WakeUpWalMart.com

WakeUpWalMart.com

HuffingtonPost.com                                      [back to top]

As if Wal-Mart's impact on small businesses were not devastating enough, now the giant retailer is getting an assist from the Federal government.

Just before Christmas, The Family Nutrition Store (FNS) in Topeka, Kansas, which is the only grocery store in the area that solely serves people on the Women, Infant's and Children's (WIC) program, shut its doors for good---a victim of Sam Walton's store and Uncle Sam's bureaucracy.

Under the WIC program, the Federal government provides grants to States for supplemental foods and nutritional education for low-income women, and to infants and children up to age five who are found to be at nutritional riskIn Kansas, the WIC program is administered by the state Department of Health and Environment. According to the Topeka Capital-Journal newspaper, The Family Nutrition Store was killed off by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which adopted a regulation last year that cut payments to certain stores participating in the WIC programSimilar WIC-only stores in Kansas City, and Garden City, Kansas also shut down.

The Family Nutrition Store on California Ave in Topeka, offered grocery items only to those participating in the federal program. Wal-Mart supercenters, which include a full-line grocery store, also sell WIC products---but they sell to a much larger segment of the public as wellIn 2006, the USDA changed the WIC rules governing payments to small, WIC-only grocery stores ... Read the rest at HuffingtonPost.com

© 2007 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC

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Wal-Mart Abandons Online Movie Downloads

By JON GAMBRELL
Associated Press
12.28.07                                                                   [back to top]

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has closed an online movie download service it launched less than a year ago.

The retreat for Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people ), which accounts for about 40 percent of all DVD sales, follows the company's 2005 decision to abandoned efforts to build an online DVD rental service. The world's largest retailer instead turned its rental service over to Netflix Inc. (nasdaq: NFLX - news - people )

Wal-Mart still operates a music download service and continues to sell CDs and DVDs at retail stores and over the Internet for shipping by mail.

A message on Wal-Mart's video download Web site said the store closed Dec. 21. The Web site said customers who already have bought movies could continue to watch them.

In a statement, Wal-Mart spokeswoman Amy Collella said the company closed the store after Hewlett-Packard Co. (nyse: HPQ - news - people ), which provided the software running the site, "made a business decision to discontinue its video download-only merchant store service."

Wal-Mart did not say whether it would attempt to start the service again using a different company's software.

Officials with HP did not immediately return a request for comment Friday morning.

Launched in February, Wal-Mart's video download service initially included 3,000 films and television episodes for customers to buy and watch on their computers and in some cases a portable device. However, the movies do not work on standard DVD players or on the market-dominant iPod device from Apple Inc. (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people )

Wal-Mart's departure leaves Apple's iTunes store and Amazon.com Inc. (nasdaq: AMZN - news - people )'s Unbox service among the options for movie downloads, which haven't garnered as much consumer interest as online music sales. Last month, Time Warner (nyse: TWX - news - people ) Inc.'s AOL also scrapped its pay-for-download movie service.

Wal-Mart initially offered films from $12.88 to $19.88 and individual TV episodes for $1.96 - 4 cents less than the iTunes store. Wal-Mart's online store sold older titles starting at $7.50, compared with the $9.99 charged by iTunes.

Many studios have resisted signing deals with iTunes in part because of Apple's desire to sell movies at one price. Studios prefer variable pricing such as Wal-Mart offered.

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Wal-Mart Lobbies Above Retail Value

By DIBYA SARKAR
Associated Press
12.26.07                                                        [back to top]

WASHINGTON - Wal-Mart's message to America is "Save money. Live better." Its motto in Washington might best be summed up another way: Spend more. Lobby harder.

The world's largest retailer spent nearly $1.8 million in the first six months of 2007 and is on pace to break the nearly $2.5 million it spent for all of 2006.

While overall spending on lobbying appears to be slowing a bit, some industries, such as private equity, and companies, such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (nyse: WMT - news - people ), are bucking the trend.

A relative newcomer to lobbying, the Bentonville, Ark.-based company is making sure Capitol Hill knows it doesn't take a discount approach to getting its message out about everything from immigration to financial-services licensing.

Wal-Mart spent more than $4 million lobbying in the past 18 months compared with the $6.6 million it collectively spent in the prior seven years, according to federal lobbying reports.

The retail sector as a whole isn't a lobbying juggernaut in Washington, where defense, energy and pharmaceutical industries write the big checks. For example, Target Corp. (nyse: TGT - news - people ) spent $100,000 in lobbying expenses in the first six months this year, Sears Holding Corp. spent about $141,000, while defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. (nyse: LMT - news - people ) spent $4.8 million in the same period.

Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar would not comment on specific legislation or issues. He said the company's spending depends on the congressional agenda.

This year, that agenda included immigration reform legislation that failed and a minimum wage-hike bill that passed. The company has said higher wages will push up the cost of goods for customers.

For their part, Wal-Mart lobbyists pushed for tougher tactics against organized retail crime and for legislation promoting electronic health records and other technology aimed at reducing health-care costs.

But, Wal-Mart, long criticized for having skimpy employee health-insurance benefits, also lobbied against legislation that would allow employees to form, join or help labor organizations. Its employees are not unionized.

In the financial services arena, Wal-Mart dropped a bid for a bank license earlier this year after it was strongly opposed by banks, unions and other critics. It continues to push for the ability to offer other financial services, such as prepaid Visa debit cards for millions of low-income shoppers who don't have bank accounts.

Other issues listed on the disclosure form included legislation tied to international trade matters, currency, taxes and banking.

Brian Dodge, spokesman for the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which counts Wal-Mart, Costco Wholesale Corp. (nasdaq: COST - news - people ) and Target among its 60 retail members, said in the last few years his group's lobbying efforts have increased involving various issues, including product safety, the environment, organized retail crime, health insurance and jobs.

While he couldn't speak specifically about Wal-Mart, Dodge said the retail industry must deal with more complex matters, such as imported products involving increased government oversight by several agencies.

Wal-Mart, which established a Washington shop about 10 years ago, spent just $140,000 in 1999. It spent about a $1 million annually for the next several years, before increasing its lobbying representation and funds in 2005 amid increased criticism of labor practices and benefits.

"For a long time, Sam Walton really didn't think that Wal-Mart should be involved in politics," said Lee Drutman, a University of California at Berkeley doctoral student who is writing his dissertation on lobbying. "That was part of his actual belief so Wal-Mart was late to the game."

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Ravaged Retailers Weigh On Wall Street

Evelyn M. Rusli,
12.26.07                                                   [back to top]

Wall Street was stuck in the red on Wednesday, as investors digested poor retail sales reports.

A last-minute surge by holiday shoppers will not be enough to offset a weak a weak season. Mastercard’s holiday spending index, which tracks sales from Thanksgiving to Christmas, showed that spending ticked up 3.6%-- marking the smallest increase in five years. Family Dollar Stores (nyse: FDO - news - people ) and department store Dillard's (nyse: DDS - news - people ) each dropped more than 5%.

Meanwhile, the sector’s bellwether stock, Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people ), shed 1.5%, or 72 cents, to 48.02.

But online retailer Amazon.com (nasdaq: AMZN - news - people ) was up 3.0%, after the company said better-than-expected Nintendo (other-otc: NTDOY - news - people ) Wii and Harry Potter DVD sales, helped Amazon pull in the best holiday season to date.

Wall Street is also following the price of crude oil today. The price of a barrel jumped $2.18, to $96.31, on rising tensions in the Middle East and expectations that Thursday’s government report will show a decline in U.S. crude inventories. Energy stocks were moving higher in late-morning trading. Exxon Mobil (nyse: XOM - news - people ) was up 1.0%.

Leading solar energy issues were advancing. Evergreen Solar (nasdaq: ESLR - news - people ) jumped 8.4%, or $1.39, to $17.94, while LDK Solar (nyse: LDK - news - people ) surged 6.5%, or $3.17, to $51.85.

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RECALL WALMART

Dear Friend,                                                             [back to top]

This year, Wal-Mart pulled millions of recalled products off its shelves -- from toys to food to children's car seats and cribs.

So what is Lee Scott, Wal-Mart's CEO, doing to inform his customers about these recalls? He put a tiny link at the very bottom of the Wal-Mart homepage. That's it.

Surely the biggest company in the world can do better than that -- especially during the holiday season, when Wal-Mart sells even more toys than Toys 'R' Us.

But since Mr. Scott won't be open about Wal-Mart's product recalls, we are doing it for him.

Wal-Mart Watch has launched a new site, Recall Wal-Mart, which is full of information about the recalled products sold at Wal-Mart. It also has a tool that lets you send a letter to Lee Scott about Wal-Mart's role in its customers' health.

Check out the site, and tell Mr. Scott that when Wal-Mart has a recall, it should be the first thing on their website, not the last:

http://www.RecallWalMart.com

Wal-Mart Watch believes there is a reason Wal-Mart stocks so many recalled products and then buries the news at the bottom of its website. Mr. Scott is putting the company's interests ahead of its customers' safety.

Many of these recalls are the result of the intense cost-cutting pressure Wal-Mart puts on its overseas suppliers -- thousands of which are located in China, where safety standards are much weaker.

Because of Wal-Mart's tremendous size and influence, manufacturers are forced to meet its demands. When Wal-Mart requires lower prices, that means sacrificing quality and using cheaper materials, like lead paint.

To make matters worse, once the dangers of these products came to light, Lee Scott failed to properly inform Wal-Mart's customers about the recalls. That's just irresponsible.

Visit Recall Wal-Mart and tell CEO Lee Scott to put customers' safety first:

http://www.RecallWalMart.com

This isn't the first time Lee Scott has put the corporation first instead of people.

For years, Wal-Mart has been skimping on employee wages and benefits, so that less than half of its workforce gets its health coverage from the company.

Wal-Mart also hurts local communities and neighbors by forcing small businesses to shut down and spoiling the local environment.

And Wal-Mart has continually tried to bilk communities on the local tax bill, whether it is petitioning to lower its property value or setting up dubious foreign arrangements to take advantage of tax loopholes -- depriving communities of much-needed revenue.

Wal-Mart Founder Sam Walton valued the communities that supported his stores, and he valued honesty with his customers. Wal-Mart has long since abandoned his original vision.

Again and again, Lee Scott has shown that Wal-Mart's interests are more important than the people it serves or the communities it calls home. Visit Recall Wal-Mart and tell the retail giant you've had enough:

http://www.RecallWalMart.com

Sincerely,

David Nassar
Wal-Mart WatchPaid for by WalmartWatch.com,
a campaign of Five Stones and
The Center for Community and Corporate Ethics

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Dear JOHN,

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Please accept our thanks for making this a year of positive change. Since you took action, the year ended with a phenomenally successful 2007 Holiday Campaign.

This month, thousands of grassroots supporters like you demanded a Senatorial investigation into Wal-Mart's impact on America's product safety crisis. So many voices calling for progress could not be ignored, and now we are beginning to see real progress.

Though we continue to pressure the Senate for substantive change, It's not enough that we demand action from our elected officials. We must also hold Wal-Mart to its responsibility to be a better company. Simply put, a company that makes over $12 billion in profit every year has a moral obligation to be a better employer and a better neighbor to us all.

This is the message we believe America needs to hear before the Christmas holiday. So, we have featured it in a brand new television spot we think you'll appreciate.

Watch the new TV ad, and forward it to five friends

Wal-Mart rakes in over $21,000 in profits every minute. Despite the enormous concentration of wealth in Wal-Mart's hands, it continues to deny its employees affordable health care, break child labor laws, and import 70% of its products from communist China. That is, unless you continue to take action.

Join us as we teach Wal-Mart the true meaning of giving, and of yuletide spirit. Wal-Mart must know that we will not stand idly by while it fails to do right by the employees and customers who gave the company its great wealth. Remember, there is power in our message. When you spread the word, we gain the power to make Wal-Mart give back to America.

View the new TV ad, and spread our message to your family and friends

On behalf of everyone at of WakeUpWalMart.com, please accept our thanks for another year of positive change. You have our gratitude for everything you have done, and will continue to do, to make Wal-Mart a better company.

And, of course, have a happy holiday season!

The Team
WakeUpWalMart.com

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Senator Says Wal-Mart Sells Products From Sweatshops 

By REUTERS
December 13, 2007                                          [back to top]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — A Democratic senator said Wednesday that Christmas tree ornaments sold at Wal-Mart Stores and other major retailers were made in a Chinese sweatshop employing workers as young as 12 and others who work more than 100 hours a week.

“There is virtually no enforcement anywhere on these issues,” Senator Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota said at a news conference concerning the release of a study on Chinese sweatshops that provide cheap goods for the American market. “Our country needs to insist that our trading partners enforce their own labor laws and respect international labor standards.”

The study was conducted by the National Labor Committee, a human rights organization, and highlighted conditions at the Guangzhou Huanya Gift company, an ornament maker in China that employs 8,000 workers.

It found that some employees had been paid as little as 26 cents an hour, half the legal minimum wage in China, and that employees in the spray paint department had handled potentially dangerous chemicals with little or no protection.

Efforts to reach Guangzhou Huanya for comment were not successful.

Wal-Mart said it had started an investigation immediately after receiving a copy of the report. “Through our rigorous ethical standards program, Wal-Mart aggressively deals with any allegations of improper conditions at our suppliers’ factories,” a company spokesman said.

Mr. Dorgan said the report highlighted a “serious trade problem” that has also been brought to the public’s attention by recalls for millions of Chinese-made toys in recent months.

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By YURI KAGEYAMA
Associated Press
12.05.07                                                  [back to top]

TOKYO - Wal-Mart Stores has raised its stake in money-losing Japanese retailer Seiyu to 95.1 percent, the retailers said Wednesday, giving it managerial control of the chain and solidifying its foothold in an intensely competitive market.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (nyse: WMT - news - people ), the world's biggest retailer, already owned 50.9 percent in Seiyu Ltd. It offered to buy outstanding shares to gain full ownership in hopes of speeding management decisions for Seiyu's turnaround.

Since entering the Japanese market in 2002, Wal-Mart has been gradually raising its stake in Seiyu, the fifth-biggest retailer here with about 400 stores nationwide.

But Wal-Mart has struggled to make money in this market, where mall-style shopping is increasingly popular although for everyday food and other needs, shoppers tend to go to smaller neighborhood stores.

Still, the move puts to rest questions about whether Wal-Mart may exit Japan after the retailer sold its operations in Germany and South Korea last year.

"We are very pleased with the positive response to this tender offer," Wal-Mart Vice Chairman Mike Duke said in a statement.

"This successful result paves the way to achieve our stated goal of full ownership of Seiyu, which will enable Seiyu and Wal-Mart together to accelerate the delivery of long-term benefits to our customers, the communities we serve, our associates and our business partners," said Duke.

Under the 93 billion yen ($843.9 million) deal for more than 411 million shares, Wal-Mart paid 140 yen ($1.27) for each Seiyu share it didn't own. The offer ended Tuesday.

Wal-Mart said it aims to acquire all remaining Seiyu shares, which will result in Seiyu's delisting from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

In Japan, Wal-Mart has stuck with the Seiyu brand, familiar to Japanese, instead of using the Wal-Mart name.

But Seiyu has struggled amid intense competition from smaller retail chains and major local companies that are introducing Wal-Mart-style mega-stores and price-slashing. The chain has continued to lose money since Wal-Mart struck the Japan partnership. Seiyu has said it's expecting its sixth straight year of losses this year.

Wal-Mart officials have introduced large-scale distrubition centers that have proved successful in the U.S. and have tried to adapt its global brands to the Japanese market.

But some analysts say Wal-Mart may lack intimate knowledge of how the Japanese market works.

Jun Kawahara, analyst at Shinko Securities Co. in Tokyo, says Japanese tend to frequent neighborhood shops on their bicycles and engage in a great deal of comparison-shopping at many stores - rather than the typical American shopper who may drive to Wal-Mart for one-stop shopping.

"Japanese consumers are very sophisticated. It's not enough that products are cheap," he said.

Wal-Mart also faces competition from Japanese retail giants such as Aeon Co. that have adopted Wal-Mart-style tactics, including in-house brands and supercheap prices, and have succeeded in wooing suburban shoppers.

Seiyu's losses for the first nine months of this year narrowed to 11.42 billion yen ($103.6 million) from 59.55 billion yen a year earlier, due to large asset write-down costs it booked last year, according to Seiyu. Sales for that period slipped 0.7 percent to 700.93 billion yen ($6.36 billion).

Wal-Mart has about 3,000 stores outside the United States. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company has more than 4,000 U.S. stores, serving more than 176 million customers weekly.

Wal-Mart's growth has been helped by aggressive overseas expansion in recent years, buying companies or expanding its stake in partners in China, Brazil and Central America. It signed a joint venture in India earlier this year.

Wal-Mart's third-quarter profit rose 8 percent on better-than-expected revenue of $91.95 billion, up nearly 9 percent on year.

Seiyu shares rose 3 percent in Tokyo Wednesday to close at 137 yen ($1.24).

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Bharti-Wal-Mart stores to focus on F&B first

Anandita Singh Mankotia
Tuesday , December 04, 2007                            [back to top]

New Delhi, Dec 3The first Bharti-Wal-Mart convenience store is slated to open in Ludhiana in April 2008 and would be modelled on the lines of French retailer Carrefour’s stores rather than the international Wal-Mart format.

Following the Carrefour format, the store would focus on food & beverage (F&B) rather than non-food segments, as is the case with Wal-Mart stores globally. The moves mark a strategic shift from Wal-Mart’s conventional strategy of building loyalty for non-food items.

Wal-Mart believes in focussing on non-food items, which have higher margins and yield higher billing than F&B items, sources told FE. However, an internal study by the Wal-Mart team revealed that a Carrefour approach is better suited to the Indian market, where all sections would be distinctly segregated.

Bharti Retail, which will be operating the stores, plans to roll them out only in Punjab, Haryana and NCR for the first two years. The Bharti-Wal-Mart alliance is structured in a manner whereby the two are in 50:50 joint venture for back-end cash & carry wholesale stores, while front-end retail stores would be entirely Bharti Retail owned. Wal-Mart, through its wholly owned subsidiary, would provide the expertise to Bharti Retail for a fixed fee.

Though Wal-Mart will provide the expertise on how to run and manage small stores, internationally the company doesn’t even operate in this segment. The small stores will have an area of 1,800-3,000 sq ft. Bharti Retail, which will be operating three formats—convenience store, supermarket and hypermarket—will source its merchandise from the separate Bharti-Wal-Mart joint venture.

In India, Wal-Mart is hoping that Bharti Retail stores would register a growth of as much as 15% in the first two years. In China, where Wal-Mart operates around 200 stores, records the highest growth of 20%. Sources said Wal-Mart has suggested a cautious strategy to Bharti, wherein the first two years focuses on strengthening the back-end before ramping up the store count.

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Amazon and Wal-Mart unwittingly team up against DRM

By David Chartier
ars
December 02, 2007                                     [back to top]

As if DRM needed more of a hint to get its coat and leave, Amazon is set to announce a promotional giveaway of one billion MP3s during next year's Super Bowl. Billboard was first to note that this announcement signals an all-out offensive on DRM, which is made even more powerful by parallel pressures brought by Wal-Mart. In a bid for more of the digital download space, the brick-and-mortar retailer heavyweight has reportedly given an ultimatum to some of the largest record labels, including Warner Music Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, to provide more of their respective music catalogs in MP3 format (that is, without DRM) next year.

Related StoriesBring it on, iTunes: Amazon readying DRM-free music service While the timing of these consumer-focused drives from two separate retail giants is probably nothing more than a coincidence, the market forces that prompted them are a beacon for consumers who demand the choice they deserve. Wal-Mart has actually sold digital music for years, though it's always been wrapped in Microsoft's PlaysForSure DRM which doesn't work on an iPod or even, ironically, Microsoft's own Zune. Things picked up a little when Wal-Mart's online music store ditched DRM in August for rich 256KB MP3 files, though like Amazon's MP3 store, EMI and Universal have been the only two labels with the foresight to give customers what they want. And Universal is only testing the waters.

Like Wal-Mart, Amazon's MP3 store launched in September with DRM-free tracks only from EMI and Universal, but with 20,000 indie labels along for the ride as well. Disney-owned Hollywood Records has also provided MP3s of about 40 of its artists, including Queen, Indigo Girls and Hilary Duff, to these two retailers, making it the latest in major labels to have made the leap to DRM-free pastures.

As far as Amazon's 1 Billion MP3 Giveaway next year is concerned, participation will be pretty standard, if not tedious and slightly more expensive than similar promotions in the past. Each bottle of Pepsi and some of its other brands will contain a coupon code under the bottle cap. Customers can then redeem five codes for one free download from the Amazon MP3 store. Considering that Apple's industry-leading iTunes Store has only gone as far as 100 million tracks during its own Pepsi + Super Bowl promotions, Amazon is certainly wearing an ambitious hat for its first foray into giving music away for free to promote its digital music download service. Of course, by way of quick calculation, users will have to submit a total 5 billion cap codes to get at those songs, and frankly, that's a load of codes. That's somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 codes per US citizen.

With Amazon spreading the word next year in a big way for DRM-free media and Wal-Mart trying to knock some sense into more major labels, 2008 is already looking to be a strong year for the fight against DRM.

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Big boxes of scorn heaped on Duluth Wal-Mart

By EILEEN DRENNEN,
MICHAEL PEARSON,
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
December 2nd, 2007                                              [back to top]

It may be one of the most routine experiences in American life: heading to Wal-Mart to buy groceries, some clothes or a bike.

It's so common that the world's largest retailer expects to open a new U.S. store, on average, every other day this year.

Neighbors of a Wal-Mart proposed for Peachtree Industrial Boulevard in Duluth showed up in force in August for a meeting at City Hall of the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Most open with little fanfare. Yet in some places — such as Duluth — word that the giant is coming will shake the community like little else can.

People flood City Hall. They shout. They question the chain's impact on everything from local businesses to the environment to its own employees.

In Duluth, controversy has raged since Wal-Mart unveiled plans to build a 176,305-square-foot Supercenter on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard.

People have packed meetings, carried protest signs, collected signatures and fired off angry e-mails. The City Council imposed a six-month moratorium on large-scale developments to study their impact. The man who wants to sell 27 acres to Wal-Mart, Jack Bandy, has sued Duluth and the city's Zoning Board of Appeals.

To Wal-Mart spokesman Glen Wilkins, the company's commitment to Duluth is an example of its strategy of building near customers.

To critics, the debate is tied up in a larger conversation about issues such as "quality of life" and "community." Underpinning it all is a frustration with Gwinnett County's years of seemingly unstoppable development.

"Fatigue is a big part of it," said Mark Williams, chairman of the Gwinnett Place Community Improvement District, a group of businesses that tax themselves to pay for community improvements. "We've had a lot of willy-nilly development, and people are just tired of it."

Big, ugly crime magnets?

Debates about Wal-Mart seem to involve mostly local issues. Foes say the stores are big and ugly, cause traffic, threaten mom and pop stores and attract crime — all of which Wal-Mart disputes.

In almost every case, argues Charles Fishman, author of "The Wal-Mart Effect," a current of discontent with the brand itself runs just beneath the surface.

As the most dominant retailer on the planet, Wal-Mart has changed the way the world shops and given rise to watchdog groups.

It's hardly the only retailer accused of paying low wages or using questionable business tactics — charges Wal-Mart denies — but it attracts a level of scorn rarely directed at big-box retailers such as Target or Best Buy.

Why? Its size, Fishman said.

About $10 of every $100 spent at U.S. businesses is spent at Wal-Mart. About 127 million Americans shop there every week.

"They sell more toys than Toys 'R' Us. More jeans than Levi Strauss. More groceries than anyone in the world. More guns. More cigarettes. More eyeliner," Fishman said. "Whatever business you're in, you wake up thinking about Wal-Mart."

Opponents get organized

You won't hear much talk about the global economy from members of Smart Growth Gwinnett, a group that is fighting the proposed Wal-Mart.

Their concerns are local. Many of them live near the proposed store, about five miles from an existing Wal-Mart on Pleasant Hill Road.

"We realized ... that we needed to put some organization behind us," said Len Boyer, the group's vice chairman. "We said, 'We can't just be a bunch of people yelling 'No Wal-Mart!' We wanted to see what people out there had done similarly."

They learned about grass-roots strategies and started collecting signatures and raising money. Soon people in red T-shirts picketed City Hall and packed meetings about the project.

They told anyone who would listen that Peachtree Industrial Boulevard isn't industrial at all. In fact, they counted about 1,000 upscale homes within three miles of the site.

"This isn't about Wal-Mart per se," Boyer said. "This is about big-box development. ... We're a proponent of smart growth that's consistent with the look and feel of Duluth."

The site of the proposed Wal-Mart is zoned for such a commercial development, so opponents have focused on otherwise mundane issues.

In August, for example, a city planner agreed to Wal-Mart's request to deviate from building codes related to the pitch of the store's roof, material for exterior walls and landscaping. Smart Growth Gwinnett appealed the decision to the Duluth Zoning Board of Appeals — and won.

Yet others in Duluth expect a store on the land.

"It may as well be something that I shop at," said Ed Livingston, who lives nearby. "If it's not going to be Wal-Mart, it will be something else."

Store has supporters

Controversy doesn't always dog Wal-Mart.

"If I could, I would have it in my backyard," said Joyce Price, who drives a county school bus and shops weekly at the Wal-Mart on Pleasant Hill Road.

Supporters tend not to crowd into public meetings, company spokesman Wilkins said, but many have told him they would welcome a new Wal-Mart in Duluth.

In Dacula, the City Council approved plans for a Supercenter with little fanfare. What's different there?

"Personally, I think it is a class issue," said Tim Sullivan, a Buford real estate agent who tracks land-use issues in northeastern Gwinnett. "There are more higher-priced homes in Duluth than in Dacula. I believe most folks assume the Wal-Mart customer is a bargain hunter because they are poor."

Issues of class often surface in the Wal-Mart debate.

A University of California at Berkeley study found that California Wal-Mart workers used more public assistance than employees of other large retailers. A University of Missouri study found that the company's presence cost jobs at nearby retail and wholesale companies.

Wilkins said his company is unfairly singled out for all kinds of misdeeds and is seldom lauded for all it gives back to communities. He's particularly irked by the complaint that Wal-Mart drives mom and pop stores out of business.

"Show me where a business has failed because of Wal-Mart," Wilkins said. "If there's so many of them, it shouldn't be so hard for people to come up with them. I see new businesses

popping up next to Wal-Mart, not closing."

Landowner's lawsuits

At the moment, the proposed store is in limbo.

Bandy, the landowner, has sued Duluth's mayor and City Council as well as its Zoning Board of Appeals. The first suit seeks to invalidate the moratorium on large-scale buildings. The second argues that the appeals board erred in siding against Wal-Mart in three decisions related to building-design issues.

In the end, author Fishman predicted, the store "will do what it has to do" to open. But he noted that citizens' groups elsewhere have in-

fluenced store designs by working with Wal-Mart.

"If I had people from Smart Growth Gwinnett ask me to sit down and discuss this project again, and ensure we would have a dialogue," Wilkins said, "I would do it in a minute."

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A Wal-Mart Christmas Toy Story: Shopper Jailed For Removing Dangerous Baby Toy

By Al Norman,
Hufington Post
December 2nd, 2007                                        [back to top]

DES ARC, AR - Every year a Massachusetts-based non-profit corporation called W.A.T.C.H. (World Against toys Causing Harm) publishes during the Christmas shopping season, its annual "10 Worst Toys" list. On the 2007 "10 Worst Toys" List is a product called "The Dora Explorer Lamp," made in China. It looks more like a plastic cartoon character than a lamp. It retails for just under $13 in the baby department at Wal-Mart, and comes with the following manufacturer's warning in small print: "This is an electric lamp, not a toy! To avoid risk of fire, burns, personal injury and electric shock, it should not be played with or placed where small children can reach it. HAZARD: Potential for Electric Shock and Burn Injuries!" According to W.A.T.C.H., "This colorful lamp, based upon the popular Nickelodeon 'Nick Jr.' character, is in the form of a smiling plastic figurine. The packaging encourages children to 'light-up your room with Dora!' Incredibly, children are further instructed to 'unplug the product when leaving the house, when retiring for the night, or if left unattended.' The manufacturer's proclamation that the Dora cartoon character is not a toy has little meaning to small children, who may be attracted to the figurine and thus be exposed to the potential electric hazard." The consumer group says it lists toys "with the potential to cause childhood injuries, or even death." According to W.A.T.C.H., their efforts "have fearlessly exposed potentially dangerous toys to the general public. As a result, children's lives have been saved." Buddy Childress, a 72-year old termite control contractor, did not enter the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Searcy, Arkansas thinking about saving a child's life. Childress lives in the small community of Des Arc, Arkansas, with his wife, Ann. He has owned his small business there for more than four decades. On Thursday, November 30, Childress drove to Searcy, Arkansas to do some shopping at Wal-Mart. When he went into the store, he says he noticed the toy section and decided to have a look at it, "thinking I might see some things our young grandchildren would like. Our three-year-old granddaughter loves Dora the Explorer, a little Nickelodeon cartoon character, so I looked over a shelf full of Dora items." Childress' visit to the Wal-Mart toy section went south from there. He narrates what happened next: "When I saw a little lamp made in the form of a seated figure of Dora, I remembered that about a week earlier, my wife and I had seen this item mentioned on CNN as being on the 10 Most Hazardous Toys for 2007 list, issued by the organization, W.A.T.C.H. I picked up the box and looked the lamp over. In very small print on the bottom of the packaging was a warning: 'This is an electric lamp, not a toy. To avoid risk of fires, burns, personal injury or electric shock, it should not be played with or placed where small children can reach it.' But it looked like a toy, and it was for sale in the toy department." Childress called his wife and asked her to get on the internet to make sure that the item he was looking at was identical to the one he has seen listed on CNN. "Ann called me back in a few minutes," Childress recalls, "and told me that she had read several articles, some including photos of the lamp. She told me she'd learned that inside the packaging were instructions to 'unplug the product when leaving the house, when retiring for the night, or if left unattended.' There was no doubt that the item on the Most Dangerous Toys list was the same one for sale at Wal-Mart." Childress watched as a woman with two small children picked up the lamp and started to put it in her shopping cart. "When I told her what I'd just learned she thanked me and put the item back on the shelf," Childress explains. "I then picked it up and went to show it to the store manager, thinking he would be glad to learn how dangerous it was and would remove it from the toy shelves." Instead, the manager told Childress, "Well, you can hear anything on CNN, and just because something's on the internet doesn't mean it's true." Childress asked the manager to check out the internet information for himself, but he refused. The manager said that it wouldn't make any difference -- he could only pull items off the shelves if they were on a list issued by Wal-Mart's corporate headquarters. Childress then purchased one of the two Dora lamps on the toy shelf, left the store, and started home. "I thought maybe I could show it to some newspaper editors in nearby towns," Childress reasoned, "hoping they might write something to warn people away from buying it." But as he drove home, Childress kept thinking about the dangerous lamp that was still sitting on that Wal-Mart shelf in Searcy. "I was picturing the family who'd almost bought one when I was there," he confesses. "I also decided I should tell the manager that if Wal-Mart was going to keep selling this obviously hazardous toy -- which wasn't a toy, but was for sale in the toy department -- I felt I'd have to pursue other means of getting the word out about it. Maybe then he would do something." Childress turned his car around, drove back to Wal-Mart, and approached the manager again. "He said he'd called Wal-Mart's headquarters after I'd left, and they'd told him there was nothing they would do. Then I told him I felt this was willful child endangerment, and I'd have to go to -- and write to -- area newspapers. He said, "Well, if you do that, you'd better be sure all your T's are crossed and your I's are dotted, because you will be facing legal action." Buddy Childress then circled back to the toy department to see if the Dora Lamp had been sold. It had not. "But a little girl was reaching for it," Childress recalls, "and telling her mother she wanted it. I warned them also -- and they didn't buy the lamp." Having thwarted two sales, Childress considered buying the second lamp himself -- but he knew Wal-Mart would just bring out more from their stockroom. "I couldn't keep people from buying the lamp from the Searcy Wal-Mart -- let alone from all the other Wal-Marts in Arkansas and all across the country," Childress figured. "I felt I had to do something that would make a statement and focus attention on this extremely dangerous toy." Childress dialed 911 on his cell phone, and was connected with the Searcy Police Department. He told the officer who answered the phone where he was, what had happened in the toy department, and that he intended to take the lamp outside the store and destroy it. "He tried to get me not to do it," Childress admits, "but I told him I was going to, and that I'd be waiting outside the store for the police to arrive. I expected to be arrested there, and taken to the police station." Childress says he took The Dora Explorer Lamp outside the store to the sidewalk. "I destroyed it," he says, "I stomped on it, and then waited for the police to arrive." Before the cops arrived, five or six Wal-Mart employees came out of the store and surrounded Childress. They ordered him to accompany them back inside the store to an office in the back. "I told them I would go, but I would rather wait until the police got there. Their reply was, "You're coming with us now." Back inside Wal-Mart, employees took Childress' cell phone away from him, and refused to let him make any calls. "They put some papers in front of me and instructed me to sign them," Childress says, "but I refused." A Searcy policeman came in, and the Wal-Mart people said they were charging Childress with shoplifting. "The officer was very courteous and professional, and told me procedure required him to put me in handcuffs." Childress says he then had to take one of the most humiliating walks of his life from the back of the store, out through the front door, handcuffed and escorted by the police. In retelling the moments of his arrest, Childress' voice is unsteady, and choked with emotion. At the White County Detention Center, Childress was fingerprinted, and a 'mug shot' was taken ("A very unattractive one, but maybe that was unavoidable"). He was searched and questioned, and given a ticket with SHOPLIFTING written in large print. The policeman who had arrested him offered to take Childress back to his car, which was still parked at Wal-Mart, but by the time he was free to go, the cop had to leave. "By the time I got home," Childress sighs, "I had begun to realize the possible repercussions of people who knew me reading in the newspaper that I'd been arrested for shoplifting. They wouldn't have any way of knowing that my motive in taking something out of the store had been to alert parents about a toy which could hurt their children or cause a house fire. Without an explanation, it would sound like I was stealing." "I have lived in Des Arc most of my life," Childress explains, "as has my family for many generations. My children and grandchildren live nearby. I have friends and customers all over the state. I went to college in Searcy, and many of my old friends and former classmates live there. My wife and my sons understand what happened and have been totally supportive. So far, I haven't told anyone else. But I know that the story of my arrest for shoplifting from Wal-Mart will be in the Searcy, Des Arc, and other area newspapers within the next few days." Childress says he took Dora Explorer out of Wal-Mart for two simple reasons: "First, and most importantly, I hope it will act as a deterrent to shoppers everywhere this story appears, to not buy this item from Wal-Mart, or any other retailer. Wal-Mart is continuing to sell this item despite the many warnings about it. You have to wonder how many other items on store shelves fall into this category? Secondly, I want to tell people who know me exactly what I did and why I did it. I hope I can do some damage-control regarding my business and my reputation. It isn't my nature to be a 'protestor.'" The case of Wal-Mart Stores v Buddy Childress will be heard in an Arkansas court on December 13th. It is a special Wal-Mart Christmas "Toy Story" from the retailer's home state that you won't see on any of their holiday ads. "I have never before committed an act of civil disobedience," Buddy the Toy-Destroyer says. "But I have thought a lot about all this, and regardless of the consequences -- if I had it to do over -- I would still do what I did."

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Wal-Mart Protesters Picket Mexico City Store

By Adriana Arai ,
Bloomberg News
December 2nd, 2007                                            [back to top]

Protesters picketed a Wal-Mart store in Mexico City to show support for employees who are trying to form a union at the company, the nation's largest employer.

The protesters, who included labor activists and union members from other industries, urged shoppers to boycott Wal- Mart for the day. Wal-Mart de Mexico SAB, two-thirds owned by Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc., has about 160,000 workers in the country.

``Wal-Mart in Mexico is no different from Wal-Mart in the U.S.,'' said Maria Pantoja, a Mexico City representative of Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based group that is helping local workers organize. She said the company pays low wages and drives small shops out of business with its low prices.

``They're missing the point, said Antonio Ocaranza, communications director for Wal-Mart de Mexico, as he looked at the protesters handing out pamphlets at Plaza Universidad, in southern Mexico City. ``We create jobs, we pay taxes, we compensate our workers better than average.

In the U.S., Wal-Mart faces more than 70 suits in which it is accused of wage-law violations. Politicians including presidential candidate Barack Obama, as well as religious, environmental and labor groups have criticized the company over its wages, benefits and expansion plans.

Wal-Mart de Mexico issued two written statements in response to today's demonstration, including a nine-point fact sheet with salary information, number of jobs created, number of female employees and investment in training. It said its lowest salary is at least 18 percent higher than the minimum wage.

Criticism of Calderon

Protesters gathered at the Plaza Universidad Supercenter, Sam's Club and other Wal-Mart stores today with political messages that included criticism of President Felipe Calderon's free-trade policies.

Ernesto Palestino, 52, wheeled his cart out of the Supercenter along with his wife and son as protesters gathered around the store exit.

``They have good jobs and pay benefits, he said. ``I have nothing against the store. He reserved his criticism for the government, saying it ``sells our oil and lets foreign companies send all their profits overseas.'' Wal-Mart de Mexico's salaries, benefits and work conditions are similar to those of other retail chains in Mexico, which take advantage of labor laws that favor employers, said Alfonso Bouzas, who has researched labor laws for 33 years for Mexico's National Autonomous University.

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VIDEOS

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Fighting Wal-Martization 25min. (2005)

A new video by The Labor Video Project 25 min. (2005)

Wal-Mart is now the largest private employer in the United States and has the same impact that General Motors had nearly 50 years ago. This 26-minute video shows why working people and trade unionists are fighting back and what Wal-Mart has in store for the communities it is seeking to build stores in. "Fighting Wal-Martization" is a hard hitting documentary that looks at how the constant price cutting not only drives local small businesses out of the community but how this ends up driving down the living conditions of the very people who shop at Wal-Mart. The video also looks at the healthcare crisis and how Wal-Mart increases its profits by sending it¹s employees to public hospitals to get treatment thereby shifting costs back onto the taxpayer. This video can be used at union meetings, community meetings and on cable TV to get the message out about the Wal-Martization of America and what it means to every working person.

Please mail your check of $20.00 and order form to

Labor Video Project
P. O. Box 720027,
San Francisco, CA 94172

For more info: lvpsf@labornet.org, (415) 282-1908

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices (www.walmartmovie.com)

Independent America: The Two Lane Search for Mom & Pop (www.independentamerica.net)

Big Box Mart (www.jibjab.com)

Garth Brooks Parody (www.walmartworkersrights.org)

"Is Wal-Mart Good for America?" Frontline, PBS Video, (www.pbs.org)
 

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BOOKS

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NON-FICTION

The Case Against Wal-Mart By Al Norman Raphel Marketing ruth@raphael.com

Wal-Mart: The Face Of Twenty-First Century Capitalism Edited By Nelson Lichtenstein The New Press www.thenewpress.com

The Great Risk Shift: The Assault on American Jobs, Families, Health Care and Retirement By Jacob S. Hacker Oxford University Press www.oup.com

War On The Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War on the American Dream and How to Fight Back By Lou Dobbs Viking, a member of Penguin Group www.penguin.com

Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age By Allison H. Fine Jossey-Bass www.joseybass.com

Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Businesses, By Stacy Mitchell, www.beacon.org www.newrules.org

Wal-Mart: The Face Of the Twenty-First-Century Capitalism, Edited by Nelson Lichtenstein, Published by The New Press www.thenewpress.com

 The Bully Of Bentonville - How the high cost of Wal-Mart's Everyday Low Prices is Hurting America, By Anthony Bianco, Published by Doubleday
Email: specialmarkets@randomhouse.com

 How Wal-Mart is Destroying America (and the world), By Bill Quinn, Published By Ten Speed Press, Box 7123, Berkeley, CA 94707, www.tenspeed.com (pp. 163)

Slam Dunking Wal-Mart, By Al Norman, Published By Raphel Marketing, 12 S. Virginia Avenue, Atlantic City, New Jersey 08410, www.sprawl-busters.com (pp. 237)

The Great American JobsScam, By Greg LeRoy, Published By Barrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 235 Montgomery Street, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94104-2916, www.bkconnection.com (pp. 257)

Nickel and Dimed, By Barbara Ehrenreich, Published By Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 115 West 18^th Street, New York, NY 10011, www.henryholt.com (pp.221)

United States of Wal-Mart, By John Dicker, Published By Jeremy P. Tarcher (Penguin Group usa), www.us.penguingroup.com (pp.257)

The Wal-Mart Effect, By Charles Fishman www.penguin.com

Megamall On The Hudson, By David Porter and Chester L. Mirsky www.trafford.com

FICTION

Death By Discount, By Mary Vermillion, Published By Alyson Publications, P.O. Box 4371, Los Angeles, CA 90078-4371, www.maryvermillion.com (pp. 275)