David Nassar
Wal-Mart Watch

Associated Press
09.30.08                               [back to top]        

BENTONVILLE, Ark. - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Tuesday it has told suppliers to stop acquiring cotton from Uzbekistan to try and put an end to forced child labor in cotton harvesting.

The world's largest retailer said it has formed a coalition representing 90 percent of U.S. purchases of cotton and cotton-based merchandise.

"There is no tolerance for forced child labor in the Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people ) supply chain," said Rajan Kamalanathan, Wal-Mart's vice president of ethical standards.

On Sept. 12, the Uzbekistan government issued a plan detailing steps to stop the use of child labor, following a letter from a number of industry trade groups demanding the end of forced child labor in cotton harvesting.

Wal-Mart will modify its stance once these steps can be independently verified.

Shares rose $1.17, or 2 percent, to $59.62 in trading after the opening bell.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Wal-Mart expands worker health benefits

By Karen Jacobs,
Reuters
September 30th, 2008                        [back to top]        

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Retail leader Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Tuesday that it was expanding health benefits for workers, including offering a 2009 program that provides pre-pregnancy and child development services.

The company said a "Life With Baby" program in next year's benefits package would provide workers counseling with registered nurses through all phases of maternity.

It said that plan also includes expanded benefits such as periodontal cleanings to help prevent gum disease in mother and child, and a new program designed to stop smoking.

In a statement, the retailer said about 15,000 of its workers have babies each year.

Wal-Mart also said its 2009 health plan offerings would provide added preventive coverage such as mammograms, colonoscopies and flu vaccinations to workers.

Earlier this year, Wal-Mart said 92.7 percent of its employees have health-care coverage, including 50.2 percent who are covered by the retailer's plan. Wal-Mart has 1.4 million U.S. workers.

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Lawyer: Wal-Mart may owe $600M

By Donna Goodison,
Boston Herald
September 29th, 2008                        [back to top]         

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.

State law requires employers to give at least a 30-minute meal break to employees who work more than six hours in a given day. Violations of the law, which is up to the state attorney general to enforce, are punishable by a fine of $300 to $600 per occurrence.

“If you add the objective numbers that we have, the state can claim at a minimum $600 million in fines just from Wal-Mart,” Bonsignore said. “Given the financial dire straits that the commonwealth faces, it’s incomprehensible to me that the attorney general is sitting on its hands.”

Bonsignore first presented his case and data to former Attorney General Thomas Reilly’s Office.

“We had multiple meetings with them, and they declined to prosecute,” he said.

Reilly, who left office in January 2007, is now a partner at the Boston office of Greenberg Traurig, which is Wal-Mart’s counsel in the class-action suit.

Current Attorney General Martha Coakley also declined to intervene, according to Bonsignore.

On Tuesday, the SJC vacated a 2006 trial court ruling that had decertified the Wal-Mart employees’ class-action lawsuit. The ruling essentially reinstates the case, which will proceed in Middlesex Superior Court. It also allows Bonsignore to ask a jury to place a value on the employees’ missed meal breaks - funds that, if he’s successful, would benefit the employees.

“We’ve got our right now for the first time to try to get something for these people who couldn’t eat a sandwich,” Bonsignore said. “But the state is walking away from $600 million at a time when we need every cent to fund police, to fund public services, to fund enforcement of laws, just name it.”

But based on a statement from Coakley’s office yesterday, the attorney general now appears willing at least to take a look at Bonsignore’s payroll record data.

“The prior administration looked at this case and decided not to proceed,” a spokesman for her office said. “But now that the SJC has reinstated the case, if the plaintiffs’ attorney wants to share evidence that they have, we are happy to review it.”

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.

State law requires employers to give at least a 30-minute meal break to employees who work more than six hours in a given day. Violations of the law, which is up to the state attorney general to enforce, are punishable by a fine of $300 to $600 per occurrence.

“If you add the objective numbers that we have, the state can claim at a minimum $600 million in fines just from Wal-Mart,” Bonsignore said. “Given the financial dire straits that the commonwealth faces, it’s incomprehensible to me that the attorney general is sitting on its hands.”

Bonsignore first presented his case and data to former Attorney General Thomas Reilly’s Office.

“We had multiple meetings with them, and they declined to prosecute,” he said.

Reilly, who left office in January 2007, is now a partner at the Boston office of Greenberg Traurig, which is Wal-Mart’s counsel in the class-action suit.

Current Attorney General Martha Coakley also declined to intervene, according to Bonsignore.

On Tuesday, the SJC vacated a 2006 trial court ruling that had decertified the Wal-Mart employees’ class-action lawsuit. The ruling essentially reinstates the case, which will proceed in Middlesex Superior Court. It also allows Bonsignore to ask a jury to place a value on the employees’ missed meal breaks - funds that, if he’s successful, would benefit the employees.

“We’ve got our right now for the first time to try to get something for these people who couldn’t eat a sandwich,” Bonsignore said. “But the state is walking away from $600 million at a time when we need every cent to fund police, to fund public services, to fund enforcement of laws, just name it.”

But based on a statement from Coakley’s office yesterday, the attorney general now appears willing at least to take a look at Bonsignore’s payroll record data.

“The prior administration looked at this case and decided not to proceed,” a spokesman for her office said. “But now that the SJC has reinstated the case, if the plaintiffs’ attorney wants to share evidence that they have, we are happy to review it.”

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Walmart to pull plug on DRM servers

By Adrian Kingsley-Hughes,
ZDNet
September 28th, 2008                  [back to top]        

So, Walmart is to pull the plug on its DRM servers and leave all the suckers customers who bought DRM-encumbered music up a creek without a paddle.

Here’s the email sent out to customers:

Important Information About Your Digital Music Purchases

We hope you are enjoying the increased music quality/bitrate and the improved usability of Walmart’s MP3 music downloads. We began offering MP3s in August 2007 and have offered only DRM (digital rights management) -free MP3s since February 2008. As the final stage of our transition to a full DRM-free MP3 download store, Walmart will be shutting down our digital rights management system that supports protected songs and albums purchased from our site.

If you have purchased protected WMA music files from our site prior to Feb 2008, we strongly recommend that you back up your songs by burning them to a recordable audio CD. By backing up your songs, you will be able to access them from any personal computer. This change does not impact songs or albums purchased after Feb 2008, as those are DRM-free.

Beginning October 9, we will no longer be able to assist with digital rights management issues for protected WMA files purchased from Walmart.com. If you do not back up your files before this date, you will no longer be able to transfer your songs to other computers or access your songs after changing or reinstalling your operating system or in the event of a system crash. Your music and video collections will still play on the originally authorized computer.

Thank you for using Walmart.com for music downloads. We are working hard to make our store better than ever and easier to use.

Walmart Music Team

So, you choose to buy something legitimately, despite the fact that it’s shackled by DRM, and the company decides to pull the plug on the life support system of the DRM servers in order to save money. Sheesh. And this system is supposed to prevent piracy.

Something that I do find interesting from the email is how Walmart are encouraging users to make use of the analog hole in order to carry out a little damage limitation.

But why not take the simple approach to solving this problem. Give everyone who bought a DRM-time-bombed song access to the DRM-free version. Problem solved.

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'Wal-Mart Women' Vote Remains in Play

By MIGUEL BUSTILLO
and ANN ZIMMERMAN,
The Wall Street Journal
September 26th, 2008               [back to top]        

Hoping to capitalize on the voting might of its working-class customers, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. released results of its own poll Thursday showing the "Wal-Mart Women" vote coveted by both presidential candidates is still up for grabs in five battleground states.Wal-Mart's customer poll found that Wal-Mart women were slightly more likely to support Sen. John McCain in Ohio and Florida, and Sen. Barack Obama in Virginia, Nevada and Colorado, though only a few percentage points separated preferences in each state.

Wal-Mart said it commissioned the survey to test the voting preferences of men and women who are shopping at its stores. 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.

Pollsters have emblematized part of the crucial working-class swing vote as "Wal-Mart Women," defined as more socially conservative women who typically don't have a college degree, who are feeling the economic pinch and are shopping at Wal-Mart for its lower prices.

The rise of Wal-Mart's female customers as a sought-after voting bloc has presented the Bentonville, Ark.-based company with an unprecedented opportunity to help choose the next president -- and it's trying to make the most of it.

The political poll, conducted for the company by a bipartisan team of pollsters, isn't the first Wal-Mart has conducted, but it is the first it has made public, said Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar.In addition to the survey, Wal-Mart is distributing demographic summaries to the press of the archetypal Wal-Mart Woman -- or Wal-Mart Mom, as they are also known -- and it has launched a voter-registration drive to ensure that more of its customers make it to the polls.

The rise of Wal-Mart Women marks a turnaround in Wal-Mart's political fortunes. In past years, Wal-Mart has been a favorite punching bag as candidates invoked the megaretailer as a symbol of corporate greed. Just two years ago, Democratic presidential candidates such as Sen. Joe Biden -- now Sen. Obama's running mate -- were attacking Wal-Mart for low wages and paltry health-care benefits as part of a broader strategy to curry favor with labor unions and capitalize on Americans' economic anxieties.

But as Wal-Mart Women take center stage in this year's race for the blue-collar vote -- and the economic slowdown makes Wal-Mart's fixation on low prices fashionable with growing numbers of Americans -- the criticism has quieted, a shift that is boosting the company's efforts to burnish its image.

"Candidates see our shoppers as representative of Americans worried about today's economy," said Leslie Dach, a former Washington public-relations guru and veteran of seven Democratic presidential campaigns hired by Wal-Mart to help repair its reputation.

With more Americans turning to Wal-Mart for essentials such as food, health care and gasoline, candidates run a risk of alienating voters by assailing the company, said Neil Newhouse, a partner with the Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies. The firm coined the term Wal-Mart Women a year ago to categorize the voting bloc expected to be this season's equivalent of the soccer moms of 1996 and Nascar dads of 2004. It found in a poll this month that nearly a third of expected voters now shopped at Wal-Mart. "You're not going to bash a place that 30% of likely voters go to on a weekly basis," Mr. Newhouse said. "It doesn't make political sense."

Bruised by a drumbeat of criticism alleging stingy and discriminatory treatment of its employees, Wal-Mart has been making an aggressive push in recent years to rehabilitate its image, hiring a public-relations firm to help it answer critics, launching a campaign to reduce its environmental impact, and expanding a $4 prescription generic-drug plan to help combat high health-care costs.

Wal-Mart also has so far doled out more campaign contributions to Democrats than Republicans in the House of Representatives this election cycle -- a first for the traditionally GOP-leaning company.

Wal-Mart hasn't escaped criticism this year. A group of unions has asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate whether the company improperly cautioned tens of thousands of store supervisors that voting for Democrats, including Sen. Obama, could hurt the company because the Democrats support a bill that would make unionizing easier.

The union-backed anti-Wal-Mart group Wake Up Wal-Mart has been running negative ads in seven states that show Sen. McCain in front of a Wal-Mart logo and accuse him of favoring reckless corporate tax cuts.

Still, the shift in Wal-Mart's image this political season has frustrated the company's foes, who argue that their claims about Wal-Mart exploiting American workers and pushing jobs offshore remain as relevant as ever.

"Even people who don't necessarily feel good about Wal-Mart's policies have found themselves shopping there because of how bad things have gotten," said Meghan Scott, a spokeswoman for Wake Up Wal-Mart.

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Wal-Mart says to open first India centre in 2009

By Devidutta Tripathy,
Reuters
September 24th, 2008                       [back to top]        

NEW DELHI, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Store Inc will open its first cash-and-carry centre in India in 2009, the head of its India operations said on Wednesday.

Wal-Mart, which has a venture with India's Bharti Enterprises for cash-and-carry wholesale operations, had earlier said it aimed to open the first of its centres by year-end and open 10-15 centres over seven years.

"Certainly that was the initial plan," Raj Jain said at the sidelines of a business conference.

"We still stick with that. It could be faster, it could be slower."

The first centre will be in northern India, he said.

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Wal-Mart sues, mocks burn victim

David Nassar
Wal-Mart Watch                           [back to top]       

Wal-Mart has done a lot of nasty things over the years, but this one might take the cake.

Missouri mom Lori Howerton purchased a gas can from Wal-Mart. In 2002, her 12-year-old son Justin tried to help her by using the gas can to burn some branches that had fallen during an ice storm. As he poured gas on the pile of wet branches, the vapors ignited, a flame leaped up and ignited the gas can nozzle. When Justin tried to blow out the flames, the can exploded and covered him in burning gasoline. Justin suffered third-degree burns over more than half of his body, was permanently disfigured and emotionally traumatized.

If the story ended there, it would be a tragedy. But there's more. When the Howertons dared to sue Wal-Mart and Blitz, the gas can maker, for selling and manufacturing a defective product, guess what Wal-Mart did? Wal-Mart countersued Justin's mother for negligence! Even more egregious is that the company was aware of the gas can dangers and accidents as shown in heartless videos of executives mocking gas can explosions.

This shocking behavior was reported in last week's episode of Dan Rather Reports. Watch the heart-wrenching segment and share it with everyone you know:

http://action.walmartwatch.com/gascan

The Howertons' lawsuit against Wal-Mart and Blitz alleged that Justin's accident could have been prevented by a simple device installed on the gas can's nozzle for less than a dollar. This is an essential safety feature, and both Blitz and Wal-Mart are responsible for failing to install it.

As Dan Rather reported,

"Wal-Mart can and has in the past required its suppliers to make changes in product designs when customers complain or when they think it's necessary."

In fact, Wal-Mart did just that with Blitz several years ago, pressuring the company to make a change in a spout on a different gas can. Blitz, of course, complied.

But rather than take responsibility for its failure to protect its customers, Wal-Mart challenged the lawsuit and filed a countersuit against Lori Howerton. According to Howerton's attorney, Wal-Mart even hired a private investigator to follow Justin, a minor, to make sure he wasn't faking his burn injuries.

The repulsive videos of Wal-Mart executives mocking gas can explosions and crudely laughing about this tragedy show a blatant disregard for customers' safety. It's the kind of thing you have to see to believe:

http://action.walmartwatch.com/gascan

Wal-Mart has a long history of callous disdain for the health and safety of both its customers and its workers.

Whether it's selling toys with lead paint to parents, suing brain-damaged former employee Debbie Shank for her medical funds, or denying living wages and proper health care coverage to hundreds of thousands of workers, Wal-Mart continues to set new standards for heartlessness.

Its treatment of the Howertons is just the latest and perhaps most egregious example -- and we need to make sure everyone hears about it:

http://action.walmartwatch.com/gascan

Sincerely,

David Nassar
Wal-Mart Watch                   

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How Obama Can Win Working-Class Votes

Shikha Dalmia
09.24.08                                  [back to top]        

For now, Barack Obama has contained his free fall in the polls. But the slim margin he enjoys over John McCain can hardly be a source of comfort.

If he wants to restore his original lead, he will have to do more than go on the offensive. He will have to deliver on his promise of being a post-partisan unifier and convince working-class whites to join blacks--two key Democratic constituencies--to join forces behind him. This charge will require him to perform a delicate double-maneuver: persuade working-class whites that he's not an identity politician indifferent to their interests and, at the same time, assure black voters that his appeal as a post-racial candidate doesn't involve selling them out.

One principled way he could do both? Ask colleges to end preferences for minorities and white children of alumni in admissions.

Racial preferences have been a sleeper issue so far, but they will generate more attention come November, given that Colorado and Nebraska are facing ballot initiatives--authored by a black businessman from California, Ward Connerly--to ban their use in public universities. If similar initiatives in California (1996), Washington (1998) and Michigan (2006) are any indication, they will win handily, thanks to white working-class support. Indeed, the Michigan initiative passed 58% to 42%, receiving nearly 70% of the votes in places such as Macomb County--home of the Reagan Democrats.

But Obama has condemned Connerly's initiatives as "divisive." This will likely irritate working-class whites who already feel alienated by his "god and guns" remark. Indeed, their antipathy is one reason why, despite pervasive disgust with the current Republican administration, McCain has gained ground.

The current average of major polls shows Obama leading McCain by 3%--certainly an improvement over last week, but still only half of what it was two months ago. The latest Gallup poll shows McCain leading Obama 55% to 33% among lesser educated, blue-collar whites. Likewise, a Zogby poll earlier this month reported that Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people ) shoppers support McCain over Obama 62% to 24%.

Of course, over 90% of blacks polled support Obama. But they alone can't carry him to the White House; they comprise only 11% of the general election voters--and whites 77%.

Obama needs to do something--as dramatic as McCain's picking a hockey mom with a working-class background as his running mate--to change the electoral calculus. Fair college admissions, though not the most pressing issue this election, could nevertheless resonate far beyond the states facing the Connerly initiative. These include Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia--all battleground states that, with the exception of the last, are part of the Rust Belt and contain huge working-class populations.

Obama's comment to ABC's George Stephanopoulos that colleges shouldn't grant privileged blacks like his daughters special consideration by virtue of their race over disadvantaged whites was a good first step. It suggests that Obama would be open to replacing race-based affirmative action with economic affirmative action--a measure that would appeal to blue-collar whites. But they won't take him seriously so long as he opposes Connerly's initiatives. Too precipitous a reversal, though, would risk a fall-out with black voters.

Obama can break through this political logjam by calling for a genuinely fair admission system: He should concede that racial preferences are repugnant because they reward not hard work or merit but an accident of birth. But, by the same token, so are legacy preferences, the vast majority of which benefit wealthy whites.

As Princeton professor Tom Espenshade has shown, racial preferences give black and Hispanic candidates the equivalent of an advantage of 230 and 185 extra SAT points, respectively, on a 1,600-point scale. Legacy preferences--which nearly every elite school, public and private, employs--also translate into a 160-point edge for children of alumni.

Dismantling racial preferences while leaving legacy preferences in place, as Connerly's initiatives would do, won't advance the cause of color-blind admissions because it will open up minority slots for white candidates but no white spots for minority candidates. It would effectively force disadvantaged minorities to compete on merit without holding rich, privileged kids to the same standards.

This message will resonate with working-class whites because they don't qualify for either type of affirmative action. At the same time, calling for the end of both will mitigate the potential fallout with black voters for whom racial preferences are a necessary corrective to existing inequities in the admission system. They will be more willing to give them up if the system itself is fundamentally reformed.

Former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards had railed against legacy admission but was silent about racial preferences. Connerly has acknowledged the unfairness of legacies but has conspicuously omitted them in his campaign to ban racial preferences. Calling for an end to both will allow Obama to acknowledge the important element of justice in both causes--while drawing attention to their partialness.

Obama's political appeal rests on his promise that he is a candidate of change who can transcend narrow interests of race and class and unite the country around basic principles of fairness and justice. But he has yet to give any concrete example of how he will achieve such a creative alliance. Unfair college admission practices give him a golden opportunity to offer one.

Shikha Dalmia is a senior analyst at the Reason Foundation, a Los Angeles-based think tank. She is a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal, Reason magazine and numerous other publications. She can be reached at shikha.dalmia@reason.org.

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Mass. court reinstates lawsuit against Wal-Mart

Associated Press
09.23.08                                      [back to top]       

BOSTON - The highest court in Massachusetts has reinstated a lawsuit against Wal-Mart by employees who claim the world's largest retailer pressured them to work off the clock and denied them rest and meal breaks.

In 2006, a Superior Court judge decertified the case as a class-action lawsuit representing 67,000 employees of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (nyse: WMT - news - people ) in Massachusetts and dismissed many of its claims.

But the state's Supreme Judicial Court overturned that ruling on Tuesday and cleared the lawsuit to proceed as a class-action case, finding that the lower court was wrong to exclude testimony from a statistician whose data backed up employee claims.

The claims are similar to those made by Wal-Mart employees in other lawsuits around the country.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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'Tis The Season To Be Frugal

Lisa LaMotta,
09.23.08                     [back to top]       

Expect to see plenty of discounts this coming holiday season as retailers try to coerce worried consumers into opening their wallets.

The National Retail Federation said Tuesday that it expects a poor retail environment this holiday season due to the current economic conditions, which have forced consumers to take a more frugal stance on shopping. High gas prices, the rising cost of food and trouble on Wall Street have all contributed to the weariness consumers already feel about spending.

The National Retail Federation expects holiday sales to only rise about 2.2% to $470.4 billion. This is well below the 10-year average level of 4.4% annually, and the slowest growth rate since 2002, when growth slowed to 1.3% after the dot-com bubble burst. "Current financial pressures and a lack of confidence in the economy will force shoppers to be very conservative with their holiday spending," said NRF Chief Economist Rosalind Wells.

The dismal forecast by the trade group is not entirely unexpected as several retailers including Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people ) and Sears Holdings (nasdaq: SHLD - news - people ) said they expect to pare back inventories and offer sales as incentives. Adding to the problem is the shorter holiday season; there are five fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year than in 2007. For many retailers, holiday sales represent between 25% to 40% of their annual revenues.

Jewelry stores tend to represent the highest growth during the holidays and both Tiffany (nyse: TIF - news - people ) and Zale (nyse: ZLC - news - people ) said earlier in the quarter that they plan to be aggressive. (See "Retailers Mixed About Holiday Season.")

While the trouble on Wall Street hasn't started to show its expected effects on Main Street, consumers and lenders have lost confidence in the U.S. financial system. Many Americans are worried about how the government's proposed $700.0 billion bailout will affect them and the amount of taxes that are already taking their toll on expenses.

The NRF does not see any recovery for retailers until the second half of next year.

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De Soto Wal-Mart employee files age discrimination suit

St. Louis Business Journal
September 22nd, 2008                           [back to top]       

A Wal-Mart in De Soto, Mo., fired a long-time employee because of her age, a new lawsuit alleges.

The complaint, filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Monday, alleges that Wal-Mart terminated Yvonne Loskot, 67, "because she was too old and made too much money," the commission said.

Loskot, who worked for Wal-Mart for a decade, earned $18 an hour as a certified optician, making her the highest-paid employee in the De Soto store's optical department.

A request for comment from Wal-Mart was not immediately returned.

"We all age so everyone should appreciate the protections of the [Age Discrimination in Employment Act]," said Barbara Seely, regional attorney for the EEOC's St. Louis office, in a statement. "Age discrimination in employment does far-reaching damage in our society. It results in the loss of productivity and opportunities for valuable workers in our economy."

In fiscal 2007, the commission received 19,103 charges alleging age discrimination, a jump of nearly 3,000 from the previous year.

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Wal-Mart Price Discrepancies Investigated

Local 6 News
September 22nd, 2008                 [back to top]        

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Apparent cost discrepancies at Central Florida Wal-Mart stores were investigated after the Problem Solvers received a tip from a viewer alleging different prices for the same items.

Mary Barnaby told Local 6 that after shopping at three Central Florida Wal-Mart stores she found varying prices at different locations.

Barnaby's list included 14 staple items like cereal, rice, sugar and soup.

She found items on her list were often cheaper at the Apopka Wal-Mart than at the Wal-Mart stores in Mt. Dora and Clarcona/Pine Hills, Local 6 reported.

"It just kind of lets you down that you think that Wal-Mart is a good kind of family store to shop in and save money. It depends on which Wal-Mart you decide to go to," Barnaby said..

The Problem Solvers took three items randomly from her list and put them to the pricing test: Green Giant asparagus, a 5-pound bag of sugar and condensed milk

Local 6's Steven Cooper reported that Barnaby's theory held up during a Problem Solvers test.

Sugar $2.38 Mt. Dora $2.36 Clarcona/Pine Hills $1.76 Apopka

Condensed Milk $1.54 Mt. Dora $1.56 Clarcona/Pine Hills $1.04 Apopka

Asparagus $2.42 Mt. Dora $2.54 Clarcona/Pine Hills $1.86 Apopka

"I did not go to the managers, and I probably should have but I decided to write you instead," Barnaby told Cooper.

Cooper contacted Wal-Mart.

"When we see that a nearby competitor might temporarily lower a price on an item, our stores have the authority to adjust their price lower. This can happen in a very small vicinity of stores," the company said in a statement to Local 6.

However, the Problem Solvers found that the prices concerned were not temporary as Wal-Mart described, but consistent over a period of at least two months.

Barnaby said she thinks that Wal-Mart is charging more for the same products in poorer neighborhoods than in neighborhoods with higher incomes.

"It disgusts me that the people who can least afford to buy the food have to pay more money than everyone else does," Barnaby said.

That’s a serious accusation and the Problem Solvers probed further, Cooper reported.

First, Cooper looked at the most recent census data, which showed the median household income is highest in Apopka -- where the prices were the lowest, compared to incomes in Mt. Dora and Clarcona/Pine Hills where the prices were higher.

Cooper brought that data to Wal-Mart's attention and a spokeswoman for the company said she was offended by the suggestion that the company was charging more in poorer neighborhoods.

She insisted that Wal-Mart does not price by demographic, that it remains the low price leader in every market -- and that the three stores we visited represent entirely different markets with different sets of competition, Cooper reported.

But when the Problem Solvers checked the competition, they did not find a similar pattern of pricing, Cooper said.

They visited Publix stores in the Windermere/Ocoee area, the Rosemont neighborhood of Orlando, and Altamonte.

The prices of the sugar, condensed milk and asparagus were consistent at all three stores. Visits to different Winn-Dixie stores generated the same results, according to Cooper.

When it comes to Wal-Mart, Barnaby said she comes to one conclusion: “You really need to know which store to shop at to get the better bargain within the Wal-Mart corporation."

Cooper said it's important to keep in mind that the Problem Solvers' price survey was not a scientific study. It is an observation of same-store pricing and it does reflect Barnaby's shopping experience.

And it does appear to put Wal-Mart in the unique position of pricing in a way that its competitors do not, Cooper reported.

Cooper also said that he has received many tips over the years about price discrepancies at other food retailers, but that this claim about Wal-Mart was the first time his researched turned up obvious differences from neighborhood to neighborhood.

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Wal-Mart’s Eco-Gold Tarnished, Say Enviros

By Richard Martin,
New West Development
September 20th, 2008                        [back to top]       

Wal-Mart claims its new jewelry line is eco-friendly, and based on "sustainable mining." Environmentalists, however, disagree.

Released in July under the brand "Love, Earth," the new gold marketing program claims to produce "fashion jewelry that honors, cherishes and protects our planet." Gold and silver contained in the items purchased through Love, Earth is 100% traceable, Wal-Mart says, through something called the Jewelry Sustainable Value Network, back to the original mines. The precious metals used in the jewelry are "mined and manufactured to our standards and criteria."

In fact, Wal-Mart's gold comes from mines in Utah and Nevada, owned by mining giants Rio Tinto and Denver-based Newmont Mining Corp., which have a long history of environmental problems and pollution, according to environmental groups Global Response and Great Basin Resource Watch.

"The mines in Utah and Nevada and the factories in Peru and Bolivia where Wal-Mart claims its gold for Love, Earth is 'sustainably mined and manufactured' are not monitored or certified by any credible independent agent," says a Sept. 11 statement from Global Response, which is based in Boulder. The retail giant is "taking advantage of people's genuine concern for the planet and luring them into purchasing a product that … is extracted at great cost to the earth and to human communities."

Great Basin Resource Watch has been working for the better part of two decades to compel Newmont, which owns or controls approximately 3,056 square miles of land in Nevada, to clean up its operations in the state. Newmont, one of the world's mining giants, has operations around the world and has done battle with environmentalists for years over its mines in the developing world. Nevada is an important center of production for the company, which is the second-largest U.S. gold producer. Of the 5 million to 5.4 million ounces of gold Newmont expects to produce in 2008, more than half will come from Nevada. Last year, according to the company's annual report, Newmont generated $580 million in profits from Nevada gold.

While Newmont's 10 Nevada mines are nominally in compliance with state and federal regulations, says GBRW executive director Dan Randolph, they are hardly "sustainable" as Wal-Mart, and the mining company, claim.

"Part of the question is, are you out of compliance if you don’t get the ticket?" asks Randolph. "Is it speeding if you're driving over the speed limit but you don’t get the ticket?"

Sifting microscopic gold particles from the Nevada's arid soils is an incredibly laborious process: "for every ounce of gold refined approximately 100 to 200 tons of earth had to be moved," says a Resource Watch analysis based on Newmont's environmental impact statements. Environmental problems found at Newmont's Nevada mines include depletion of the water table, air pollution from mercury mixed with the gold ore, "acid mine drainage" from exposed rock at the mine site, and toxic holding ponds, laced with cyanide and heavy metals, left behind once the gold is extracted.

Indeed, many environmentalists consider "sustainable mining" an oxymoron, preferring the more guarded term "responsible mining."

Led by Tiffany & Co., many jewelers have climbed on the responsible-mining wagon in the last decade, supporting efforts like the "No Dirty Gold" movement and programs to avoid the purchase of tainted precious stones or "blood diamonds." Global Response executive director Paula Palmer calls the Love, Earth marketing "greenwashing" and an attempt to "hoodwink consumers into thinking they can ‘reduce impact on human health and the environment’ by buying gold jewelry." Great Basin Resource Watch's Randolph, however, is more circumspect. Having the spent the last few years attempting to build bridges to Newmont in order to foster incremental changes in mining practices, he is loath to call the Wal-Mart program an out-and-out sham.

"The traceability aspect is a good step forward," he allows, an important part of the international effort to develop responsible mining standards.

Wal-Mart, in fact, has engaged with environmentalists in a series of conference calls to discuss the Love, Earth marketing plans. The Bentonville, Ark. company, according to Randolph, has agreed to alter its marketing materials to emphasize that the jewelry is traceable – and to temper claims that the mines from which the gold is purchased are environmentally benign.

While Wal-Mart's claims sound good to the average consumer, "To a more knowledgeable person, almost all modern mines could meet those criteria," Randolph says.

Wal-Mart has not made any changes to its existing marketing materials. In response to a request to interview Pam Mortensen, the executive heading the Love, Earth program, a Wal-Mart spokesperson provided a statement that included the following:

"Wal-Mart’s objective is to have a long-term, fundamental and positive influence on the jewelry supply chain by selling jewelry that is made from precious metals and gems that are produced following Wal-Mart’s supplier standards and the Jewelry Sustainability Value Networks’ environmental and social sourcing criteria."

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Is Walmart Price-Gouging Hurricane Victims?

The Consumerist
September 20th, 2008                          [back to top]      

A Walmart insider tells us that the price of cellphone chargers nearly doubled on orders from Walmart HQ in the wake of Hurricane Ike. Before the hurricane, chargers cost from $10-$15, but afterwards, they rose to a uniform $19.

The insider writes:

I work in a Walmart store in KY, and I'm writing in to let you know that my store has raised the prices on all of its cell phone chargers by almost 50%. These price changes were automatically put into effect in our system by Home Office. This, I feel, is in direct response to Hurricane Ike.

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. I can't believe Walmart would do something so totally against their own mantra of Save Money, Live Better. This is more like "Raise Prices, Screw Suffering Customers!"

It could be a coincidence, maybe not. Either way, the timing is certainly suspicious.

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Wal-Mart wants injury case moved to federal court

By Kelly Holleran,
West Virginia Record
September 18th, 2008                     [back to top]      

CHARLESTON - Wal-Mart has asked to have a Kanawha County lawsuit filed against it moved to federal court.

Eugenia G. Comer filed suit against Wal-Mart in May in Kanawha Circuit Court, claiming she was injured after one of the store's employees fell off a ladder, hitting her during his fall.

Comer alleges she was shopping at Wal-Mart on May 19, 2006, and was near an employee who was working on a ladder, according to the original complaint filed May 16.

After the employee shifted on the ladder, he fell and struck Comer, the suit states.

Comer claims she suffered physical and mental pain, mental anguish and anxiety and has been disabled as a result of the incident.

She has had to take medicines and to undergo treatments, examinations and therapies after the fall, according to the complaint.

Comer has suffered a limitation of endurance and abilities in many activities and has experienced a diminished ability to enjoy life, the suit states.

She claims she has lost wages and has been permanently injured.

Comer is seeking a judgment in an amount sufficient to compensate her for her injuries, plus interest, cost and attorney' fees.

Earlier this month, Wal-Mart filed a motion in U.S. District Court to have it moved there.

Stephen L. Caylock of Charleston will be representing Comer.

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BENTON COUNTY : Retailer to pay on suits for exec

By MICHELLE BRADFORD,
Arkansas Democrat Gazette
September 18th, 2008                                 [back to top]      

Part of the $ 6. 75 million retirement settlement Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is paying former company Vice Chairman Tom Coughlin is a cushion should he lose lawsuits by former employees who were part of his embezzlement scam.

A settlement order unsealed Wednesday in Benton County Circuit Court said $ 250, 000 will be held in a trust account for any judgments against him in the suits by Pasty Stephens and Robert Hey Jr.

Stephens and Hey were convicted of wire fraud for helping Coughlin steal roughly $ 400, 000 between 1996 and 2002 by manipulating Wal-Mart travel reimbursement and vendor invoices, prosecutors said.

Both are suing Coughlin, saying they did what he told them. Both cases are pending in circuit court.

If Coughlin wins the cases, the $ 250, 000 in the trust account is his, according to Wednesday’s order in the retirement benefits case.

Wal-Mart on Aug. 21 settled with Coughlin, 59, of Centerton, ending a three-year legal battle over a $ 17 million retirement package.

The former No. 2 at Wal-Mart argued he was due the $ 17 million, but the company said he voided his contract by embezzling and sued him in 2005.

In January 2006, he pleaded guilty in U. S. District Court in Fort Smith to wire fraud and tax evasion.

He paid a $ 50, 000 fine and $ 461, 218 in restitution and is serving 27 months of house arrest, to be followed by five years’ probation.

The retirement dispute was settled about an hour before jury selection was to begin last month.

Wednesday’s order also states $ 100, 000 of the $ 6. 75 million represents money Wal-Mart owes Coughlin for assisting in legal matters involving the company.

W. H. Taylor, an attorney for Coughlin, declined to discuss specifics, but said Coughlin testified or helped in cases that as a routine matter crossed his desk while he still worked at the company.

Coughlin retired in 2005 after 27 years with Wal-Mart.

The order states Wal-Mart agreed to pay an additional amount not included in the $ 6. 75 million that represents outstanding medical bills Coughlin had the day of the settlement.

Taylor didn’t know the amount Wednesday and Wal-Mart wouldn’t comment.

Spokesman Daphne Moore said the company is satisfied the settlement is fair and is ready to move on. The order also states that the settlement takes into account Coughlin and his wife’s total medical costs, which are estimated at $ 60, 000 a year. Coughlin is eligible for Medi-1 care in 6 / 2 years, and Cynthia Coughlin is eligible in eight years. He has a history of heart problems and diabetes and recently had double knee replacement.

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No more subsidies for Wal-Mart

By John F. Nash,
Redland Daily Facts
September 18th, 2008                        [back to top]       

We paid $1.3 million for the privilege of hosting our current Wal-Mart (Shopping for Subsidies: Good Jobs First. May 2004 http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/pdf/wmtstudy.pdf).

The then City Council made improvements to California Street and Redlands Boulevard for between $200,000 and $300,000. They also leased the parking lot for $1.1 million in forgiven sales tax payments.

They made these concessions under the threat of Wal-Mart building in Loma Linda instead of Redlands. Shortly after that deal was cut, additional Wal-Marts were built in Colton and in Highland, shrinking the potential customer base (and sales tax revenue) of the new Redlands store.

This time the North Redlands Revitalization Project will provide the infrastructure for the new Super Wal-Mart in the Redlands Crossing to be repaid by redevelopment revenues. Wal-Mart is so confident of this project being approved that they dropped plans for a Super Wal-Mart in the Highland Triangle.

Our current City Council needs to show more backbone than their predecessors and not provide any other subsidies.

Beyond that what will happen to the present Redlands Boulevard store? Will it be aggressively marketed to other tenants or simply boarded up as having fulfilled its useful life to Wal-Mart?

John F. Nash
Redlands

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Wal-Mart could hurt city, experts report

By Kevin Clerici ,
VenturaCountyStar
September 17th, 2008                [back to top]      

Allowing Wal-Mart to replace a shuttered Kmart in Ventura would siphon business from competitors, according to two economists hired by groups fighting the proposed store.

"It is likely that the addition of Wal-Mart in the proposed location will negatively impact sales at existing stores," according to a report by economists Thomas Boehm of the University of Tennessee and Alan Schlottmann of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

The report was released Tuesday by opponents who have written a Ventura initiative aimed at keeping Wal-Mart out of town. Opponents said they commissioned the study to combat arguments that a Wal-Mart store would bring jobs and a windfall of sales tax revenue to a cash-needy city. The report says the net job and sales gains would be "strikingly small" or negative because Wal-Mart would cannibalize its competitors.

"Wal-Mart has been telling community leaders and the public that a superstore would mean additional sales tax dollars for Ventura. This study shows that claim is false," said Nan Waltman, chairwoman of Livable Ventura, a citizens group that is part of the Stop Wal-Mart Ventura Coalition.

The 16-page report was paid for by the United Food and Commercial Workers union. Coalition members said they didn't know how much it cost, and Boehm and Schlottmann were not present at Tuesday's unveiling of the report.

The group's initiative has qualified for the ballot, but county elections officials are still examining the 12,785 signatures submitted to see if 8,903 are valid, triggering a costly special election.

The initiative would block Wal-Mart from opening in Ventura by banning any new store selling groceries that is larger than 90,000 square feet. Such grocers also could face special conditions if they decided to move into an existing but vacant store. The measure also forbids "piecemealing" — moving into an existing store and then expanding.

Wal-Mart controls the Kmart site on Victoria Avenue but needs city approval to demolish the store and rebuild — the company's preferred plan. Wal-Mart could move into the Kmart store if it did not make major changes to the building.

The store would become Wal-Mart's fourth in the county. The other three — a Wal-Mart and Sam's Club in Oxnard and a Wal-Mart in Simi Valley — had more than 4 million visitors last year and generated $1.8 million in sales tax revenues for those communities.

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Tainted Chinese milk kills second child

CNN.com
September 15th, 2008                              [back to top]     

Officials on Monday announced the death of a second child who consumed contaminated milk powder. More than 1,200 others have been sickened, according to China's Health Ministry.

Of that number, 340 infants are hospitalized and 53 are considered to be in serious condition.

Government inspectors are testing baby formula around China and plan to release their results on Tuesday, said Li Changjiang, head of the State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, according to the Xinhua news agency.

The manufacturer, Sanlu Group, has recalled more than 8,200 tons of the tainted formula following reports of babies developing kidney stones, Xinhua said.

Sanlu, one of China's leading dairy producers, has also sealed off more than 2,100 tons of contaminated product, and another 700 tons still need to be recalled, the news agency said.

It is not the first time Sanlu has been connected to a scandal involving tainted milk powder, according to China Daily.

In 2004, at least 13 infants in the eastern Anhui province died of malnutrition after drinking milk powder that had little to no nutrition. The illegally manufactured milk was falsely labeled with the Sanlu brand, according to the paper.

More than 170 other babies were hospitalized as a result of drinking the cheap milk powder.

Chinese police have questioned 78 people -- including dairy farmers and milk dealers -- about the most recent contamination, a Chinese official told Xinhua Saturday. Sanlu would not say whether its employees are being investigated, Xinhua said.

Testing by Sanlu found tripolycyanamide, also known as melamine, in 700 tons of its product, said Zhao Xinchao, the vice mayor of Shijiazhuang, the news agency reported.

Zhao told the news agency that the suspects added water to the milk they sold to Sanlu to make more money, then added the chemical so the diluted milk could still meet standards.

Inspectors found the chemical in Sanlu infant formula produced by one of the company's partner producers in northwest Gansu Province, an official said Sunday.

Two of 12 samples randomly selected from the Sanlu milk powder produced by the Haoniu Dairy Company in Jiuquan City tested positive for melamine, said Xian Hui, the vice-governor of Gansu.

Health experts say ingesting melamine can lead to kidney stones, urinary tract ulcers, and eye and skin irritation.

The chemical is commonly used in coatings and laminates, wood adhesives, fabric coatings, ceiling tiles and flame retardants.

Hundreds of Wal-Mart and Carrefour stores in China are pulling the Sanlu milk powder from their shelves, Xinhua said.

This episode marks the latest in a string of tainted products produced in China.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recalled more than 150 brands of cat and dog food last year after finding that some pets became ill or died after eating food tainted with melamine, the same chemical found in the powdered milk.

Two Chinese businesses, a U.S. company and top executives of each were indicted by a federal grand jury in February in connection with tainted pet food, which resulted in deaths and serious illnesses in up to thousands of U.S. pets, federal prosecutors said.

In October 2007, regulators and retailers in the United States recalled at least 69,000 Chinese-made toys over concerns of excessive amounts of lead paint, which can cause hazardous lead poisoning.

In November, shipments of the popular toy Aqua Dots were found to have been contaminated with a toxic chemical that turned into a powerful "date rape" drug if swallowed, causing some children who ate the craft toys to vomit and lose consciousness.

And in February, a Maryland candy distributor pulled Pokemon-brand Valentine lollipops from store shelves after bits of metal were found in the sealed treats, authorities said.

Officials on Monday announced the death of a second child who consumed contaminated milk powder.

Of the more than 1,200 others who have been sickened, 340 infants were hospitalized, and 53 considered to be in serious condition, according to China's Health Ministry.

Government inspectors were testing baby formula around China and plan to release their results on Tuesday, said Li Changjiang, head of the State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, according to the Xinhua news agency.

The manufacturer, Sanlu Group, has recalled more than 8,200 tons of the tainted formula following reports of babies developing kidney stones, Xinhua said.

Sanlu, one of China's leading dairy producers, also has sealed off more than 2,100 tons of contaminated product, and another 700 tons still need to be recalled, the news agency said.

Chinese police have questioned 78 people, including dairy farmers and milk dealers, about the contamination, a Chinese official told Xinhua Saturday. Sanlu would not say whether its employees were being investigated, Xinhua said.

Testing by Sanlu found tripolycyanamide, also known as melamine, in 700 tons of its product, said Zhao Xinchao, the vice mayor of Shijiazhuang, the news agency reported.

Zhao told the news agency that the suspects added water to the milk they sold to Sanlu to make more money, then added the chemical so that the diluted milk could still meet standards.

Inspectors found the chemical in Sanlu infant formula produced by one of the company's partner producers in northwest Gansu Province, an official said Sunday.

Two of 12 samples randomly selected from the Sanlu milk powder produced by the Haoniu Dairy Company in Jiuquan City tested positive for melamine, said Xian Hui, the vice-governor of Gansu.

Ingesting melamine can lead to kidney stones, urinary tract ulcers, and eye and skin irritation, health experts said.

The chemical is commonly used in coatings and laminates, wood adhesives, fabric coatings, ceiling tiles and flame retardants. The chemical was also involved in the massive pet food recall last year.

Hundreds of Wal-Mart and Carrefour stores in were pulling the Sanlu milk powder from their shelves, Xinhua said.

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Police question security at Wal-Marts

WRAL/NC Wanted
September 15th, 2008                    [back to top]     

North Carolina is home to nearly 130 Wal-Mart stores, offering customers an array of merchandise and low prices. Some law enforcement officials said the stores also provide plenty of opportunities for criminals.

Lumberton police, for example, were called to a Wal-Mart at 4301 Fayetteville Road nearly 630 times between January and mid-October last year.

Last month, a 78-year-old woman was attacked in the store's parking lot, and her purse was stolen. A 71-year-old woman was mugged in the parking lot earlier in the year.

Police calls at Wal-Mart far exceed those at other shopping centers in town, said Lt. Johnny Barnes of the Lumberton Police Department. He added that he has seen a drop in calls since the department ramped up patrols near the Wal-Mart.

Barnes and other law enforcement officers said the sheer size and popularity of Wal-Mart can invite trouble. The chain has more than 3,000 stores nationwide, many of which are open 24 hours a day, and company officials say they have about 200 million customers.

"Just the number of people that go there attracts the criminal element," Barnes said.

Ann Marie Copelin, 60, was loading groceries into her car outside the Wal-Mart at 3725 Ramsey St. in Fayetteville shortly before 10 p.m. Aug. 12 when she went from being a customer to a crime victim.

"The next thing I knew, I was surrounded by three women," Copelin said. "I was too terrified to scream or run. I just did what they said."

The women forced her at gunpoint to drive to a bank and used her debit card to withdraw $500. She wasn't injured in the incident.

Other area Wal-Marts have been the scene of crimes this summer as well:

* An employee was beaten with a baseball bat at a Clayton store on Aug. 7

* Another employee was shot while on break at a Clinton store on July 17.

* A gun was fired inside a store in Sanford on Aug. 1.

* A rash of purse snatchings occurred outside a store in Hope Mills.

"I think there's a lot of things that (Wal-Mart) could do that they're not doing," Barnes said. "The best thing that they could do is hire some type of security there to work in the parking lots."

In 2004, a Washington-based activist group, Wake Up Wal-Mart, analyzed 551 stores nationwide for the entire year. North Carolina had the highest rate of police calls, averaging 398 incidents for each of the 28 Wal-Marts profiled.

The study also compared the retail giant with Target. At a Wal-Mart in Greenville, for example, police were called 664 times in 2004. The Target store one-tenth of a mile away had 159 calls during the same period.

Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Fogleman said many of the police calls are for fender benders in the parking lot or for bad checks, not criminal activity.

"Nothing is more important than providing a safe and pleasurable working environment for our customers and our associates," Fogleman said in a phone interview from Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. "Unfortunately, criminal activity occurs in every community. It's something retailers, especially large retailers like us, must work toward alleviating."

Every Wal-Mart has surveillance cameras, and the company decides on a store-by-store basis whether to hire private patrols or off-duty police officers for additional security, he said.

Two private security cars, for example, recently were seen patrolling the parking lot of a Wal-Mart on Skibo Road in Fayetteville.

Wal-Mart is "constantly evaluating the security measures we have in place," Fogleman said.

Wake Up Wal-Mart estimated putting security patrols at all Wal-Mart stores nationwide would cost the retailer about 4 cents per monthly customer visit.

"Any security firm that you would put patrolling the parking lot would help. I think it would be a deterrent," Barnes said.

The store where Copelin was kidnapped has no security patrols, but she said she doesn't blame Wal-Mart for what happened and said she plans to keep shopping there.

"I won't go by myself after dark. I won't go to Food Lion by myself after dark," she said.

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China says 432 babies have kidney stones from tainted milk powder

By Robert J. Saiget,
Agence France Presse
September 13th, 2008                            [back to top]     

China's health minister said 432 babies had kidney stones after drinking contaminated milk powder and vowed to punish those responsible as the country's latest product safety scandal escalated Saturday.

Gao Qiang said production had been halted at Sanlu Group after industrial chemical melamine, added by farmers and milk sellers to boost protein content, was found in the powder.

"As of September 12, there are 432 cases of kidney stones in the urinary systems of infants according to reports from health departments nationwide," Gao told journalists.

The number was sharply up from figures reported earlier which put the number of affected babies at about 150, with one dead. Kidney stones are rare in babies and can block their urinary tracts.

More cases were likely to come to light as the ministry had only issued orders for health departments to report kidney stones in babies on Friday morning.

"We will severely punish and discipline those people and workers who have acted illegally," Gao said.

Melamine, a chemical used to make plastics, glues and other products, was at the centre of a US recall of pet foods containing Chinese-made additives last year.

Other controversies, including exports of toxic toothpaste and dumplings, have badly damaged the reputation of China's vital manufacturing industry.

Health minister Gao said the milk powder had not been exported although a small amount had been sent for "food processing" in Taiwan.

The US Food and Drug Administration has already alerted US markets to beware of Chinese-made baby formula and the World Health Organisation said it was monitoring the situation and providing "technical assistance" to China.

Taiwanese authorities on Saturday seized nearly 10 tonnes of milk powder imported from China, mainly of the Sanlu brand.

Shops across China, including global retailing giants Wal-Mart and Carrefour, have pulled the milk powder from their Friday after Sanlu issued a nationwide recall.

So far 19 people have been arrested while 78 others have been interrogated, Yang Zongyong, vice governor of the northern province of Hebei where Sanlu is based.

"Simply put ... the milk buyers add water to the milk to falsely increase the amount of milk," Gao said.

"At the same time, to ensure that the protein content of the milk is up to standard, they add melamine."

The minister said China's cabinet, the State Council, has ordered free medical care for all affected children.

He added that a series of lawsuits had been brought against Sanlu for allegedly tainted milk powder beginning in March this year and that the company had begun recalling and holding back the product then.

"But the Sanlu Group did not report to the government for a long period of time," Gao said. "The Sanlu Group must take a lot of responsibility for this problem."

Chinese state media condemned Sanlu, with the China Daily in an editorial Saturday calling the company's behaviour "appalling" and criticising government inspectors.

Among China's other safety debacles, 13 infants died in 2004 after drinking sub-standard milk powder. Chinese press said the case involved pirated Sanlu products.

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Wal-Mart's profit to continue improving

Associated Press
09.12.08                                       [back to top]     

NEW YORK - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. should enjoy continued improvement in profit margins as the world's largest retailer cuts expenses and increases global sourcing, according to a Deborah Weinswig, a retail analyst at Citi Investment Research.

Weinswig wrote in a report released Thursday that such profit margin improvements are expected even as Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people ) has made "great strides" in that area. Based on a recent meeting with top management, Weinswig believes that global sourcing through work with third-party providers as well as its own operations presents a significant opportunity for gross margin gains. Wal-Mart is focused on improving relationships with suppliers to lower costs; the retailer has also opportunity to improve profits through increased store label offerings across various product categories, she wrote.

Weinswig also cited Wal-Mart's new finance and merchandise systems,which will help with data mining and decision-making capabilities. She noted that while peak spending on these systems will weigh on expenses over the next one to two years, she believes that the long-term cost savings from increased efficiencies could be "significant."

As for the retailer's Sam's Club business, Weinswig noted that membership renewals have been under pressure since the warehouse club raised its membership fees. But she believes that there are opportunities to "demonstrate value" through special memberships offers such as those for college students.

Shares of Wal-Mart slipped almost 2 percent, or $1.10, to $62.07 in midday trading, the high end of its 52-week range of $63.23 and $42.50.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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The Top 10

Forbes Magazine
dated October 06, 2008
09.11.08                                         [back to top]    

This year the 10 richest tycoons on The Forbes 400 could buy the bottom 175. Between their software, stores and fuel, chances are you put a few dollars into their pockets every day. William H. Gates III $57 billion Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ). Medina, Wash. 52. Married, 3 children

Software visionary stepped down from day-to-day duties at Microsoft in June to devote his talents and riches to philanthropy. The $36 billion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donates to causes such as fighting hunger in developing countries, improving education in America's high schools and developing vaccines against malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS. Appointed Office veteran Jeffrey Raikes chief exec of Gates Foundation in September. Gates remains Microsoft chairman. Appearing in TV commercials with comedian Jerry Seinfeld as part of campaign to improve Windows brand; Vista operating system continues to get mixed reviews. Sells shares each quarter, redeploys proceeds via investment vehicle Cascade (nyse: CAE - news - people ); more than half of fortune is outside Microsoft. Stock down 5% in past 12 months after failed buyout attempt of Yahoo (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) erased 25% pop last fall. Masterful capitalist wants to change the rules. Talked up "creative capitalism" at Davos: "I am an impatient optimist. The world is getting better, but it's not getting better fast enough, and it's not getting better for everyone." Wants companies to match profitmaking with doing good. Inflation-adjusted net worth would top $90 billion if he hadn't given away any cash.

Warren Buffett $50 billion Investments. Omaha. 78. Widowed, remarried; 3 children

Iconic investor crowned the world's richest man in march as Berkshire Hathaway shares ran up 25% between July 2007 and February 2008. Berkshire stock has fallen 15% since, erasing $12 billion from Oracle (nasdaq: ORCL - news - people ) of Omaha's fortune in 6 months and forcing him to cede the title back to friend and bridge partner Bill Gates. Son of Nebraska politician delivered newspapers as a boy. Filed first tax return at age 13, claiming $35 deduction for bicycle. Studied under value investing guru Benjamin Graham at Columbia. Took over textile firm Berkshire Hathaway (nyse: BRK - news - people ) 1965. Today holding company invested in insurance (Geico, General Re), jewelry (Borsheim's), utilities (MidAmerican Energy (other-otc: MDPWL.PK - news - people )), food (Dairy Queen, See's Candies). Also has noncontrolling stakes in Anheuser-Busch (nyse: BUD - news - people ), Coca-Cola (nyse: KO - news - people ), Wells Fargo (nyse: WFC - news - people ). Berkshire Hathaway sales in 2007: $118 billion. Issued a challenge to members of The Forbes 400 last October; said he would donate $1 million to charity if the collective group would admit they pay less taxes, as a percentage of income, than their secretaries. Irrevocably earmarked the majority of his Berkshire shares for charity in 2006, mostly to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Has given $6 billion worth of shares so far.

Lawrence Ellison $27 billion Oracle. Redwood City, Calif. 64. Thrice divorced, remarried; 2 children

Database titan continues to buy up would-be competition; more than 40 acquisitions in the past 4 years. Bought BEA Systems (nasdaq: BEAS - news - people ) for $8.5 billion in January. Revenues up 25% to $22.4 billion this year; profits up 29% to $5.5 billion. Stock down 12% in past 12 months. Invested $125 million in Web software outfit Netsuite; took public in December, stock promptly dropped 30%. His shares still worth $500 million. Chicago native studied physics at U. of Chicago, didn't graduate. Started Oracle in 1977. Public 1986, a day before Microsoft. Owns 453-foot Rising Sun; built a smaller leisure boat because superyacht is hard to park. Squabbling in court with Swiss boating billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli over terms of next America's Cup. Recently unveiled hulking 90-foot trimaran he intends to use to win it.

Jim C. Walton $23.4 billion Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people ). Bentonville, Ark. 60. Married, 4 children

S. Robson Walton $23.3 billion Wal-Mart. Bentonville, Ark. 64. Divorced, remarried; 3 children

Christy Walton & family $23.2 billion Wal-Mart. Jackson, Wyo. 53. Widowed, 1 child

Alice Walton $23.2 billion Wal-Mart. Fort Worth, Tex. 59. Twice divorced

Sons, daughter and daughter-in-law of Wal-Mart pioneer Sam Walton (d. 1992) reclaim spot in Forbes 400 Top 10 after falling off last year. Wal-Mart shares up 45% since last September, as cash-strapped consumers head to discount-driven superstores in droves. Also profiting from stake in solar-paneling outfit First Solar; shares up 120% in past 12 months. Sam started as J.C. Penney (nyse: JCP - news - people ) clerk in 1940; opened Newport, Ark. five-and-dime store Benjamin Franklin 5 years later. Lost lease in 1950. With brother James started general-store chain in Bentonville, Ark., 1962. Today Wal-Mart is world's largest retailer: 7,300 stores, 2 million employees serve 200 million customers. Sales: $378 billion. Rob: Wal-Mart chairman; helping company become eco-friendly through partnership with environmental group Conservation International. Jim: chairs Arvest Bank Group, Community Publishers. Alice: building Crystal Bridges art museum in Bentonville. Christy: widow of John Walton (d. 2005) donated 7-acre San Diego home to Cross Border Philanthropy.

Michael Bloomberg $20 billion Bloomberg LP. New York City. 66. Divorced, 2 children

Mayor Mike has become America's 8th-richest citizen after a transaction put a solid valuation on Bloomberg LP: he borrowed to buy a 20% stake in his company from Merrill Lynch (nyse: MER - news - people ) in July for $4.5 billion. Today he owns 88% of the financial data and news outfit he founded in 1982. Boston-born son of accountant got engineering degree from Johns Hopkins, M.B.A. from Harvard. Became a trader at Salomon Brothers 1970s, quit with $10 million in stock after merger. Created financial information services firm Innovative Market Systems to sell financial data, analytic tools to Wall Street. Renamed Bloomberg LP 1987; added news service, magazine, cable network, radio station. Spent $74 million to become mayor of New York City in 2001 and $85 million on reelection in 2005. Enjoying 71% approval rating, appears to be looking for ways to do away with term limits as November 2009 election looms. Since last June former Republican no longer affiliated with any political party. Has given away nearly $800 million to charity in the past 5 years; with Bill Gates, planning to invest hundreds of millions to combat smoking worldwide.

Charles Koch $19 billion Manufacturing, energy. Wichita, Kans. 72. Married, 2 children

David Koch $19 billion Manufacturing, energy. New York City. 68. Married, 3 children

Brothers transformed family refining business into America's largest private company. Father, Fred C. Koch (d. 1967), invented method of turning heavy oil into gasoline. Sons Charles, David, Frederick and William inherited Koch Industries after father's death. Charles and David bought out William and Frederick for $1.1 billion in 1983; fraternal fight over deal settled in 2001. Today Koch Industries has stakes in pipelines, refineries, fertilizer, fibers and polymers, forest and consumer products, chemical technology. Brothers each own 42%; collective fortune up $4 billion as oil and fertilizer prices soar. Sales last year: $98 billion. Employs 80,000 workers in 60 countries. Purchased Invista, maker of Lycra and Coolmax fabric, in 2004 for $4.2 billion. Dropped $21 billion on paper and building-supply vendor Georgia-Pacific the following year. Charles: studied nuclear and chemical engineering at MIT, chief executive since 1967; cofounder of conservative think tank Cato (nyse: CTR - news - people ) Institute. David: executive vice president. Chemical engineering degrees from MIT; pledged $100 million to alma mater for cancer research last year. Pledged another $100 million to New York's Lincoln Center this July.

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Electrical Worker Death Could Have Been Prevented, Experts Say

By Sandy Smith,
Occupational Hazards
September 11th, 2008                          [back to top]    

A man was killed after being electrocuted while doing overnight construction work on a Wal-Mart in Walpole, Mass. According to the Boston Globe, Romulo Santos, a 47-year-old Brazilian immigrant, was re-attaching electrical wires that had been knocked down by a construction crew.

The building trades, particularly immigrants in the trades, are the largest contingent of workers killed in the commonwealth. In 2007, 20 building trades’ workers lost their lives on the job in Massachusetts – 40 percent (eight) of these workers were immigrants.

This past decade has seen a dramatic increase in Brazilian worker fatalities in the commonwealth compared to the previous one: According to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Occupational Health Surveillance Program (OHSP), between 19991 and 1998, the state recorded no deaths of Brazilian-born workers. From 1999 through 2007, however, 15 Brazilian-born workers were killed on the job in Massachusetts, eight from construction accidents.

This electrical fatality also is not the first for the multi-billion dollar retailer. Two years ago, Scott Sheldon was working at a Wal-Mart construction site in Indiana when, at age 35, he was electrocuted.

Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, executive director of the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health (MassCOSH) and Carlos Eduardo Siqueira, president of the Board of the Brazilian Immigrant Center, released this statement: “Workers should be able to go to work and return home with their lives and limbs intact. We don’t yet know the details of this tragic situation, but it’s safe to say that exposing a laborer to live electricity in the middle of the night is a recipe for disaster.”

“Too many building trades’ workers – particularly immigrants – are dying in our state,” she added. “Too often they are working without proper safety measures, training nor protective equipment. Swift action needs to be taken or the deaths and devastation will continue.”

“Unfortunately one more Brazilian construction worker died due to a highly preventable cause: electrocution. Brazilian construction workers would not die at work if their employers complied with mandatory construction safety and health standards,” said Siqueira.

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Himalaya Intl ties up with Reliance, Bharti Wal-Mart

The Economic Times
10 Sep, 2008                                            [back to top]    

NEW DELHI: The BSE-listed food processing exporter Himalaya International announced on Wednesday its foray into domestic market through tie-ups with prominent retail players like Reliance and Bharti-Wal-Mart.

Launching its products under the brand Himalaya Fresh, the company announced an initial investment of Rs 150 crore to set up a facility in Gujarat to make milk-based products.

"Having established itself as one of the top quality exporter for food products to the US for the past 12 years, Himalaya International is now entering the domestic market under the brand Himalaya Fresh with strategic tie-ups with all major players in retail chains," company's Chairman Manmohan Malik said in a statement.

Himalaya has tied up with Reliance, More, Wal-Mart and Bharti-Wal-Mart, he added. "The company has signed two separate agreements with Bharti-Wal-Mart and the US retail giant Wal-Mart for selling its product and undertake cash-and-carry operations in a wide range of products at wholesale prices," Malik said.

While Bharti-Wal-Mart will handle the retail business through their mini, major and mega format stores, Wal-Mart will look after business-to-business operations including supply-to-retail, grocery set ups, hotels, restaurants and other catering joints.

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Wal-Mart and Walgreens at odds with Johnson City's Science Hill High School over sale of clothing emblazoned with school name

By JEFF KEELING,
Times News
September 10th, 2008                              [back to top]     

National retailer Wal-Mart isn’t scoring any points with Science Hill High School athletics these days, thanks to its refusal to quit selling T-shirts, sweatshirts and other SHHS merchandise despite written requests from the school system.

It’s a practice that has occurred for a couple of years now, and one that Science Hill’s athletic director and others say detracts from an important fundraising component for the school.

“I just feel like we’re being taken advantage of,” Athletic Director Keith Turner said.

He said proceeds from sales of SHHS merchandise — which is available at games and also at a campus bookstore, “The Locker” — go to athletic department needs in the case of game sales and general school needs in the case of bookstore sales.

Beth Williams, a teacher who coordinates the sales at ballgames, said that in a good year, profits (all the workers are volunteers) can put more than $10,000 into athletic department coffers.

Those funds have helped pay for everything from locker room improvements at Freedom Hall Civic Center and senior nights for teams to state championship rings and diesel to help get last year’s baseball team to the state tournament.

“There are two sides to every story, and I’m thrilled to see so many people in Science Hill shirts, but I’m sure they don’t realize that the profits if they buy from The Locker of the sports club go back to Science Hill,” Williams said. “I think a lot of them, if they knew, would say ‘Hey, I’d rather buy from the school.’ ”

School attorney Lee Herrin has sent letters to Wal-Mart and Walgreens, which also has begun selling the gear, but said she has not heard back from the stores. She said Tuesday she did hear from an apparel manufacturer.

“They said, ‘You need to send us a copy of your license,’ ” Herrin said. “I basically explained to them that that’s not how it worked. We own the mark and the brand, and we don’t have to prove anything to them — they have to prove to us they have the right to sell it.”

Herrin said she isn’t sure whether the school system would go to court over the practice. Her second letter to Wal-Mart, sent in July, references Science Hill contacting Wal-Mart last November over the issue and Wal-Mart subsequently stopping the sales then resuming them.

“Please immediately cease and desist the sale and/or distribution of any products and clothing which display the name or logo of any Johnson City school, including Science Hill High School,” the most recent letter states.

The letter to Walgreens’ district manager informs the chain that school board and system approval is required “before any agency, business or individual can use the name or logo of any Johnson City school for profit or in any promotional manner.”

Asking permission was exactly what another national retailer, Kroger, did last year, Turner said. “They called us and were willing to work out a financial agreement where some money would come back to our programs,” Turner said of Kroger.

The school system decided to keep the merchandise sales inhouse, though, and Kroger honored that decision, Turner said.

Profits also stay in the community because a local small business, Horton Sports Plus, finishes the apparel with logos for the school system. Gear found this week in a local Wal-Mart store had been produced by Pel Industries Inc., of Rogers, Ark.

When reached by phone on Tuesday, officials with Wal-Mart’s media relations did not comment on the situation.

While Herrin was confident of the school system’s legal claim, she admitted taking the issue to court would be an expensive proposition.

“I’m not a copyright lawyer, and we’d probably need to hire someone if we were going to pursue this,” Herrin said.

Science Hill isn’t alone. Area Wal-Marts carry a variety of high school merchandise, and a Spokane, Wash., television station reported Friday about a similar situation in the suburb of Cheney. The story noted Washington’s Interscholastic Athletics Association encourages schools to trademark their names with the secretary of state, though most have not.

Turner said the money involved may represent a drop in the bucket to Wal-Mart, but it’s significant as schools cope with tight budgets and rising prices.

“High school athletics is very expensive, and we have 75 different teams in grades 7 through 12, so to us it’s huge,” Turner said.

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Is Wal-Mart taking money from local high schools?

Help us find out

David Nassar
Wal-Mart Watch                           [back to top]     

We've recently seen reports that Wal-Mart may be taking advantage of local high schools by selling school-branded athletic clothing at cheaper prices.

Thanks to license agreements, colleges get a cut of the profits on these kinds of products, but there is nothing to prevent Wal-Mart from creating its own merchandise for a local public high school and reaping all the profits.

Schools use the profits from their branded apparel sales to support their athletic programs and other school activities. For Wal-Mart to undermine local schools' fundraising efforts is just wrong.

We need your help to see just how widespread this practice is.

We need you to go to your local Wal-Mart tonight and investigate for yourself, then report back to us. Click below for more information and for a form to submit your findings:

http://action.walmartwatch.com/highschools

We want to hear from you either way so we get a fair and accurate assessment of these reports.

Wal-Mart loves to brag about its paltry donations to local communities and school programs. But, is Wal-Mart going against its promise to support its communities by taking money away from public education?

This company has a well-documented history of putting local stores out of business in every community it moves into. Now, it appears Wal-Mart could be taking on your local high school, too.

High schools simply cannot compete in a price war with a giant corporation - and they shouldn't have to.

Visit your local Wal-Mart today and find out if they are engaging in this practice and report back to us:

http://action.walmartwatch.com/highschools

Sincerely,

David Nassar
Wal-Mart Watch

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Equal Employment Opportunity Commission files suit against Wal-Mart

By Sean F. Driscoll,
Rockford Register Star
September 9th, 2008                         [back to top]    

ROCKFORD — The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sued Wal-Mart in federal court on behalf of a Rockford woman who claims she was fired because she had epilepsy.

Barbara Hacker worked as a greeter at the Wal-Mart store on West Riverside Boulevard in early 2006, EEOC attorney Aaron Decamp said, and had told her supervisors when she was hired that she had epilepsy. Hacker, who is in her early 30s and has a young child, asked to be allowed to sit down for a few minutes in a quiet location when she had a seizure.

Decamp said Wal-Mart complied initially, but later stopped accommodating her request. She was fired after having a seizure while in a back room at the store.

“When Ms. Hacker ... has a seizure, she can’t remember what happens, she loses control of herself a little bit,” Decamp said. “She was swearing in the back room (during her seizure), and when she swore, Wal-Mart saw this as an opportunity to fire her.”

The lawsuit contends her firing is in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act, which states employers must provide “reasonable accommodation” to employees with disabilities.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Daphne Moore said the company has “a long and recognized commitment to employing people with disabilities,” but said she couldn’t comment on the specifics of this case because she hadn’t seen the lawsuit.

Decamp said the lawsuit was filed after Hacker filed a complaint with the EEOC in late 2006, after she was fired. EEOC investigators determined the claim had merit, Decamp said, and attorneys tried to reach a settlement with Wal-Mart before the suit was filed today.

The complaint asks for Wal-Mart to pay back pay with interest plus unspecified amounts for other damages, including “emotional pain, suffering, loss of enjoyment of life and humiliation.”

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Rockford. It has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Philip Reinhard. No court dates have been set.

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Mexican Court Rules Against Wal-Mart

Reuters
September 5th, 2008                     [back to top]    

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.

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Mexican Supreme Court Rules Against Wal-Mart's Coupon Program

By Anthony Harrup,
Dow Jones Newswire
September 5th, 2008                       [back to top]    

MEXICO CITY -(Dow Jones)- Mexico's Supreme Court ruled that a coupon program for employees of the country's largest retailer, Wal-Mart de Mexico SAB (WMMVY), violated the Constitution because the money can only be spent at Wal-Mart's stores.

The Supreme Court likened the program to company stores of old, where workers were paid with coupons to use at stores owned by their employers, "with the difference that those workers acquired products at higher prices."

Company stores were outlawed in the 1917 Constitution.

Walmex, as the local unit of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) is known, said in a statement Friday that the voluntary program is part of its employee benefits. Under it, employees receive electronic cards on which the company deposits the maximum amount allowed by law every two weeks, and employees deposit an additional amount from their wages. The company said a percentage of its workers opt not to join it.

The cards can be used at any stores or restaurants operated by Walmex, which is the country's largest private-sector employer with close to 165,000 workers.

A Walmex employee brought the case to the court, seeking to overturn the benefits agreement he signed with Walmex. The ruling only applies to the particular case, but opens the door for others to challenge the program.

Walmex said it would study the Supreme Court's ruling and its implications for its benefits program.

Many Mexican companies pay their employees bonuses or benefits with coupons, which can be redeemed for goods at different stores and supermarkets.

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Chains facing lawsuits on sale of drugs

By HUGH R. MORLEY,
The Record
September 5th, 2008                       [back to top]   

The New Jersey Attorney General's Office has accused Drug Fair, Wal-Mart and Target of selling infant formula and non-prescription drugs with expired sell-by dates at dozens of New Jersey stores.

Lawsuits filed Wednesday by Attorney General Anne Milgram against Wal-Mart and Target in Hudson County Superior Court, and Drug Fair in Union County Superior Court, also allege the companies charged more for back-to-school merchandise at the checkout than the prices posted at the point of display.

Milgram's office, which outlined the allegations in a press conference Thursday in Newark, said investigators went into 48 stores owned by Somerset-based Drug Fair, 15 stores owned by Arkansas-based Wal-Mart and 21 stores of Minneapolis-based Target.

Among the 32 Drug Fair stores that sold products with expired sell-by dates were outlets in Clifton, East Rutherford, Englewood, Norwood, Ramsey, Wayne, Wyckoff and Oakland, the Attorney General's Office said.

Other stores among the 52 named were Target stores in Clifton, Edgewater, Hackensack and North Bergen and a Wal-Mart in Kearny.

David Szuchman, the state's Consumer Affairs director, said "consumers who based their back-to-school shopping on advertisements and then found that the items either weren't in stock, or scanned at a higher than listed prices, were defrauded."

Daphne Moore, a spokeswoman for the Wal-Mart, said the company had not seen the complaint and could not address specific allegations. She said that any customer who bought a product with an expired sell-by date could return it to the store for a refund.

"We are prepared to work with state regulators to address their concerns," she said.

Tim LaBeau, Drug Fair's president and CEO, said the company is cooperating with the Attorney General's office.

"To the extent there are products that are in need of recall, they will be addressed immediately and in such a manner as to ensure the safety of our loyal customers," he said in a statement.

Wal-Mart signed an agreement with the attorney general in 2004 not to sell non-prescription drugs with expired sell-by dates, according to the suit filed Thursday. The company may face "enhanced penalties" if it is found to have violated the agreement, the suit says.

The suits ask the court to find that the companies committed multiple violations of the consumer fraud act, which would carry a penalty of up to $20,000 for each violation.

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Worse Is Yet to Come

A. Gary Shilling
09.04.08                              [back to top]   

A massive U.S. consumer retrenchment is on the way, and discretionary spending is going to shrivel. I'm expecting to see the biggest decline in consumer spending since the 1930s and the worst recession of the post-World War II era.

The slump in consumer outlays will be phase three of the recession already under way. Phase one, the housing collapse, commenced early last year, as the subprime slime oozed through the residential real estate market. Home prices are now 20% off their peak, but they're only halfway to their bottom, as excess inventories, the mortal enemy of strong prices, continue to do their grim work.

Wall Street's woes, phase two of the downturn, started in mid-2007 with the revelation that many financial firms were carrying far too much debt against questionable, often subprime-related assets worth a fraction of their book value. Writedowns continue, and at least one more big firm will probably follow Bear Stearns out the door while Fannie Mae (nyse: FNM - news - people ) and Freddie Mac (nyse: FRE - news - people ) become wards of the state.

So far the recession has hit the financial sector hardest. Phase three will broaden it to depress gross domestic product (which was, as the bullish Ken Fisher notes, up in the second quarter). Phase four will extend that damage as the recession goes global. That, in fact, has already begun, with economic weakness from our financial crisis spreading across Europe and Japan. Housing bubbles abroad (Spain, Ireland and the United Kingdom) are collapsing, consumers are retreating and exports to the U.S. are withering. Developing countries like China and India are dependent on exports to the U.S. and will be hard hit. American consumers have been on a spending spree for a quarter-century, kidding themselves that paper gains on stocks and house prices are a form of saving. They're way overleveraged, but they never stopped as long as credit was available. Now it's gone. The dollars they raised from home equity loans and cashout refinancings are disappearing. Their credit cards are maxed out. Many of them owe more on their cars than the cars are worth. At the same time that lenders are tightening the purse strings, consumers are facing job cuts and high food and energy costs.

Only a fifth of the $100 billion in tax rebates was spent on new purchases; the rest went to pay bills. That's over now anyway, and the full cost of consumer distress will be revealed in its wake. Anything discretionary is fair game, even for those at top income levels who are supposed to be immune to business cycles. Real estate sales in ski towns like Park City, Utah are weak. Likewise house sales in New York's Hamptons. Luxury cruise operators are discounting as if there were no tomorrow.

At the lower end, grocery store coupon-clipping is back. Consumers are trading down to Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people ) and Costco (nasdaq: COST - news - people ) from department stores and choosing house brands and generics over national brands. They're tanking up with regular instead of premium. Their spending cuts are wounding apparel chains, bookstores and consumer electronics stores. Bottled water is giving way to tap.

Brown-bagging your lunch costs half as much as buying it at a deli, and Ebags.com reported a 39% jump in August sales of lunch bags and coolers from a year ago.

Sit-down restaurant owners (like the Darden chain, whose restaurants include Red Lobster and Olive Garden) are suffering as people eat at home, and when they do go out, it's increasingly to low-cost fast-food places. Starbucks (nasdaq: SBUX - news - people ) is closing stores. Satellite radio and TV growth is slowing. Declining business and leisure travel is softening hotel room occupancy (from 64.5% two years ago to 62.6% now). Casinos are proving recession-prone, which no one expected. People are even skipping their medical prescriptions.

Imitating their subprime counterparts who mail keys back to the bank, consumers with better credit scores will start to view their payments on home equity, auto and student loans and credit cards as commitments they can postpone or forget entirely. Losses on securitizations of those loans will add to Wall Street's woes.

When you think of consumer discretionary spending, you probably think first of expensive items like cars, appliances, air travel, cruises and vacation houses. But there's much more to it than that. I don't recommend specific stocks or exchange-traded funds in my columns, but check your portfolio against the things I've discussed. Then use your imagination and observations to add more. How about producers of motorcycles and expensive sneakers, and credit card companies?

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Wal-Mart Beats The Street

Carl Gutierrez,
Market Scan
09.04.08                           [back to top]   

Wal-Mart Stores' latest same-store sales figures didn't move much, but they were still more than what Wall Street had expected.

On Thursday Wal-Mart Stores (nyse: WMT - news - people ) reported that back-to-school sales and groceries helped fuel its 2.8% jump in August same-store-sales, and a 4.2% rise in sales at Sam's Club.

Wal-Mart Stores' total sales jumped 3.1%, while analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had, on average, only expected a 1.6% increase for the four weeks ending on Aug. 29. Wal-Mart's shares increased 1.0%, or 57 cents, to $60.37, in morning-trading.

"The underlying business performance for Wal-Mart U.S. continued to show strength and the improved relative performance has resulted in market share gains," said Eduardo Castro-Wright, Wal-Mart's U.S. president.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based company said sales of groceries, health and wellness products and flat-panel TVs sold well, as did back-to-school products like jeans and school supplies. Digital audio, cellphones, GPS units, fitness and camping products also sold well.

At Sam's Club, basics like fresh food, pet supplies and fall apparel were strong sellers, while housewares and furniture sales were weaker.

Elsewhere in the retail-world J.C. Penny (nyse: JCP - news - people ) reported on Wednesday that its own same-store sales for August fell 4.9%, in line with its own forecast, but a good beat ahead of Wall Street's expected 6.3% drop. The better-than-expected results were, according to the company, driven by its women's apparel and family shoes divisions.

American Eagle (nyse: AEO - news - people ), a teen retailer, also reported a 5.0% drop in same-store sales due to weakness in its young women's business. While it was a virtual inversion of the 9.0% growth it reported in last year's corresponding quarter, it was still ahead of Wall Street's own 6.5% forecast.

Many other mall-based apparel stores such as Wet Seal (nasdaq: WTSLA - news - people ) and Abercrombie & Fitch (nyse: ANF - news - people ) continue to struggle, while high-end retailers Saks (nyse: SKS - news - people ) and Nordstrom (nyse: JWN - news - people ) posted weaker results as their affluent customers start to feel pinched.

"Consumers are spending on necessities and looking for value and the lowest price possible. And it's reflective again in the results that we are seeing," Ken Perkins, president of research company RetailMetrics, told the Associated Press.

The Associated Press contributed to this article

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Wal-Mart, Tyson Can't File Briefs In Injured Officer's Case

By John Lyon,
The Morning News
September 4th, 2008                     [back to top]  

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.

Singleton contends that walking or standing on his left leg is difficult because of bullet fragments that remain lodged in his left ankle. He also claims to have neurological damage from a blow to the head.

Singleton received workers' compensation for treatment of his injuries, but his claim for disability benefits was denied. The state Workers' Compensation Commission rejected the opinion of a doctor who said Singleton had partial physical impairment, commenting that the doctor's opinion was based on the way Singleton walked, which was "non-objective evidence."

The state Court of Appeals reversed that decision, noting Singleton's impairment was "quite clearly supported by observed bullet fragments embedded in his foot."

The appeals court sent the case back to the Workers' Compensation Commission for a ruling consistent with its opinion, but the commission again denied Singleton's claim. The Court of Appeals reversed the panel's ruling as well and warned the commission not to "refuse to comply with our mandate" again.

The city of Pine Bluff has asked the state Supreme Court to review the case and reverse the Court of Appeals rulings. In June, Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods, the Arkansas Self-Insured Association, the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce and the Association of Independent Industries tendered two friend-of-the-court briefs also arguing for reversal of the appeals court rulings.

The businesses and associations argued that they should be allowed to file the briefs because they have an interest in preserving the fact-finding and rule-making authority of the Workers' Compensation Commission.

They also argued that the Court of Appeals erred when it "failed to give credence to the commission's finding that gait comes under the voluntary control of the appellant and that the presence of a foreign object says nothing about the nature and extent of any alleged physical harm to the body."

With explanation, the high court denied the motions to file the briefs in a per curiam order Thursday. Justices Donald Corbin and Paul Danielson recused from considering the brief tendered by Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods and the Arkansas Self-Insured Association.

The court did not say Thursday whether it would grant Pine Bluff's petition for a review of the case.

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Judge Upholds $185 Million Award in Wal-Mart Class Action

By Amaris Elliott-Engel,
The Legal Intelligencer
September 4th, 2008                       [back to top]   

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.

The class action trial in Braun v. Wal-Mart and Hummel v. Wal-Mart was held in September 2006.

Wal-Mart argued in its post-verdict motions that rest breaks and lunch breaks are not fringe benefits, that the two class actions shouldn't have been certified and that Philadelphia wasn't the proper venue for the class action, among other arguments, Bernstein wrote.

Wal-Mart argued that Bernstein improperly denied its motion in limine to preclude the plaintiffs' argument that the evidence that Wal-Mart ceased record-keeping of employee break periods potentially was evidence of an improper action, Bernstein said.

But Bernstein rejected that argument, saying the trial evidence showed that Wal-Mart corporate leaders ceased all record-keeping of employees' rest break periods after numerous lawsuits over the missed rest breaks were filed. Bernstein said the jury was entitled to infer that Wal-Mart changed its policy to ensure that there were no records of missed rest breaks.

"The class action case claimed that national policy was to stop employees from using their promised and earned break and lunch time," Bernstein wrote. "A company internal national review, the Shipley Audit, demonstrated this national problem ... The corporate decision to stop recording the start and end times of breaks without offering any explanation other than in reaction to class action litigation and bad publicity concerning this policy, and the trial stipulations entered into by defendant concerning national litigation, further demonstrate that there was no error in admission or reference to national policy and conduct."

In general, Bernstein said the defense "purports to raise hundreds of points of error in the twenty-six paragraphs in their motion for post-trial relief," but he said the points were "excruciatingly repetitive" and didn't all need to be addressed individually in his 1925(a) opinion.

Bernstein defended his evidentiary rulings, saying he believes those rulings did not "adversely affect the verdict which was overwhelmingly supported by factual first hand testimony, augmented by proper expert opinions and the defendant's own records and analysis."

Bernstein also noted Wal-Mart didn't present any evidence contesting the accuracy of its employee payroll records and instead argued that its employees voluntarily renounced their breaks; the jury, the judge noted, however, found in favor of the plaintiff class.

Bernstein also said Wal-Mart's argument that the jury should have been asked if rest breaks and meal breaks were fringe benefits was only raised post-verdict; in fact, he said, Wal-Mart's counsel had taken the opposite tack prior to trial.

The jury awarded $78.5 million in compensatory damages to 186,000 current and former Wal-Mart associates. A total of 124,506 current and former Pennsylvania employees also qualified for the $62.3 million in statutory damages levied under the state's wage payment and collection law, which penalizes employers who fail to pay wages by requiring them to pay liquidated damages of $500 or up to 25 percent of the total amount of wages due.

The jury found Wal-Mart saved $1,031,430 by not paying their employees for the time they worked off the clock, and Wal-Mart saved $48,258,111 by prohibiting their employees from taking promised rest breaks, Bernstein said in a past opinion.

Lead class counsel Michael Donovan of Donovan Searles said of Bernstein's decision: "We're pleased with Judge Bernstein's cogent explanation as to why he rejected the frivolous post-trial claims of Wal-Mart."

He said he's anxious to get Wal-Mart employees the compensation that they're owed.

Daphne Moore, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said it is Wal-Mart policy to pay every associate for all the time they work, and that managers who violate the policy face discipline, including termination.

Moore also said that associates testified during the trial that they voluntarily skipped or cut short their breaks, and an employer shouldn't be penalized for a choice made freely by employees.

Moore said other courts have denied class certification for similar class actions because it is erroneous to base a class action suit on individual circumstances.

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Wal-mart and the right to unionise

By Dave McGuire,
Radio Netherlands Worldwide
September 4th, 2008                             [back to top]  

The United Nations put it pretty clearly in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests." But in many parts of the world, that right is not respected.

There are many examples of companies that either do not support, or do not allow, their employees the right to form unions. One of the world's largest companies, Wal-mart, is one of them.

While not saying they are categorically opposed to unions, Wal-mart argues that they are unnecessary at their stores in the United States. Jared West, who worked full-time for a Wal-mart in the U.S. town of Greeley, Colorado, disagreed. He was tired of payment policies constantly being changed. He was also irritated that a colleague, who had Wal-mart health insurance, still owed tens of thousands of dollars worth of medical bills.

Tactical response The organising began well. Jared said he had 70 of the store's 400 employees interested in a union. But then Wal-mart struck back, flying in its special 'labor relations' team. Jared said that they held mandatory meetings and video presentations to refute union arguments:

"In none of these videos, in none of these classes, did they ever really talk about collective bargaining, or anything like that. Instead, they would talk about how the people who were unionising inside the store were probably just disgruntled employees who wanted to get back at management".

Jared said that animosities were fuelled between those who wanted the union and those who didn't, and that several co-workers who used to be on good terms with him stopped talking, acknowledging, or even looking him in the eye.

In the end, the union vote failed. Jared stayed on for six months afterwards and was repeatedly harassed by managers for minor or imaginary transgressions in a way he thought was a coordinated response to his union attempt. He left Wal-mart, and refuses to shop there.

Wal-mart declined our invitation to speak on the programme, but instead pointed to this statement pertaining to their policy on unions in the United States:

"It's all about taking care of our people. If we do that and do what is right for our communities, we will be fine. We will continue to foster an environment of open communications and encourage our associates to express their ideas, comments and concerns. We are not against unions. They may be right for some companies but there is simply no need for a third party to come between our associates and their managers".

Nelson Lichtenstein studies the practice and impact of Wal-mart at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He thinks the policies of Wal-mart certainly prevent people from practicing their right to form a union:

"By trying to make obsolete, or to consider unionism as a ‘third party' - that's the phrase they use - this is a direct subversion of the universal declaration on human rights".

Depends on local labour laws But Wal-mart's policy on unions is not set in stone around the world. According to Lichtenstein, the company adjusts its own policies to meet the requirements of locations where it has its stores. For instance, Wal-mart workers in Quebec have successfully formed a union in the city of Gatineau. That is because Quebec has labour laws that are relatively favourable to unions. Despite this success, the impact is small - the union in Gatineau only applies to eight employees, and it remains to be seen whether Wal-mart will close down their part of the store, as it has done at other outlets that unionise.

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Wal-Mart August same-store sales beat expectations

Associated Press
09.04.08                                [back to top]  

BENTONVILLE, Ark. - Wal-Mart Stores says sales of groceries and back-to-school products helped its August same-store sales rise 3 percent, beating expectations.

Sales in stores open at least one year, a measure known as same-store sales, rose 2.8 percent at Wal-Mart Stores (nyse: WMT - news - people ) and 4.2 percent at Sam's Club for the four weeks ended Aug. 29.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters predicted a 1.6 percent rise.

Including fuel, the world's largest retailer's total same-store sales rose 3.5 percent.

Total sales at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. rose 9 percent to $30.67 billion in the four-week period.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based company says sales of groceries, health and wellness products and flat-panel TVs sold well, as did back-to-school product such as jeans and school supplies.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved

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Wal-Mart Turning Trash Into Cash

By Kimberly Morrison
THE MORNING NEWS                     [back to top]   

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has taken its legendary frugality to a whole new level by turning its trash into cash.

The retailer has set an ambitious goal to become waste-free by 2010, and in the process is finding out that nearly everything it has been throwing out all those years can be recycled, sold or turned into new products.

"Our trash is not garbage, it's a commodity, and you can make a lot of money doing this," said Mike Hagood, senior director of operations development, execution and sustainability for Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Hagood was speaking at a Bentonville-Bella Vista Chamber of Commerce coffee hour Wednesday morning at the DoubleTree Hotel in Rogers. He detailed to a room of about 100 suppliers and community business leaders just how much can be done with a lot of trash, a few thousand trash compactors and a bit of ingenuity.

Aluminum cans can be sold for some $2,500 per ton to a materials recovery facility. Car engine oil garners 65 cents per gallon and old cooking grease sells for 20 cents per pound.

Some 31 different recyclable items such as cardboard, plastic and paper are sorted by type before going into a giant compacting machine that bales the materials together to be shipped off for recycling. That turns a profit, too.

There are two machines in every supercenter -- one for grocery and another for merchandise. An outsourced waste management removal company called Oakleaf manages Wal-Mart's 9,000 compactors, and they have their work cut out for them.

For every supercenter, the merchandise side of the store produces 6 tons each week that is hauled away four times per month. The grocery side produces 8 to 10 tons each week and is hauled away four to six times per month.

Of course, the company has identified a few items where recycling isn't the best option. Icing comes in 5-gallon buckets by the hundreds to every supercenter bakery. Wal-Mart rinses the used buckets and sells them back to the supplier. It has collected 3,000 pallets of icing buckets in the last 6 months, Hagood said.

Wal-Mart has discovered that the usefulness of waste products goes beyond reuse, resale and recycle. It's turning the junk into new products, even exploring use as biodiesel, Hagood said.

The company has already found a market for used tires. It sells them to a company that turns them into mulch that is sold in its stores. And the retailer has sold some 7 million of its reusable shopping sacks made from recycled plastic since introducing them less than a year ago.

"You're going to start seeing a lot of products in the next 12 to 18 months that say, 'made from 100 percent recycled Wal-Mart materials,'" Hagood said.

Wal-Mart is putting all these ideas and others to the test at its Fort Smith-area stores. The "zero waste" pilot includes seven Wal-Mart stores.

The pilot requires that all waste coming from the store finds a new home somewhere other than a landfill. Hagood said the stores are almost there.

Next up is getting the community, from municipal government to small businesses and schools, to recycle. The company also plans to incorporate a composting program and further explore how waste can be used to create energy.

"We're going to start rolling this out from Fort Smith to other cities," Hagood said. "Next stop is Houston, then Austin, and then we're moving to Denver and we'll start rolling this out across the U.S."

Closer to home, the retailer's green ambitions have become slightly contagious. Bentonville this year introduced a city-wide organized recycling program, and has seen impressive results.

"In the first four weeks of the program, we recycled more than we did all last year," said Ed Clifford, Bentonville-Bella Vista Chamber of Commerce president.

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Wal-mart sees potential growth in Southeast Asia

By Joseph Chaney
International Herald Tribune
September 3, 2008                                         [back to top]  

HONG KONG: Wal-Mart Stores, the world's biggest retailer, is considering its first stores in Southeast Asia and expects to approach 10 percent growth in international sales to $100 billion this fiscal year despite a global economic slowdown.

The retailer, a perennial runner-up to Carrefour in China in terms of sales and stores, is enjoying a huge leap in market share as it proceeds with a $1 billion acquisition of a local chain, Trust-Mart, which is expected to be completed by 2010.

The U.S. retailer, which has about 2.1 million employees worldwide, is now looking to expand into Southeast Asia as American consumers are squeezed by a soft housing market and tighter access to credit.

"I foresee international will outpace the U.S. in terms of percentage of growth," Vicente Trius, the head of Wal-Mart in Asia, said. "We should be approaching the $100 billion mark this year for international."

Last month, Wal-Mart reported a 17 percent jump in second-quarter profit to $3.45 billion, after a 17 percent increase in international sales to $25.26 billion.

But the discount retailer forecast that results for the current quarter could miss Wall Street estimates as consumers worldwide deal with tough economic times.

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Wal-Mart launches Asia regional headquarters in Hong Kong

China View
September 3rd, 2008                          [back to top]  

HONG KONG, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- World superstore giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced here Wednesday the establishment of its new Asia regional headquarters in Hong Kong.

President and Chief Executive Officer for Wal-Mart Asia Vicente Trius said the Hong Kong regional headquarters will have strategic responsibilities for managing the company's current operations in Asia and for business development.

The new Wal-Mart office in Hong Kong will oversee the company's operations in the Chinese mainland, India and Japan, as well as identify new business opportunities for the company throughout Asia, Trius said.

"Hong Kong is the perfect location from which to operate a regional headquarters for Asia, as it is centrally located and offers ready access to markets across the region," Trius said.

Director-General of Investment Promotion at Invest HK Mike Rowse welcomed Wal-Mart's decision to choose Hong Kong from among other cities in Asia, saying Wal-Mart's establishment of regional headquarters here represents a powerful vote of confidence in Hong Kong as the preferred location for leading global companies to manage their business in the Chinese mainland and elsewhere in Asia.

Over the years, Hong Kong has been the most popular location in Asia for companies from around the world to establish a regional hub. Some 3,900 overseas and Chinese mainland companies operate regional headquarters or regional offices in Hong Kong, according to Invest HK.

Wal-Mart Asia's Vice President Brian Walker said Wal-Mart is able to recruit the right local staff for its regional headquarters with the city's abundant pool of talent and professionals, together with its excellent transportation, communications and technology infrastructure.

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Ruling may benefit Wal-Mart

Bloomberg
September 3rd, 2008                     [back to top] 

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. - Wal-Mart, facing as much as $2 billion in damages in a Minnesota employee-pay trial, may be shielded from similar cases in the future thanks to a 2005 federal law.

The statute requires federal courts to handle class-action lawsuits of $5 million or more when plaintiffs and defendants are from different states. Because judges have been less willing to certify these cases as class actions, the law may save Wal-Mart Sores Inc. as much as $5 billion, said Robert Bonsignore, lead workers' attorney in Nevada suits against the world's largest retailer. That's equivalent to 77 percent of Wal-Mart's $6.5 billion first-half profit.

Hourly employees in more than 30 states have sued since the law's passage, claiming Wal-Mart altered time cards to reduce pay. The cases were merged in federal court in Las Vegas, where a judge in a test ruling refused to allow class-action suits in four states.

"It put a decision on state laws before a judge in a distant federal court," Bonsignore said of the Class Action Fairness Law. "It unleveled the playing field."

Judge Philip Pro may apply the same reasoning in 31 other cases, effectively killing them and chilling future claims, Bonsignore said.

State and federal courts have ruled on 36 wage-and-hour class actions against Wal-Mart, according to a company spokeswoman Daphne Moore. Judges denied class-action status in 24.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer faces more than 70 such suits in the United States, including cases older than the 2005 law and not governed by it.

Company policy is "to pay every associate for every hour worked," Moore said. Managers who break that rule are "subject to discipline, up to and including termination," she said.

Avoiding multiple wage-and-hour trials will bolster the shares, said Patricia Edwards, a portfolio manager at Wentworth, Hauser & Violich Inc. in Seattle. The firm oversees $14.8 billion, including Wal-Mart stock.

"Any time you don't have to spend your time and effort fighting in the press and in the courts for your reputation, it's certainly better," she said.

The company lost a $78 million Pennsylvania verdict in 2006 over unpaid work and inadequate rest breaks and a $172 million California verdict in 2005 over meal breaks. It has appealed both.

In what may become the biggest case, a Minnesota state judge in July found Wal-Mart broke labor laws more than 2 million times. State law sets possible damages at $1,000 per occurrence, meaning jurors at a trial to start Oct. 20 might award $2 billion.

The company's future risk from wage-and-hour claims is limited, said Arthur Bryant, executive director of the Public Justice Foundation, a trial lawyers' group in Washington

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Tribe to sign lease with Wal-Mart

Asheville Citizen-Times
September 2nd, 2008                       [back to top] 

Principal Chief Michell Hicks on Thursday will finalize a lease with Wal-Mart to operate a Supercenter on the Cherokee Indian Reservation, according to an agenda for this week’s Tribal Council meeting.

The Supercenter would be the fourth west of Asheville. The company has similar stores in Sylva, Murphy and will soon open one in Waynesville. Tribal officials have not publicly said where the new store would be located. The idea has been popular on the Qualla Boundary. But some small store owners worry it will mean fewer customers at local businesses. The Tribal Council meeting is open to the public.

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Blacksburg's Wal-Mart Fight Continues

By Jenna Nichols,
Planet Blacksburg
September 2nd, 2008                         [back to top] 

The fight for a Wal-Mart in Blacksburg continues as the Virginia Supreme Court grants an appeal to the January 24, 2008 ruling of Ordinance 1450.

Blacksburg United for Responsible Growth (BURG) and the Town of Blacksburg will have one more chance to fight for keeping Wal-Mart out of Blacksburg. A ruling by Montgomery County Circuit Court judge Robert Turk allowed Fairmont Properties to construct the box store by over turning the ordinance just as the Board of Zoning Appeals had done months earlier.

The Virginia Supreme Court was scheduled to hear oral arguments from BURG and the Town of Blacksburg on August 27, 2008. Before the groups spoke in front of the three-judge panel, they were informed that the appeal had already been granted based on the review of written arguments.

The hearing is expected to be set within the next few weeks. Members of BURG expect that the hearing will take place in late winter of 2008 or spring of 2009.

If the court rules in favor of BURG and the Town of Blacksburg, Fairmont Properties would then have to reissue site construction plans and seek special permission from the Town of Blacksburg to begin construction.

Daniel Breslou, chairman of BURG's steering committee, said that if the Virginia Supreme Court allows Fairmont Properties to construct a box store on the site then it is not exactly the end of the road for BURG's fight.

While legally the fight would be over for Fairmont Properties opposition there are other ways to continue. Breslou said, "We would make sure to keep in touch with Wal-Mart and let them know that the community is against [the construction]. We would use persuasion to fight."

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Adidas Settles Three-Stripe Lawsuit Against Wal-Mart

By Erik Larson,
Bloomberg
September 2nd, 2008                      [back to top] 

Sept. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Adidas AG, the world's second-largest sporting-goods maker, settled a trademark-infringement lawsuit accusing Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of copying its three-stripe design on sneakers.

Adidas and Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, filed a joint request on Aug. 29 to dismiss the three-year-old case in federal court in Portland, Oregon. A jury trial was scheduled to begin Oct. 27.

A jury in the same court in May told Collective Brands Inc.'s Payless ShoeSource unit to pay $304.6 million to Adidas for copying the trademark. Two days later, Sears Holdings Corp.'s Kmart unit settled another case over the same design.

``In the interest of avoiding further litigation, the parties have reached an amicable resolution to their dispute,'' Wal-Mart spokeswoman Daphne Moore said today in an e-mailed statement. The terms are confidential, she said. It's the third time in 13 years that Wal-Mart settled a suit by Adidas over shoe stripes.

Adidas, whose North American unit is based in Portland, has filed similar claims against about three dozen retailers since 1999 to keep what it considers knockoffs from diluting the brand. The designs that triggered the complaints also included two- stripe and four-stripe patterns, which Adidas claimed were too similar to its own.

In the latest case, Adidas had sought Wal-Mart's profit from the shoes, as well as punitive damages. The shoemaker claimed Wal-Mart made revenue of $58 million selling dozens of infringing models. Adidas spokeswoman Kirsten Keck confirmed the settlement.

Two-Stripe Patterns

In July, U.S. District Judge Anna Brown in Portland rejected Wal-Mart's attempt to remove Adidas's claim over shoes with two- stripe patterns, which would have focused the trial on four- stripe designs. Wal-Mart argued no jury would see a similarity.

Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, has disagreed with Adidas's assertion that the three-stripe pattern has significance in the sporting world. Adidas, based in Herzogenaurach, Germany, said it has used the design since at least 1952.

The suit, filed in 2005, claimed Wal-Mart ``maliciously'' sold hundreds of thousands of imitation Adidas shoes in violation of a 2002 settlement that barred it from offering ``confusingly similar'' products. A previous settlement of a 1995 case prohibited Wal-Mart from selling shoes with three parallel stripes or certain four-stripe designs.

Wal-Mart had total sales of $379 billion in the year ended January. Adidas had revenue of $10.2 billion in 2007.

Adidas's lawyer, Charles Henn, of Kilpatrick Stockton in Atlanta, didn't return a call for comment.

Wal-Mart rose 58 cents to $59.65 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Adidas rose 65 cents 40.92 euros in Frankfurt trading.

Nike Inc., based in Beaverton, Oregon, is the world's largest sporting-goods maker.

The case is Adidas America Inc. vs Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 3:05-cv-01297, U.S. District Court, District of Oregon (Portland).

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Ohio spent $111M to insure workers

The Associated Press
September 2nd, 2008                       [back to top]

A new report shows Ohio spent $111.5 million in 2007 to cover Medicaid costs for workers who are not enrolled in employer health insurance plans.

Policy Matters Ohio, a liberal think tank in Cleveland, estimates the state covered more than 111,000 workers and their dependents from 50 companies with the highest Medicaid enrollment.

The federal government covered $182 million of the total cost. Researchers analyzed monthly Medicaid enrollment data to compile a list of statewide employers with the most employees who received government health assistance.

"Right now, we're in a very tight budget," said Piet van Lier, the study's author and a senior researcher at Policy Matters Ohio. "Medicaid is a very big expense not only for Ohio, but for other states and here's a substantial benefit going to employers."

Most of the employers included in the lists are retailers, restaurant chains and staffing firms.

The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services warned that people should be careful not to jump to conclusions based on the Medicaid enrollment numbers.

"Eligibility for employer-sponsored health care coverage does not preclude eligibility for Medicaid," the department said in a statement. "Several circumstances could lead people who are eligible for employer coverage to apply for and receive Medicaid."

Wal-Mart topped the list with a monthly average of 13,141 employees and dependents enrolled in Medicaid last year.

Wal-Mart spokesman Greg Rossiter said the rankings are "notoriously unreliable" and hard to verify.

He said the company offers competitive benefits to hourly employees who work at least 34 hours a week, but some Wal-Mart employees only work part-time. The benefit structure varies depending on employment status, Rossiter said.

InfoCision, based in northeast Ohio, had a 64 percent increase in Medicaid-enrolled employees from 2004 to 2007, the most of any employers.

The Cleveland Clinic Health System ranked third with a 45 percent increase.

Officials with both companies attributed the increase to a period of rapid growth and hiring.

InfoCision, based in Bath Township, has about 3,000 employees in Ohio, an increase from 1,700 in 2004.

"We know our employees are coming to us from a wide variety of backgrounds," said Steve Brubaker, senior vice president of corporate affairs. "Some of those employees, perhaps, have been on public assistance and are transitioning to the work force and we think that's awesome. We can be, perhaps, a steppingstone for their future."

Every employee who works at least 30 hours a week is eligible for the company's health benefits after 90 days of employment, he said. The company's headquarters also offers an onsite fitness center and doctor's office.

At the Cleveland Clinic, 27,000 of the health system's 36,000 employees are enrolled in the company-sponsored health plan, said spokeswoman Eileen Sheil. Employees must work at least 20 hours to qualify for health coverage.

About 50 employees of the health system have children enrolled in Medicaid because the children are disabled, Sheil said.

Others, such as single parents who work in part-time positions, might opt for Medicaid coverage for their children because of extra benefits offered, such as transportation or help with groceries, she said.

Access to Care, a program that matches about 1,600 uninsured Summit County residents with volunteer doctors who provide their health care for free, said many of their enrollees work one or more part-time jobs that don't provide insurance.

Some enrollees place their children in Medicaid because it has higher family income limits for children to qualify.

"They're low on the rung in terms of income, and they're working part time," said Access to Care Executive Director Marsha Schofield said.

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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)