? You guessed it, Wal-Mart. According to KSL:

The label clearly indicates one teaspoon every four hours, and that's exactly what Laurie [Jessie's mother] did: She gave Jessie one teaspoon in a cup.

But instead of five milligrams, attorney David Olsen says, "The dosage she gave was 20 times what was ordered. [It was] 100 milligrams instead of five. That's because it was undiluted."

As a result,

it was a potentially lethal dose.

Wal-Mart's negligence has reached new heights in this truly horrific case. Our thoughts and prayers are with Jessie and his family.

Yesterday, Walmart released its numbers for June sales. They were one of the few companies that not only did well, but did better than last year. Their sales were up 5.8% from last year, the most in three years. WakeUpWalmart.com has release the following statement in response to this news:

Statement from WakeUpWalmart.com

Walmart is profiting from Americas economic downturn

For Immediate Release
July 10, 2008

CONTACT: Meghan Scott
202-721-8014
202-538-0362

At a time when gas prices are soaring, jobs are being lost, wages are stagnating, and hard working American families are struggling to get by, Walmart announced that its sales for June are up 5.8% from last year. It’s just another reminder that what’s good for Wal-Mart is bad for America, something its Chief Financial Officer as much as admitted when he said "tough times are actually a good time for Wal-Mart." While Walmart is no doubt celebrating its increased sales and the billions it will rake in this year, the rest of the country is struggling to get by. Instead of celebrating, Wal-Mart should make real changes to support its workers that would make our country, and our economy, stronger.

Two stories today highlight a major issue with Walmart's corporate culture and, more importantly, the danger of the corporation to its customers.

The first story comes from Kansas where Renee Smith was assaulted in a Walmart bathroom. Apparently several people saw her purse being stolen, including a Walmart employee, but no one did anything to stop it. The most upsetting part of this story though, is that after the assault, she went to a security officer in the store and pointed out the woman who stole her purse, but they didn't do anything about it. Instead, they simply let the thief leave the store. It is appalling, but it seems pretty clear that Walmart's security don't really care about preventing crime, unless it involves significant monetary loss for the store.

So what exactly does Walmart's security care about? The second story answers that. According to The Morning News, Walmart won a permanent gag order against Bruce Gabbard, a former security employee who spoke to the media after he was fired. He revealed that in his job he spied on reporters, infiltrated groups critical of Walmart (like this one), and spied on employees, vendors, and consultants.

Yes indeed, this is Walmart helping you live better at its best. It is well documented that crime is an issue at Walmart. Walmart stores, and their parking lots in particular are often a hotbed of crime, but Walmart continues to focus not on preventing these crimes (which would be quite easy) but on spying. Getting mugged is apparently Walmart's idea of you living better.

Another victory against Wal-Mart! The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that town supervisors in the community of Moon, Pennsylvania voted to block the construction of a new Wal-Mart last week. About 70 town residents attended the supervisors' meeting, where they expressed concern that Wal-Mart would increase traffic congestion and drive local stores out of business. Further, in order to build in Moon, Wal-Mart requested that they be exempt from numerous local laws:

As part of its development plan, Wal-Mart requested nine deviations from township requirements, including those of the University Boulevard "overlay district," which imposes strict rules for business development. The requests included reducing the size of a minimum yard setback of 35 feet to 10 feet, and waiving a requirement to build sidewalks on its side of University Boulevard

In the end, town officials decided that Wal-Mart was not above the law and rejected their plan.

It's great to hear that the town of Moon valued the wishes of its citizens, as well as the interests of local businesses, over the false convenience offered by the proposed new Wal-Mart store. Congratulations Moon, Pennsylvania! You showed the world that average Americans can stand up to the World's largest retailer and win!

Wal-Mart is at it again. According to Bloomberg.com, Wal-Mart has lost another discrimination lawsuit. Patrick Brady, who has cerebral palsy, was hired in 2002 as a Pharmacy Clerk at the Centereach, New York Wal-Mart.

[He was] transferred on his second day to a job picking up garbage and collecting shopping carts in the parking lot because a manager said he was too slow.

The judge ruled the jury was justified in concluding Wal- Mart recklessly or willfully disregarded the requirements of the law. He said the move to a less prestigious job could be considered a demotion and the initial transfer caused Brady emotional distress.

The judge ruled that Wal-Mart would have to pay $900,000 in damages. This amount is down from a $7.5 million verdict awarded by a jury. A judge cut the $5 million in punitive damages the jury had awarded to the maximum allowable $300,000 under the ADA.

Just last month, we posted an entry on another situation in which Wal-Mart had to pay a pharmacy worker $250,000 for wrongfully firing her because of her gunshot wound. Before that, a man was fired from his Wal-Mart job for nothing less than using his wheelchair at work.

So I guess there are some exceptions when Daphne Moore, Wal-Mart's spokeswoman, says, "We believe in respecting the dignity of every individual and do not tolerate any form of discrimination."

Voting is now open for Walmart vs. Countrywide; it's time to send Walmart to the finals. It's a close race on the other side of the bracket, the winner of Walmart vs. Countrywide could go on to face either Comcast or Diebold. If they win, they'll get the "Golden Lucky Shit" award, which is described as, "Made from genuine plastic and coated with genuine golden plastic, just like many of the companies' products." We think it'd be particularly appropriate for Walmart, given all the dangerous plastic, lead tainted stuff they've sold recently. So go vote!

Wal-Mart was forced to deal with the penalties of exploiting its workers when a judge in Minnesota ruled in favor of the employees. According to theNew York Times, the judge found Wal-Mart guilty of over 2 million labor violations. According to the article, some of these violations include: failure to give workers promised rest breaks at least 1.5 million times, having employees take in-house training while off the clock, and failing to keep records for 325,188 shifts, or 13 percent of shifts.

According to the article,

Under the ruling, Wal-Mart faces the greatest liability for violating Minnesota law by deducting several minutes from workers’ pay when they took rest breaks for 16, 17 or 18 minutes, when Wal-Mart said they were entitled to 15-minute breaks. Under Minnesota law, employers are barred from deducting minutes from a worker’s pay so long as the break lasts less than 20 minutes.

Judge King found that Wal-Mart had committed that statutory violation 1.5 million times; the company is subject to a civil penalty of up to $1,000 for each of those violations.

That alone would cost Wal-Mart up to $1.5 billion dollars. This is a another example of how Wal-mart extorts its workers to make a profit.

Wal-Mart has a legendary reputation for cutting costs. The Behemoth from Bentonville would like you to believe that they're willing to do absolutely anything to ensure that their products are the lowest price possible. For the most part, its true. To keep prices down, Wal-Mart gladly squeezes its food suppliers, even when they're reeling from high fuel costs, exploits its workers in the United States, and sources most of its products from sweatshops in China, where workers endure subhuman conditions.

However, there is one area where Wal-Mart refuses to cut costs and where, in fact, Wal-Mart is more spendthrift than any other company in the Southeastern United States. That, my friends, is executive compensation. According to a recent report from the Associated Press, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott earned $29.7 million in total compensation last year, more than any other CEO in the Southeastern U.S. According to their official figures, full time Wal-Mart associates make, on average, $10.84 per hour, or about $19,000 a year (Wal-Mart considers 34 hours a week to be full time). Thus, Lee Scott earned a whopping 1,551 times the average Wal-Mart employee in 2007. Yikes! In comparison, the average American CEO made $10.8 million last year, or 364 times that of the average American worker, according to the Institute for Policy Studies.

Wal-Mart has been resorting to numerous publicity stunts recently to revive its sagging reputation, including the announcement of a new logo. If they really want the public to see them as something other than the ultimate symbol of corporate greed, Wal-Mart could begin by reducing the unconscionable gap between Lee Scott's salary and that of the average Wal-Mart worker. Until they do so and until Wal-Mart truly changes its business model and becomes a better employer, the American people will continue to see it for what it is: an irresponsible colossus with a fancy PR machine.

In the wake of a poll that shows Walmart's reputation is still in decline despite their vast PR efforts to turn their image around, Walmart will soon release a new logo, complete with new colors, a sunburst instead of a star, and a new spelling of its name (Walmart instead of Wal-Mart). It's not terribly surprising given how much money and effort Walmart has put into PR, advertising, and generally making you believe that they're a brand new company...nothing at all like they used to be with the abusing workers and not paying them very much and not giving them health care. Of course it's easy enough to see through the new orange logo to what is still going on at Walmart. They still pay far below a living wage, they still offer sub par health care and scant benefits, and they still send tons of jobs overseas. We're sure their new logo won't change the way they do business anymore than changing their slogan did.

Here is some of the coverage of the new logo:

Wal-Mart Plans New Logo to Update Image

Wal-Mart Stops Hyphenating

Wal-Mart revamping its U.S. store logo

In 2003, Jim Singleton, former chief of police in Pine Bluff Arkansas, was shot in the ankle and knocked in the head while patting down a suspect. He sustained permanent injuries to his ankle as well as brain damage and as a result, he must walk with a cane, suffers from frequent migraine headaches, and his thinking is impaired. After serving the Pine Bluff community for years and sustaining serious injuries on the job, Singleton felt he deserved to retire with dignity and left the force and applied for disability benefits. Five years later, however, The Morning News reports that Singleton is still in the midst of a legal battle over his disability benefits. The state Worker's Compensation Commission has twice voted to deny Singleton any benefits but both times, the state appeals court overruled the commission. The case has now gone all the way to the Arkansas Supreme Court, where, strangely, Wal-Mart and other large corporations have filed briefings arguing that the former officer should receive no disability benefits. Singleton remains baffled as to why Wal-Mart has gotten involved:

"That just blows me out of the water," he said. "I have no clue. My attorney told me, and I couldn't understand it. I don't know why they're getting involved."

The reason Wal-Mart is involved, it turns out, is their fear that this case could serve as a precedent, potentially threatening their own bottom line down the road:

Harper [Singleton's Attorney] said the "big boys" are interested in the case because they fear the Court of Appeals' rulings will set a precedent that will allow more people to collect on disability claims.

In other words, Wal-Mart is pushing for the state to deny an injured police officer the disability benefits to which the Appeals court has ruled he is entitled in order to ensure that they don't have to provide disability benefits to more of their own injured employees. After the Debbie Shank fiasco I didn't think Wal-Mart could get any worse, but they have proved me wrong and taken their greed to a whole new level.

Kenneth Harper, Singleton's Attorney, summed up the case perfectly with these words:

"I really think it's just an ugly situation"

Indeed it is, and Wal-Mart should be ashamed of themselves.

There have been several stories written this week which seek to dispel the widespread belief that Wal-Mart is bad for small businesses. A piece in The Washington Post claimed that Wal-Mart can have a neutral effect on small business while a story in Risky Business, a U.S. and World Report blog, made an even bolder argument that Wal-Mart can be good for them. The facts, however, indicate otherwise and both pieces make flawed arguments.

The Risky Business piece relies on a recent study, conducted in Chicago, on the impact of Wal-Mart on urban small businesses. The author claims that:

in urban areas Wal-Mart has not driven out small competing businesses, as it often has in rural and more distant suburban areas

However, in actuality the study found that Wal-Mart's impact on urban small businesses is just less severe, though still significant and negative, than its effect on small businesses in rural and suburban areas.

The Washington Post article discussed the impact of a new Wal-Mart in Landover, Maryland, the first in the Washington, D.C. metro area, and claimed that small proprietors have not suffered from the construction of the new Wal-Mart store. However, the article used only anecdotal evidence drawn from interviews with a few local businesspeople to make its claim. Al Norman, founder of the anti-Big Box organization, Sprawl Busters, says that's problematic for many reasons:

The Post reporter interviewed the owner of a mall with an exotic pet store, a pancake restaurant, and a bank. Of course that mall felt no impact---it does not sell products that compete with Wal-Mart. I have also found in 15 years of talking with merchants, that they will NEVER tell reporters how their bottom line is doing, until the draw the shutters and close. The Post reporter told me this story was "local story only" but articles like this one show the danger of extrapolating from two or three ancedotal reports. It takes at least 2 to 3 years to see merchant impact.

Today, the Rutland Herald stepped into this debate with a story that assessed the potential impact of the proposed expansion of a Wal-Mart store in the town of Bennington, Vermont. The article featured an interesting approach: it was based on facts! The story cited a comprehensive study by local economists which found that the planned expansion will have a devastating impact on local businesses:

The report estimates that 10 to 15 percent of the existing downtown businesses are likely to be hurt by the Wal-Mart expansion, including those selling clothing, beauty and hair products, sporting goods, electronics, eye wear and home and hardware goods. It added that empty storefronts may remain so for longer periods.

Further, although the expansion will create new jobs in the short term, in the long term, it will result in a net job loss for the town:

On the jobs front, the report said, “In 2009, operation of the expanded store will generate a total of about 78 jobs, mostly in the retail trade sector. Total county employment impacts over the longer term, however, shrink to zero by 2013 and ultimately decline by about 35 jobs,” the report states.

For the people of Bennington, this study is likely pretty shocking news, but its findings are quite similar to those of most comprehensive impact studies that have been conducted on Wal-Mart. I hope local leaders take this study into account when planning for the future.

Furthermore, I hope that our readers are not swayed by anecdotes or distortions. The facts are in: Wal-Mart is bad for small business.

Wal-Mart has made it to the Final Four in Consumerists' Worst Company in America competition. They're going up against Countrywide in the next few days and we'll be sure to let you know when voting starts. Surprisingly Exxon got bumped off last round by Comcast, so we think Wal-Mart has a pretty good shot of winning this whole thing! GO WAL-MART!

For years, Wal-Mart has been holding its annual convention of national managers at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Kansas City and had agreed to continue doing so through 2012. But Midwest Voices reports that Wal-Mart just backed out on its agreement and will be moving its convention to Orlando. Kansas City residents, who have already spent millions of their tax dollars to keep the hotel open and have come to rely on the business the convention brings to the city every year, naturally feel like they've been abandoned by the giant retailer.

Two days ago, we commented on a recent Harris Interactive poll which showed that, of the 60 most well known companies in America, Wal-Mart is rated 47th on the question of sincerity. Their behavior in Kansas City shows that their reputation for insincerity is well justified. The poll also showed that Wal-Mart's reputation was worse last year than in 2006. If Wal-Mart keeps breaking its promises to communities around the country, its image will likely continue to deteriorate.

Corporate Accountability International is asking people to vote for the most abusive corporation in the world in their 2008 Corporate Hall of Shame and Wal-Mart is, of course, one of the top nominees. Please click on the link below to cast your ballot for Wal-Mart as the worst company in the world!

Wal-Mart held a press conference today to announce their support for legislation that would expand the use of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). For readers who may be unfamiliar with the program, The EITC is a tax credit designed to boost the income of low wage workers by lowering their federal tax liability. The EITC is also fully refundable, so if an EITC-eligible worker has a low enough income that he or she owes $0 in federal income taxes, the IRS will actually write them a check (for as much as $4000) to supplement his or her wages. For a more in-depth explanation of the EITC, check out this report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

For many low-income workers, the EITC is the only thing keeping them from abject poverty. For that reason, it's certainly a good program. However, the real problem is that so many workers have such low wages in the first place. Wal-Mart, which pays its workers poverty-level wages and drives down wages throughout the retail sector, is at the heart of this problem. If companies like Wal-Mart paid their employees a living wage in the first place, the EITC would not be necessary. As a result, it is highly irresponsible and downright hypocritical for Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world and a company that made over $12 billion in profits last year, to request that the American taxpayer subsidize its incredibly low wages. Then again, I can't say I'm surprised.

Here's the the Consumerist's most recent round for Worst Company in America. Wal-Mart is going up against American Airlines today, and thus far has a steady lead. So go vote! Wal-Mart's got a real shot of winning the whole thing!

For all the talk about Wal-Mart improving its reputation and changing their ways, they aren't doing too well where it counts. A new Harris Interactive poll of consumers shows that while Wal-Mart is the most well known company in America (more than McDonald's or Coca-Cola, more than Google or Microsoft), their reputation has slipped from the already sad 40 of 60 to a rank of 44. Wal-Mart also ranks a telling 47th of 60 on the question of sincerity. This slip in reputation comes at a time when Wal-Mart is spending millions on PR campaigns, has rolled out a new slogan, is profiting from the relatively slow economy, and when Wal-Mart has spent a ton of time and effort on programs designed to improve their reputation. They have "improved" their health insurance coverage - it's not much better than it was and only covers a few more of its employees. They've started "going green" to convince you they are socially responsible, and to sell lots of new environmentally friendly stuff - even though their model of business can never be sustainable and is, in fact detrimental to the environment.

In spite of their best efforts, (and a TON of money and effort) Wal-Mart can't shake their bad reputation. People aren't buying their PR campaigns, they can tell when Wal-Mart is doing something to boost their reputation. Perhaps when Wal-Mart starts making real changes, their reputation will go up.

Here's an article from The Morning News about the poll:

Report: Wal-Mart Reputation Continues To Slide

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in 2007 continued to slip down a list of corporate reputation rankings, according to a survey.

The Bentonville-based retailer ranked No. 44 on the Harris Interactive report, which ranks the reputations of the country's 60 "most visible" companies based on consumer perception surveys.

It was the third consecutive year Wal-Mart's score on the list declined.

Wal-Mart's slipped score was the also the third largest rating change, trailing behind Bank of America and Halliburton Co., which saw more significant declines in reputation scores.

Wal-Mart has similarly dropped down Fortune Magazine's list of America's most admired companies.

Wal-Mart in 2003 and 2004 was America's No. 1 most admired company on Fortune Magazine's list, but fell to No. 12 in 2005. The retailer in 2007 dropped to No. 19.

Wal-Mart isn't too concerned with reports on its reputation.

"At a time when the public and Wal-Mart customers specifically are being pressed financially to make ends meet, we think the ultimate measure of reputation is sales," said Greg Rossiter, a Wal-Mart spokesman. "Our sales over the last several months demonstrate pretty clearly that the public trusts Wal-Mart to help them save money to live better."

The retailer has in recent years set out to be a better corporate citizen by incorporating health care and environmental sustainability initiatives into its business. But it may take time for the public to shift their perceptions of the retailer, said Sam Waltz, the director of Sam Waltz & Associates and a specialist in corporate reputational management.

"When there's acute reputational damage that becomes chronic reputational damage, it becomes a very difficult thing to regain positive attributes," Waltz said.

"In other words, it can take some time to get public credit for the good work Wal-Mart is doing now. It could take months and years because there's people who look at them with a political paradigm and just do not want to give them credit."

Nearly half of the American public surveyed said that companies need to address global social issues such as poverty, hunger and disease. Yet treatment of employees, including labor practices and human rights, continued to be a the most important measurement in evaluating a company, according to the report.

Harris Interactive, a Rochester, New York-based market research company, surveyed more than 20,000 people and asked them to rate on a point scale a company's reputation on 20 attributes like vision and leadership, emotional appeal, financial performance and social responsibility.

Each survey participant is asked to rate one randomly selected company from the 60 included and each is given the option to rate a second company.

About 535 people rate each company.

In recent weeks, reports in several news outlets