Article

KION TV
September 30th, 2009                [back to top]  

Salinas, Calif- Expansion plans for two Wal-Marts in Salinas are underway, but today backlash from the community. Wednesday workers from grocery stores all over Salinas gathered to show they are upset with the City of Salinas.

After supporting the city council's decision to repeal its big-box store ordinance, They say its time for the council to let the Wal-Mart deal out of the closet. Denise Jack has worked at Safeway for more than 20 years and she's worried about the Wal-Mart expansions, "I don't need to be walking around 53 and terrified if I'm going to have a job tomorrow or not," said Jack.

Charles Etta Williams says Wal-Mart, is the buzz at her FoodMaxx store, "It would affect us. It would affect our cost of living, our health care everybody is struggling already and I don't think we need to struggle anymore," said Williams.

Rallying at City Hall these activists say council members are not keeping their word, "We asked them to take a look at traffic, to take a look at other circumstances on letting Wal-Mart expand here," said Tony Alexander.

"There was a traffic impact study which was done by us, and it was agreed upon by both parties that there was going to be a level of traffic impact," said council member Steve Villegas. He said Wal-Mart will foot the half a million dollar bill for the traffic study.

The legal teams for the city and Wal-Mart have worked out a deal, and in the next few months expansion construction will likely begin.

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Report shows thousands of Ohio employees of Walmart, other companies insured through Medicaid

Associated Press
September 30th, 2009         [back to top]  

The state says more than 100,000 Ohio employees of major retail and restaurant chains get health insurance not from the companies but from taxpayers, through Medicaid.

A report released Tuesday by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services shows Walmart has more than 15,000 Ohio workers receiving Medicaid coverage for the poor and disabled, more than any other company on the list. The retail giant is Ohio's largest employer with more than 54,000 workers.

The report notes that some Ohioans who could be insured through their employer opt for Medicaid instead because it costs them less or offers them more coverage.

Walmart Stores Inc. spokesman Greg Rossiter says the company offers affordable health care to both full- and part-time workers.

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Wal-Mart distribution center: Appeals period begins

By SCOTT JASON,
Merced Sun-Star
September 30th, 2009                        [back to top]  

For the next month, it's a waiting game.

Opponents of the Wal-Mart distribution center have 30 days to file an appeal challenging the Merced City Council's approval of the project.

Leaders with the Merced Alliance for Responsible Growth, the main anti-distribution center group, haven't indicated whether they'll pursue a lawsuit. While some have charged their attorneys are being paid by outside interests, the group's leaders, Tom Grave and Kyle Stockard, maintain they're working pro bono.

Business community members publicly appealed for the alliance to accept the public's support of the center and keep it out of litigation. Wal-Mart spokesman Aaron Rios said Tuesday the company is prepared to defend the project in court. That would add delays that could range from one to two years. On the hope it would move rapidly forward, some area contractors are drafting bids to help build the 1.2 million-square-foot center on 230 acres.

Matt Fry, with Power Plus, drove to the distribution center site in the morning to get an idea of the area.

His plan is to send a bid to the general contractor, whenever it's picked.

Power Plus provides electric hookups to construction areas, which includes tapping the nearest transformer or bringing out generators, he said.

It opened a Fresno office two years ago, and he's trying to build a customer base in trying economic times. The distribution center is a major opportunity. "I want to get in on that as quickly as I can," Fry said.

He said he understood arguments for and against the project, which he ultimately supported. "We need jobs and a place for commerce to occur," he noted.

Dan Peterson, a Merced dirt grader and paver since 1996, said he's starved for work and wants a chance to bid on Wal-Mart's project. During the housing bubble, he employed a handful of employees. Now, it's just him.

He moved dirt last spring on Foster Poultry Farm's wastewater treatment project. Other than that, work's been scarce. "There's probably no one hurting worse than us," he said. "(Merced) was the hottest area, and now it's probably the coldest."

Contractors interested in bidding on the center must become authorized by Wal-Mart, Rios said. He said they should go to www.walmartrealty.com for more information.

If no lawsuit is filed, Wal-Mart will need to submit all its final plans for review by city staff to move the project forward, Planning Manager Kim Espinosa said.

It will probably take a couple months for all the plans to be reviewed and approved, she said. Then a building permit would be issued.

And some contractor in need of a job can break ground.

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Wal-Mart supersizes its $10 holiday toy program

By Nicole Maestri,
Reuters
September 30th, 2009                    [back to top]  

This year, Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) is supersizing its $10 holiday toy offering.

Last October, the world's biggest retailer cut its prices and began selling 10 popular toys for $10 each in its U.S. Walmart stores to win sales from early bargain hunting holiday shoppers.

This year, the retailer has ramped up the program and is offering more than 100 toys, including Barbie dolls and board games, for $10 each, throughout the Christmas shopping season.

The $10 assortment includes newly introduced toys, such as certain Transformers action figures and a Play-Doh burger builder set, as well as existing items, such as Monopoly and Connect 4, whose prices have been cut 20 percent to 50 percent.

"What we learned from last holiday was that price mattered more than ever," said Laura Phillips, the retailer's vice president of toys.

That is expected to be the case again this year as the retailer surveyed shoppers and found the No. 1 priority for mothers this holiday season is finding gifts that fit their budget, Phillips said.

The year-end holiday season is a crucial one for U.S. retailers and can account for 25 percent to 40 percent of annual revenue. But last year's holiday season marked the worst in nearly 40 years by some measures and early forecasts for the 2009 holiday season call for sales to be anywhere from up 2 percent to down 1 percent.

But Wal-Mart has been gaining market share amid the recession as shoppers seek out low prices on everything from food to paper towels to popular electronics.

Last year, Phillips said Wal-Mart sold out of its $10 toys because it underestimated how early its shoppers were in its stores, buying gifts for Christmas.

"About 70 percent of our Wal-Mart shoppers start their holiday toy shopping before Halloween and, in fact, about 20 percent finish by Halloween," she said.

So Wal-Mart spent the past year working with toy makers, such as Mattel Inc (MAT.O) and Hasbro Inc (HAS.N) to develop new toys or cut prices on existing items so it could stock a much wider selection of $10 offerings this year.

It said the $10 toy offering is the first of several programs it will announce in the next 12 weeks leading up to Christmas "to bring added savings" to shoppers

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Wal-Mart Check Policy Causes Concern

By Shoshana Walter,
The Ledger
September 29th, 2009                       [back to top]  

Tammy Booth likes to be cautious. She swears by prepaid credit cards. She avoids online stores. She loves to read about Bernie Madoff. How, she wonders, do people get away with such swindles?

The Lakeland resident has pondered the question many times before, and she found one possible answer during a recent trip to Wal-Mart.

After Booth handed her a check to pay for the groceries, the cashier scanned it, then handed it right back.

"Why didn't you ask me for my ID?" Booth asked the clerk.

"We're not supposed to inconvenience our customers," she was told.

Booth usually uses a debit card to make purchases. She was surprised to learn that Wal-Mart clerks do not always ask for identification when a customer pays by check. And the major retailer is not alone.

The policy is considered proper customer service in many stores - from cash-checking businesses to drug stores - but authorities say that it often allows thieves using fake or stolen checks and credit cards to elude detection.

For Booth, that's a cause for concern. She learned a lesson from her sister, who found herself $20,000 in debt after her purse was stolen from the trunk of her car five years ago. Thieves made thousands of dollars worth of purchases in her name. She lost money and had to rebuild her life.

Yes, she'd used her own check to buy her groceries, Booth thought. But what if it'd been stolen?

"How much of a convenience is it if somebody gets hold of my checks and then goes to Wal-Mart, and they use the checks and I have to clear my name?" she asked.

Detective Suzan Weiss worked in retail for 13 years before joining the Polk County Sheriff's Office, where she now investigates identity theft and fraud.

She says many stores simply scan unsigned checks into a system that registers each check's routing number, and withdraws money from a customer's account. Wal-Mart uses a system called TeleCheck, which prompts cashiers to ask customers for IDs only when their account has been reported for suspicious activity.

It's just like using a debit card, Weiss explained.

But debit cards, unlike checks, are PIN-protected. And if an account holder has not notified the bank of a loss or theft, the cashier may not know to check.

Unless a customer's bank account has been flagged for suspicious activity, they're not typically asked to provide proof of identity, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman said.

Weiss says the policy is intended to please customers, but like Booth, she'd now like to see stores take more precautions.

"I'd ask (for ID) and customers would complain, or they'd have to dig through their purses," Weiss recalled of her days working in retail. "Now whenever I get a cashier who asks for ID, I praise them."

That's about all customers can do, she said. Many stores are not likely to change their policies, but customers can still let cashiers know that they do not mind handing over their IDs. Or they can follow Booth's lead, and call with a complaint or a suggestion.

After she returned home from shopping, Booth called Wal-Mart's customer service line. Her simple request?

She'd like to be inconvenienced.

The puzzled representative didn't do much to ease her concerns, she said.

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Walmart near Va battlefield challenged

By STEVE SZKOTAK,
Associated Press
September 24th, 2009                      [back to top]  

RICHMOND, Va. — Preservationists and residents filed a legal challenge Wednesday to block construction of a Walmart Supercenter near a famed battlefield where the Civil War began to turn in favor of the North. The legal action is aimed at an Aug. 25 vote by the Orange County Board of Supervisors approving the store near the Wilderness Battlefield. The battlefield where 30,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were injured or killed 145 years ago is considered one of the nation's most endangered Civil War sites, according to preservationists. The suit contends that supervisors "brushed aside" mounting concerns about the negative impact the store would have on the battlefield and approved the special use permit Walmart needed to build the big box store. The vote was 4-1. "A nationally significant and highly vulnerable historic site is at great risk," said Zann Nelson, president of Friends of Wilderness Battlefield, one of the preservation groups challenging the vote. "The Walmart project would irrevocably harm the battlefield and seriously undermine the visitor's experience to the National Park," he said in a statement accompanying the filing. Supervisors who had not seen the challenge did not immediately respond to an Associated Press request for comment on the suit, filed in Orange County Circuit Court. They have 21 days to file a response in the Orange court. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. described the legal challenge as having "no merit or basis in fact." "Throughout this entire process we have not only met but exceeded the guidelines that were put before us," said Keith Morris, a spokesman for the world's biggest retailer. He said site work had not yet begun on the 138,000-square-foot store in Locust Grove, which is about 50 miles southwest of Washington, D.C. In addition to Friends of Wilderness, the challenge includes the National Trust for Historic Preservation and six residents of Orange and Spotsylvania counties who live near the planned store site. The 41-page filing is part legal document and part history lesson. It begins the challenge by quoting Pulitzer Prize historian James McPherson, who wrote: "The Battle of the Wilderness was a great turning point in the Civil War — the first clash between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant and the beginning of the end for the beleaguered Confederacy." The suit seeks the court to declare supervisors' vote "unlawful and invalid" and to block any further county action on Walmart's site plan. In a state with more key Civil War battlefields than any other, Walmart's proposed store stirred up a spirited protest that enlisted the names of 250 historians and the filmmaker Ken Burns. Opponents also included celebrities such as Robert Duvall, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, and congressmen from Texas and Vermont, states that lost an inordinate number of men in the fighting. In May 1864, 180,000 Union and Confederate armies fought at the Wilderness, which began a series of battles that brought an end to the Civil War one year later. Residents and supervisors who supported the store said it would not diminish an area that already has two strip malls. They welcomed the hundreds of jobs the store would bring to the rural community, the shopping option and the estimated $800,000 annually in tax revenue for the county of approximately 32,000. Wal-Mart, which has 8,000 stores worldwide and adds about 240 each year, argued that the site is zoned for commercial use and the store will not be within sight of the battlefield's 2,700 protected acres.

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Wal-Mart Pays $3 Million To Settle Claims It Violated Law In Mass.

By John Kell,
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
September 25th, 2009                      [back to top]    

Wal-Mart Inc. (WMT) agreed to a $3 million settlement with the attorney general of Massachusetts to settle allegations the world's largest retailer failed to comply with meal break laws.

It wasn't the first time the retailer - the largest private employer in the U.S. - has come under fire for allegedly violating laws requiring proper rest and meal breaks. Late last year, Wal-Mart agreed to pay up to $640 million to settle 63 suits alleging it routinely underpaid employees around the country. Wal-Mart has agreed to continue using electronic systems to document its compliance with state and federal labor laws.

An attorney general spokesman couldn't immediately confirm that the cases are separate.

The state said it opened an investigation into Wal-Mart's meal break policies after workers reported they were being required to work through their breaks, take breaks after working six hours or spent less than 30 minutes on their breaks. Those allegations violated Massachusetts laws.

A Wal-Mart spokeswoman wasn't immediately able to provide a comment on the settlement. The attorney general's office said Wal-Mart had "cooperated fully" with the investigation.

Shares were up 0.6% to $50.71 in recent trading.

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Va. county plans to "vigorously defend" Walmart OK

Associated Press
September 24th, 2009                    [back to top]    

ORANGE, Va. -- A Virginia county will "vigorously defend" its decision to grant a special-use permit to Wal-mart Stores Inc. for a Supercenter near the Wilderness Civil War battlefield.

In a statement issued Thursday, Orange County attorney Sharon E. Pandak responded to a legal challenge filed Wednesday by preservationists and residents who live near the Locust Grove site for the 138,000-square-foot store.

The Circuit Court lawsuit is aimed at blocking construction of the store near the Wilderness, one of the nation's most endangered Civil War battlefields.

The suit contends that county supervisors "brushed aside" concerns about the negative impact the store would have on the battlefield and approved the special use permit Walmart needed to build the big box store.

Pandak said supervisors met all procedural requirements and provided plenty of opportunity for public comment.

She said the board will seek to have the lawsuit dismissed.

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Walmart Digs In Deep to the Sustainability Index

By Matthew Wheeland,
Greener World Media
September 24th, 2009                  [back to top]    

"Not only do we not have it all figured out, we don't want to have it all figured out right now, that's why we're working with all of you."

So said Rand Waddoups, Walmart's senior director for sustainability, during an extensive -- and exclusive -- 90-minute conversation with our executive editor Joel Makower, in the webcast "Getting Ready for the Sustainability Index."

The webcast brought many more voices to the conversation: More than 600 people attended, representing some of Walmart's largest suppliers, and some of the biggest and most forward-thinking companies in the world.

Everyone convened hoping to get answers about a new, sweeping program announced just over two months ago. And despite Waddoups' repeated caveat that the Index is still very much a work in progress, the webcast did serve to clarify many elements of a world-changing project. Walmart's Rand Waddoups First and foremost among the takeaways from today's event is that calling this "Walmart's Sustainability Index" is a misnomer; the concept of the project has first and foremost been to create an open and all-inclusive system to measure the environmental impacts of retailers' products and operations.

"We want this to turn into something that is far bigger than Walmart, far more important than any one company," Waddoups said. "We announced it to the world so we could call on the world to join the effort; you have to call on the world to join the effort to develop the effort so they have ownership of it."

Waddoups said that the end goal of the Sustainability Index -- which is likely five years from reaching its full implementation of having on-shelf products bearing sustainability scores -- is to respond to the growing demand for transparency the company is hearing from its customers.

"[The Sustainability Index is] unique and is driving value in a way that's creating customer trust, creating ways to connect with customers in a way you haven't been able to do in the past," Waddoups said. "Transparency is becoming the expectation of our customers. This is becoming the new normal for how we do business."

In the intervening five years, of course, plenty of work remains to be done. Much of that work is currently being driven by the Sustainability Consortium, a group of academics and retailers that are doing much of the development of lifecycle analysis (LCA) methods that are accurate and relatively streamlined. (You can read more about the Consortium in this article from Joel Makower.)

Walmart's 15-question Sustainability Assessment. Click for full-sized. While the Consortium works on developing a useful LCA tool, Walmart's "top-tier" suppliers will begin answering the 15 questions on the Sustainability Assessment. Walmart suppliers can fill those questions out online at Walmart's Retail Link. Once the questions are answered online, suppliers will get instant feedback both on how their operations measure up, and how they compare to other suppliers in their category.

There are three "scores" for the Assessment: Suppliers will be rated either "above target," "on target" or "below target." And the Retail Link results page will also offer tips on how a company can improve their performance.

Explaining the simple nature of the current assessment, Waddoups said, "We want to know if you've measured it; if you've measured it, that's important. If you've measured it and you're making progress, that's even better."

But, addressing a key concern of many of the webcast's attendees, Waddoups said that suppliers will not be able to see the actual rankings of their competitors; they'll simply see a distribution of scores for their relevant department -- for example, they'll see all the scores of toy department suppliers, but not individual scores.

Similarly, proprietary information will not necessarily need to be shared; Waddoups described that as one of his key concerns entering into the Sustainability Index project, and said that the Consortium has come up with "some really exciting, simple and effective means" to get the environmental-impact data they want without sharing proprietary data.

Walmart suppliers aren't even required to take part in the Sustainability Index, though Waddoups made it clear that it would be in a company's best interest to take part -- and to take it seriously.

"Walmart is looking for leadership: We want to identify who the leaders are, reward them for what they're doing, and do it in a way that's credible," he said. "If a supplier says they don't want to participate and don't want to be transparent, are we going to dump that supplier tomorrow? Absolutely not. If a supplier chooses not to participate, they will simply be considered not a leader, and their scores will reflect that in the future."

What it all comes down to is improving performance on all three levels of the triple bottom line. Waddoups stressed the financial benefits of improving environmental impacts repeatedly, while also expressing high hopes for the boost the Sustainability Index can give to green business practices.

"We wouldn't be doing this if we weren't tremendously excited about the possiblities it offers for people and the planet but also for our businesses," he said.

The 90-minute webcast will be archived for 90 days; if you have already signed up, you can go back at any time and listen and download the slides. You can also still register for the webcast by clicking here

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Walmart Sustainability Index Means Big Business

By Tilde Herrera,
Greener World Media
September 24th, 2009                      [back to top]    

In a run-up to today's webcast with Walmart's Rand Waddoups, GreenBiz.com is exploring the business opportunities -- and the challenges -- that companies are facing in trying to get up to speed on the Sustainability Index's requirements.

Some of Walmart's top suppliers in the U.S. will begin sharing their environmental impact data with the world's largest retailer next week.

Oct. 1 marks the official start of the first phase of Walmart's Sustainability Index. That's when "top-tier" consumer product companies must return to Walmart a 15-question assessment form (PDF) with details about their carbon footprint, resource use and ethical business practices.

While many large suppliers have tracked this data for years, some estimate the prepared few represent just 10 percent of the roughly 100,000 global companies who sell to Walmart.

Walmart's sustainability assessment offers both a huge business opportunity and a potentially huge environmental business. Walmart suppliers will likely find opportunities to wring inefficiencies from their operations through the process of assessing their environmental footprints, while a bumper crop of consulting and accounting firms is springing up to help suppliers navigate the journey.

"I think this is a game changer," said Kyle Tanger, the president and CEO of a carbon management firm that once helped Walmart size up its own mammoth carbon footprint. Just the Facts Background: Walmart announced in July the creation of its Sustainability Index initiative, meant to measure the sustainability of its products in four areas: energy and climate, natural resources, material efficiency, and people and community.

Timeline: The initiative is broken into three phases.

• The first phase is the supplier assessment, a survey the company's 100,000 global suppliers with 15 questions. Walmart's top-tier suppliers in the U.S. must complete the survey by Oct. 1; timelines for the remaining suppliers have not been announced. • The second phase involves the creation of a lifecycle analysis database by a consortium of universities that will work with suppliers, retailers, government and nonprofits. • The third and final step calls for delivering the information to the consumer on how products rank, possibly through a numeric score, color code or other label. Tanger's company, ClearCarbon Consulting, is one of many businesses stepping forward to help fill the knowledge gap for thousands of Walmart suppliers in the wake of its Sustainability Index announcement in July. The retailer's overarching goal is to rate the sustainable attributes of the products lining its shelves, keeping costs low in the process while also burnishing Walmart's green cred.

The sheer size of Walmart's reach makes the initiative a big deal, said Nancy Hirshberg, vice president of natural resources at Stonyfield Farm, a New Hamshire producer of organic yogurt and other dairy products that are sold at Walmart.

"It's the biggest customer in the world asking you questions about things you should be thinking about," Hirshberg said. "Not anyone else has that power."

A 'Game-Changer?'

In addition to the sustainability index, Tanger sees three other significant events this year that could forever alter the intersection of business and climate change: potential new climate change disclosure rules mandated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; a climate change bill passing the Senate; and the adoption of an international climate change treaty that will succeed the Kyoto Protocol.

"Those are the four game-changers," Tanger said. "Every professional services firm should have a strategy around those four. You have to make sure you're doing the right kinds of preparation for your customers so they can thrive under those conditions."

ClearCarbon's strategy involves the launch of a web page with resources for Walmart suppliers shortly after the announcement in July, followed by a webinar. The company also is automating its data outputs to reflect the Walmart assessment format, and is considering producing a series of white papers that offer strategy and insight. An additional webcast offering a primer on carbon footprinting will take place Oct. 8. Along the way, ClearCarbon has picked up several contracts.

Newcomer Greener Dawn wants a piece of the action. The consulting company, formed in January, originally targeted the real estate sector, performing carbon footprint services for investment owners, but it is now trying to expand into the retail industry. It sent out a press release shortly after the original Sustainability Index announcement explaining the business case for corporate carbon footprinting.

"We started with a focus on real estate, but realized there was a need for carbon management solutions in multiple industries," said Michael Chang, an energy and carbon specialist with the Solana Beach, Calif.-based company. "With government mandates and global momentum toward sustainability, the Walmart Sustainability Index is another piece that can drive this change. The main goal of the press release was to express the notion that everything is moving in this direction."

Many Walmart suppliers need all the help they can get, according to Marc Major, cofounder of ClearGreen Advisors, a newly launched consultancy formed specifically to target Walmart suppliers. The company also plans to hold a webinar for Walmart suppliers Thursday.

"The majority is unprepared," Major said. "It seems like suppliers are waiting for some kind of signal from Walmart that this is serious. I don't know what it's going to take for some to figure it out."

Misconceptions abound, Major said: The initiative might just go away, much like Walmart's RFID (radio frequency identification) and "Made in America" requirements. Assessing environmental footprints costs too much with no short-term ROIs for suppliers to seize without unmistakable signals from Walmart.

But those who look at this as a cost center instead of a profit sharing center, Major said, are really missing the boat.

"The economic times are such that people are risk averse. The reality in a recession is that weak players will fade away," Major said. "Those who spent the recession investing will be the ones to score."

Over the next six months, the Sustainability Index will cause senior executives to boost their current investment levels for things such as energy audits and strategy development, predicted Paul Baier, vice president of consulting at Groom Energy Solutions, a Massachusetts firm that helps companies reduce their energy consumption. He estimates just 1 in 10 Walmart suppliers are prepared to completely answer the 15-question assessment, while about 40 percent weren't planning on investing the capital on measuring their carbon footprints now because of the recession.

The company, along with Pure Strategies, held a sold-out Walmart supplier readiness workshop last week during a green supply chain conference that was attended by representatives from companies such as Hasbro and Ocean Spray. The Sustainability Index, Baier said, has re-energized stalled sustainability projects and increased the chances of additional investment as 2010 budgets are finalized.

He predicts more vendors will introduce additional resources and events for Walmart suppliers in the fall. "Fortunately we had an event and saw an opportunity to move aggressively," Baier said.

Uncovering Inefficiencies

The Sustainability Index sends a signal not just to Walmart suppliers, but also to its competitors, according to Larry Goldenhersh, president of Enviance, a maker of carbon and environmental accounting software. Advice from the Experts • "Outside resources such as experienced consultants, NGOs, and universities can be a big help, especially for getting started, but at the end of the day, the folks inside a company that know and own the key data inputs or a carbon footprint are critical to the project’s success." -- Kyle Tanger, president and CEO of ClearCarbon Consulting

• It's not free, but the way to look at it is as an investment ... If it's an energy efficiency investment, don't take all the savings and throw it back into a big pot. Start a special investment fund for future projects. Smart executives are starting to do this." -- Marc Major, cofounder of ClearGreen Advisors

"Our biggest recommendation is for suppliers to calculate their basic carbon footprint. This is the most labor and data intensive step and suppliers will increasingly look like laggards in 2010 without this information." -- Paul Baier, vice president of consulting at Groom Energy Solutions

"Don’t get lost in the minutia. Find a really good consultant so they can leapfrog you so you don’t get stuck in the weeds." -- Nancy Hirshberg, vice president of natural resources at Stonyfield Farms

"Go to the Carbon Disclosure Project's website and find other like businesses and see what kind of information they are providing now." -- Rich Becks, senior vice president of strategic supply-demand solutions at E2open "The Walmart Sustainability Index constitutes the firing of the starting pistol of latching the market to the quest for the climate solution," Goldenhersh said. "If we engage large retailers in competition to green the supply chain, I believe we can achieve a massive amount of planet-protecting behavior through market-driven conduct."

The move ushers in what he has dubbed a new era of "Supply Chain Environmentalism."

"Competitors in this newly minted era of Supply Chain Environmentalism will discover massive new market share opportunities and will face massive market risks, all associated with the fact that commodity products -- which today seem to be differentiated almost exclusively on price -- will now be capable of differentiation along a set of easy-to-understand greenhouse gas and other sustainability factors," he said

The process of collecting the environmental data included in Walmart's assessment will benefit suppliers in the short- and long-term, said Tanger, noting the ordering of the questions in the assessment makes sense, with carbon footprint and energy questions first.

"Carbon continues to be one of the best proxies for finding operational efficiencies," Tanger said. "Trucks, refrigerants, all of these things add up to money and how you can make your products better."

It will also yield surprises.

"Walmart is one of the best examples of this," Tanger said. "They knew electricity was going to be a gigantic source (of greenhouse gas emissions), but didn't know their second biggest source would be refrigerants."

As a result, improving refrigerant efficiency became a key component of its sustainability strategy. Similarly, Stonyfield Farms thought energy use would be the biggest direct impact of its carbon footprint when it began analyzing its supply chain, but learned milk was No. 1, followed by packaging, and distribution. Energy use was No. 4.

"We were stunned," Hirshberg said. "Up until then, we were obsessed with facility energy use."

The newfound insight prompted Stonyfield to embark on partnerships to reduce these large impacts, both in and outside its operations. Internally, the company has halved its transportation emissions since 2006, saving the company $500,000, while working with suppliers to reduce packaging improved its bottom line by nearly $800,000.

A ClearCarbon client was able to increase its market share because it was able to offer its products at a lower price because of efficiencies gleaned through projects related to energy and water use, transportation and solid waste reduction, Tanger said.

"It knew these projects would return a certain cost savings," Tanger said. "It passed the cost savings directly to its customers, and won a large contract because of it, which also increased its market share. They don't want to talk about it because they feel like they have such a leg-up on their competition in that market."

Based on past experience with Walmart suppliers, Tanger believes suppliers are more prepared to fill out the assessment form than they give themselves credit for, with their best resource being the team they already have. "In every company, there are plenty of people who know a lot about that company. They need to get people in all parts of the company together and say, 'We need to be involved in this process,'" Tanger said.

Small Steps

Suppliers are lucky to have access to many more resources today than was available to Stonyfield when it began assessing its environmental footprint in the 1990s, Hirshberg said.

"They aren't going to have to do as much figuring out as we had to do," she said. "On the other hand, don't get lost in the minutia. Find a really good consultant so they can leapfrog you and you don't get stuck in the weeds."

Take small steps, advised ClearGreen Advisors' Marc Major. "Sequence your investments properly and find investments that pay back in the short-term," Major said. "Do things you can do quickly and build momentum, rather than get bogged down on big projects. Take the savings and invest it in future projects."

He compared choosing a consultant to picking a doctor: Do your homework.

"I would caution companies that there are a lot of people coming out of the woodwork who may not know what they're talking about, but are well intentioned," he said. "Any time you have a gold rush … "

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Wal-Mart Protest in Merced

By Gene Haagenson,
KFSN
September 22nd, 2009                        [back to top]  

A group of protestors opposed to the proposed Wal-Mart distribution center marched through downtown Merced on Monday. Their big concern is over the hundreds of semi trucks that will be coming and going from the 1 million square foot warehouse 24 hours a day and the traffic and air pollution problems they will cause.

"The high rate of asthma in Merced. The second worst if not the worst in the Valley. 22 per cent of young people have asthma" said Kyle Stockard one of the protest organizers.

Inside the meeting Wal-Mart spokesman Aaron Rios told the council the company's truck fleet is modern and low polluting and said the distribution center wouldn't really add more traffic.

"It's important to note that not having a facility in Merced will not change the expected truck traffic through the immediate area to service our stores. The only real difference will be the one and a half mile trip from Highway 99 to our facility." Rios said.

He also emphasized the 1000 jobs the center would provide and claimed average pay at Wal-Mart's other California distribution centers is $17.50 an hour.

Stockard acknowledge they face an uphill fight in stopping the project. He said, "It's kind of David against Goliath especially with the economic times the way they are."

The long process will continue with another hearing on Wednesday and another on Saturday.

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Can Nike and Wal-Mart save the Amazon?

By Andrew Downie,
The Christian Science Monitor
September 22nd, 2009                             [back to top]  

A recent decision by a group of multinational companies that include Nike, Adidas, and Timberland to boycott beef and leather products from the Brazilian Amazon -- the largest cattle-ranching area in the world -- might sound like a good way to reduce deforestation.

"These companies are ... telling their suppliers they expect to see zero deforestation or they will stop buying from them," says Tatiana Carvalho, an Amazon campaigner at Greenpeace, one of the moratorium's main coordinators. "That is a big step forward."

The shoemakers and the Brazilian subsidiaries of supermarkets Wal-Mart and Carrefour agreed that as of June 22, they would not purchase beef or leather from suppliers who cut down rainforest trees to open up new cattle pasture.

But without a strict monitoring and labeling system, the moratorium on beef products from the Brazilian Amazon could amount to little more than a publicity stunt, environmentalists warn. Brazil's beef producers' association has dismissed the moratorium as "meaningless."

A tracking system that clarifies where beef or leather has been produced is not yet in place, making it difficult for producers to know whether a steak or a piece of shoe leather came from deep in the Amazon or from grazing lands in the south of the country. When the European Union looked at farms' traceability procedures last year, it approved beef exports from only 1,376 of the country's estimated 5,000,000 cattle farms.

Leather is more problematic, since it is sold on the open commodities market and is even harder to trace.

REASSURING CONSUMERS

"[The moratorium] shows the industry is concerned and wants to assure the consumer that it is doing its part. But the criteria are difficult to implement, and, in the end, may be shown to have been ineffective," says Peter May, an assistant director at Friends of the Earth Brazil. "But for the time being, it may reassure consumers."

Some of the companies that have signed on acknowledge that they don't yet have enough information to guarantee they're not using products from the Amazon. Shoemakers Nike and Clarks both said they would give suppliers until 2010 to put full traceability procedures in place.

Many of the companies were prompted by a June report from Greenpeace that named and shamed supermarkets, shoe manufacturers, automakers, and other blue-chip companies whose "blind consumption of raw materials fuels deforestation and climate change."

They were also encouraged by a similar, albeit more limited, moratorium on soybeans that stopped traders from buying beans from recently deforested areas in the Amazon. The moratorium was judged a success and was extended for a fourth consecutive year in July.

RAINFOREST STAMPEDE

But beef is where real environmental gains can be made, since very little soy is grown in the Amazon. For years, cattle farmers have been selling their most productive pastures in the south to soybean and sugar-cane producers and using the cash to buy cheaper land in the Amazon, which is deforested and populated with cattle.

That practice, spurred by surging global demand for beef as incomes in countries such as India and China have risen, has led to a stampede into the rainforest.

Three of every 4 new additions to Brazil's cattle herd between 2003 and 2008 came in the Amazon, according to a 2008 Friends of the Earth report. The beef industry is one of the main drivers of deforestation and one of the world's main sources of greenhouse gases. Brazil boasts around 200 million cattle and is the world's biggest beef exporter.

Under Brazilian law, Amazonian farmers may clear just 20 percent of their land and must keep the rest as natural forest. But the law is rarely enforced. Today, around 17 percent of the Brazilian Amazon's original tree cover is gone.

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Wrongful death lawsuit Wal-Mart sued!

Justice News Flash
September 21st, 2009            [back to top]  

Wal-Mart named in wrongful death lawsuit filed by family of East Grand Forks woman who died after falling in a superstore in 2007. Minnesota wrongful death lawyers:East Grand Forks family sues Wal-Mart citing store’s negligence caused family members death. Grand Forks, MN–Wal-Mart was named as a defendant in a wrongful death lawsuit filed in federal court by lawyers representing the deceased woman’s family. The East Grand Forks family filed the suit alleging Wal-Mart’s negligence caused her death in 2007. Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retail giant headquartered in Arkansas asserts they are not responsible for the woman’s death because her actions in their Minnesota Superstore were her own fault. According to the Park Rapids Enterprise, 50 year-old Cynthia Gaddie fell in the dressing room at the Grand Forks Wal-Mart located at 2551 32nd Ave., South on July 24, 2007. Gaddie who was shopping with a friend at the time of her fall caught her foot on a rolling clothing rack in the fitting room and fell according to the complaint filed by Minnesota wrongful death attorneys. Gaddie was transported to emergency medical services (EMS) personnel to Altru Hospital. She later died on August 22, 2007 as a result of her injuries according to the family’s complaint. Minnesota wrongful death lawyers alert by legal news reporter Heather L. Ryan.

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Aldermen vs. the people

Chicago Tribune
September 21st, 2009                [back to top]  

Wal-Mart's plans to build a second store in Chicago remain bottled up in the Chicago City Council. The store that Wal-Mart would like to build on the South Side at 83rd Street and Stewart Avenue, is going nowhere because the aldermen live in fear of organized labor and organized labor despises Wal-Mart.

We know organized labor wants to keep Wal-Mart from expanding in Chicago. But what do the aldermen's constituents want?

The answer is clear: They want the opportunity to work or shop at Wal-Mart.

A new Tribune/WGN poll found that 68 percent of city residents would like to see a new Wal-Mart store in Chicago, and 72 percent say Wal-Mart would be good for the community. The support is even higher with African-Americans, who stand to gain the most economic benefit from the proposed South Side store. The poll found 72 percent of African-Americans want Wal-Mart in the city and 81 percent say it would be good for the community.

The Tribune poll, conducted in late August, mirrors polls taken this summer for Wal-Mart and for the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce that showed strong public support for the retailer.

But the aldermen aren't listening to their constituents. The unions provide money and troops at election time. Apparently the aldermen have decided that keeping the labor bosses happy is more critical than following the wishes of their citizens.

Politically, that might be a savvy calculation, if they figure voters don't feel too strongly about this. They figure they won't suffer any consequences for blocking 200 construction jobs and up to 500 retail sales jobs.

Don't be so sure about that. The chamber poll asked: "Has Chicago's City Council succeeded or failed to bring job growth and economic development to Chicago?" The answer: 66 percent said the council has failed. Just 12 percent said it has succeeded.

Aldermen, you're not fooling anybody.

A South Side Wal-Mart would sell all the usual big box fare plus groceries. That's where organized labor sees the biggest risk. Wal-Mart, which doesn't have unionized labor, would compete with Dominick's and Jewel, which have unionized labor.

Two hundred construction jobs -- union jobs, by the way -- and up to 500 retail jobs. But City Council leaders won't even allow a vote on an ordinance that would clear the way for Wal-Mart to build and open on the South Side.

They're in step with the union bosses, but they're out of step with the people.

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The 16 years’ war

By Sarah Schweitzer,
The Boston Globe
September 20th, 2009                      [back to top]  

ST. ALBANS, Vt. - On a Sunday morning at Nana’s Restaurant, the vinyl booths are jam-packed and waitresses fly out of the kitchen with platters plaited with french fries and brown gravy. But one mention of Wal-Mart and the ladies pause under a hanging plant speared with an American flag to explain why the big box chain needs to come to town.

“You can’t even buy a pair of underwear here. Well, you can, but it’ll cost you $30,’’ says Bobbi Jo Magnan. “Everybody wants a Wal-Mart.’’

Longing for Wal-Mart’s prices may be keen in St. Albans, a one-time railroad depot a half-hour from the Canadian border, where the main thoroughfare’s weathered Victorian homes quickly give way to a jumble of car dealerships and strip malls. Yet it is here that a group of residents, teamed with preservation and environmental groups, spent four years fending off a 1993 effort to raise a Wal-Mart in a cornfield and the last nearly six trying to spoil a second attempt.

The battles add up to what is believed to be the nation’s longest ongoing Wal-Mart fight.

The duration reflects the high stakes: Should Wal-Mart win the right to build in St. Albans, opponents fear the retailer would be poised to proliferate in rural corners of a state that has resisted its overtures. Vermont has the fewest Wal-Marts in the nation, with four stores, compared with 46 in Massachusetts, 27 in New Hampshire and 22 in Maine.

Wal-Mart officials say the push for a greater market share in Vermont reflects the realities of modern life.

“You can’t live in the past and say people should ride horses and grow their own vegetables,’’ said Keith Morris, a spokesman for Wal-Mart. “People are shopping, and if you don’t provide the opportunities, they will travel elsewhere to find those opportunities.’’

But the project’s opponents, which include Montpelier-based Vermont Natural Resources Council and Burlington’s Preservation Trust of Vermont, say that satisfying a yen for cheap goods will yield negative long-term effects. More Wal-Marts in places such as St. Albans, they say, will ruin Vermont’s essence - replacing its green fields with concrete swaths and devastating its quaint downtowns as small merchants suffer.

“If this goes, it will be a signal that sprawl will come to Vermont,’’ said Jon Groveman, an attorney for the Natural Resources Council.

The presence of Wal-Mart is a settled matter in many parts of the country - the big box stores dotting highway exits like blue-banded beacons of discount commerce.

But Vermont has been different. Big retailers have been viewed with skepticism, and the state’s unique development code - Act 250, which gives the state broad authority to shut down projects for environmental or quality of life reasons - has been harnessed to slow Wal-Mart’s arrival.

The first three Wal-Marts built in Vermont - in Bennington, Rutland, and Berlin - have escaped hard scrutiny, with environmentalists deeming them tolerable because they went into spaces vacated by stores like Woolworth and Kmart and were modestly sized, at less than 75,000 square feet. A fourth, in the Burlington suburb of Williston, broke with that pattern, producing a 115,000-square-foot building on one-time farm land. The store has attracted other big box stores, such as Home Depot and Toys “R’’ Us.

The St. Albans Wal-Mart would be like Williston’s, only bigger. Not only would it be built on open land - a cornfield opposite the town’s drive-in movie theater - but it would be the state’s largest Wal-Mart to date, at 160,000 square feet, in a town of 6,000 residents where farms still dominate the surrounding countryside. The location and magnitude of the project is seen as a test of Vermont’s development law, with a Wal-Mart in St. Albans possibly paving the way for similar projects across the state.

The St. Albans Wal-Mart fight has raged in courtrooms and in town offices, produced a mountain of motions and rulings. At a recent hearing, pleadings from both sides totaled 1,000 pages. And there is no definitive end in sight. A judge is expected to issue a decision this fall that could send the case to the state Supreme Court, for the second time.

The conflict has divided neighbors and families, as issues of class and values have come to dominate the debate. Opponents say that supporters are being materialistic in forfeiting natural resources and the downtown for inexpensive wares. Supporters decry opponents as elitist for keeping jobs and cheaper goods out of a county that could use both.

Unemployment in St. Albans City, the town’s urban core, was 10.1 percent last month, and 2005 figures put median household income at $44,750, well below the Vermont average of $52,682.

Indeed, discussing Wal-Mart can be like politics - something avoided in polite conversation, lest feelings are bruised.

“I know a lot of people who support us are afraid to say so,’’ said Betty Finn, 82, an outspoken Wal-Mart critic whose late husband, a former sheriff, spearheaded the movement against Wal-Mart in St. Albans.

Finn said she has received unsigned notes critical of her Wal-Mart opposition from time to time in the mail.

Jeff Davis, the Vermont developer seeking to build the St. Albans Wal-Mart, said he decided in 2004 to try to build the store, after the state Supreme Court had knocked down an earlier developer’s effort, because conditions in St. Albans had changed. Other discount retailers - including Ames and Woolworth - had shuttered, leaving a retail void. The controversy has put the project a year behind schedule, he said, but he remains committed to the fight because most residents want the Wal-Mart.

“We have a beautiful state. And I, as well as the opponents, care about this state. But Vermonters are like other Americans,’’ said Davis, who also developed the Williston Wal-Mart. “If they can save a few bucks at a store like Wal-Mart, that’s a serious concern to a lot of people.’’

Davis pointed out that a rally he staged for supporters last October at a local sports complex drew some 1,500 people; hundreds left with hats and T-shirts that read: “St. Albans Walmart Now.’’ Davis also has a key supporter in Governor Jim Douglas, a Republican who attended Davis’s December 2003 announcement of a renewed push for a St. Albans store.

Stephen Holmes, of the Vermont Natural Resources Council, said the group would welcome a Wal-Mart if it elected to move into a vacant downtown space.

“If they had come in with a downtown proposal of 75,000 square feet . . . they would have had a Wal-Mart five years ago,’’ Holmes said.

Morris, of Wal-Mart, said a downtown location is not feasible because creating underground parking would be too expensive.

Meanwhile, supporters say there is urgency to move the Wal-Mart along because the store would bring jobs to the area.

“I want to see the downtown do well, but we need that store,’’ Ron Vincent, a contractor, said.

Roberta McGraw, a retired IBM worker, said, “The need for employment outweighs the need for a cornfield.’’

Opponents say the town could lose 12 businesses and 40 jobs if Wal-Mart comes to town and draws customers away from local stores. Some of the losses would come from other retail chains - such as TJ Maxx, JC Penneys, Peebles - which opened in St. Albans when a wave of Burlington commuters began settling in the town, attracted by less-expensive real estate.

By far, opponents’ biggest worry, though, is that Wal-Mart will erode Vermont’s unique ethos.

“I ran away from Cleveland,’’ said Marie Frey, a Wal-Mart opponent and co-owner of Hudak Farm, which sits less than a mile down the road from the corn field.

“All the development there has made it so unrecognizable. And now it’s chasing me. The development is going on here, little by little.’’

Wal-Mart Cereal Being Recalled

By Melissa Stiers,
Georgia Public Broadcasting
September 19th, 2009                               [back to top]  

The Wal-Mart cereal Great Value Berry Crunch is being recalled.

Boxes of Great Value Berry Crunch with code 07 21 10 N02 may have almonds not listed on ingredients the label. The FDA warns people allergic or sensitive to nuts could have a serious reaction. (photo courtesy Wal-Mart) It was distributed in 30 states, including Georgia.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned the product may contain almonds that aren’t listed as ingredients and people with an allergy or sensitivity to almonds or tree nuts could have a reaction to it.

Those who have purchased the 21 oz. box of cereal can return it for a refund.

Only the product containing the code 07 21 10 N02 is affected by this recall.

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Walmart Keeps Pushing Healthcare Initiatives, No Matter What Retail Thinks

By Mike Duff,
BNET
September 17th, 2009                               [back to top]  

When it takes on an issue, Walmart does so in a fully realized manner and inevitably incorporates it into retail operations, so it’s not surprising that the company brought up the healthcare debate currently centered on the United States Congress in announcing an expansion of its low-cost prescription drug programs.

In a statement, Walmart noted that while debate continues to roil Washington, it is taking action as part of its commitment “to doing its part to reduce the cost of health care for everyone.”

That commitment comes in the form of a free delivery service for prescription drugs, which represents another expansion of the company’s original program of providing 30-day supplies of 300 such medications for $4 through its store pharmacies. In this case, customers nationwide with a valid prescription can receive a 90-day supply of eligible drugs for only $10 by calling a toll free phone number, 1-800-2REFILL or visiting walmart.com/pharmacy, where they also can find a complete list of the eligible medications.

The medicines come in the mail at no charge and the program asks for no club or enrollment fees, which are an element in some low-cost retail prescription drug programs.

Mail maintenance prescription programs are a big deal to pharmacy operators, as they lock a customer into a relationship with the retailer who can provide the range of medicines a customer needs and ancillary services as well. For example, Walmart, as part of an array of web-based services, offers seniors help in determining Medicare Part D eligibility and finding associated prescription drug plans. Many drug chains provide more elaborate services. Walgreens, for example, is a pioneer in electronic prescriptions that allow doctors to order drugs directly without paper scripts. In March, Walgreens pharmacies set a company record, filling 3.1 million prescriptions electronically, about 15 percent of all the drug store chain’s eligible prescriptions and a 211 percent increase versus the year-earlier month.

For its part, Walmart launched its $4 prescription drug program in 2006, and expanded the effort to more and new classes of medication in 2007. The in-store program also offers 90-day pharmacy drug supplies for $10. Additionally, Walmart has dipped its toe into the benefit management area, purchasing prescription drugs for Caterpillar and providing its employees with discounted prices on their purchases.

Walmart will build on the central element of the newly launched program and already is pointing out that it offers 3,000 other low-price branded and generic prescriptions that are eligible for free mail delivery.

Of course, Walmart famously broke with the retail on healthcare, supporting reform and provoking criticism from within its own industry. The company evidently sees a new avenue of development within the sphere of its low-cost approach to sectors where price matters most to consumers, and the retailer appears determined to forge forward, letting the debate over healthcare carry it along.

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Judge Yet to Decide, Documentary Airdate Set

By Brian Rubin,
Shawangunk Journal
September 17th, 2009                     [back to top] 

Just prior to presstime, the Journal received an e-mail regarding the upcoming documentary on Walmart in today's economy, slated to be aired on Wednesday, September 23, at 9 p.m. on CNBC. Camera crews led by producer Lori Gordon came to an April Wawarsing Planning Board meeting to film a public hearing for the documentary, called "The NEW Age of Walmart." A sneak preview of the documentary on YouTube features clips from the meeting, along with residents and business owners speaking their minds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHFbxq3rkuI. An information page about the documentary featuring another image from the meeting can be found here: http://www.cnbc.com/id/18803817?__source=vty|walmart|&par=vty.

Decisions, Decisions Despite having spoken with Ulster County court clerks about the supposedly scheduled September 8 decision regarding the lawsuit between Shop-Rite, Walmart, and the Town of Wawarsing, it seems that we'll all be waiting a while yet, with no hard and fast decision date actually set.

According to Moss Calhelha, the attorney representing Shop-Rite in the lawsuit, documents are still being submitted.

"Answers have been submitted and filed at this point by all of the respondents, the planning board and the town board. Motions have been filed, and there's going to be more papers submitted and the case won't be fully submitted until sometime in October," he said.

A source familiar with the case shed some further light on the filing process, and offered some insight into when a decision about the case's next phase might be issued.

"Once a case is fully submitted, then the judge has some time to review everything that's in front of him," said the source.

"The papers are all submitted, the judge reviews them, and then the judge typically has a period of time to render a decision, and there's a variety of different motions here. It might be 60 days after that, or it might be longer. It depends on the judge, and this is obviously a complex case, so I don't think anyone can accurately predict how long it will take for the judge to render a decision."

As always, we will continue to offer updates as we obtain them.

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Off the runway, designers adapt to new fashion reality

By Andria Cheng,
Market Watch
September 16th, 2009                        [back to top] 

"It's a new economy," the veteran designer known for her parachute jumpsuit and sleeping bag coat said in an interview, clad in a $10 black tank top and a $5 belt from her Wal-Mart (WMT 50.22, +0.26, +0.52%) line paired with a $500 jumper from her designer collection.

"You can buy something that's got a great value at $1,000 and something that's got a great value at $10. And you can wear them together. People are going to shop this way from now on."

A year after Lehman Brothers' collapse sparked a chain reaction that also sent the luxury sector into a tailspin, fashion designers have each adapted, in their different ways, to the new reality of fashion while redefining what luxury is.

The high-end sector has been among the worst hit in this recession with retailers from Saks Inc. (SKS 7.20, +0.16, +2.27%) to Nordstrom Inc. (JWN 31.61, -0.09, -0.28%) cutting their orders after luxury shoppers joined the rest of the consumers to pare their purchases.

"Because the world has changed so much, everybody is more open-minded," said Saks Chief Executive Steve Sadove. "As (designer) vendors know that the business isn't getting bigger, there's much more of a willingness to partner."

In Saks' new designer floor on the third floor of its New York flagship, designers such as Oscar de la Renta, for instance, will unveil in the Saks shop $600 blouses, compared with his traditional blouses usually in the thousand- dollar range, said Saks' Chief Merchandising Officer Ron Frasch. Read more on the new face of luxury at Saks.

High-end retailers such as Saks said while their shoppers aren't trading down, they are responding well to lower-priced lines from different designer labels.

Designing for the masses

"We are putting out more lower-priced products," said Francisco Costa, creative director of Calvin Klein Collection, which is returning to the Saks store for the first time in about two years. "We have a great line with very diverse prices so it meets a lot of needs. Everybody is being cautious. You have to be price conscious."

While designer labels such as Calvin Klein are creating more lower-priced products within their own collections, more designers such as Anna Sui are joining the list of their industry counterparts to create products for retailers on the other end of the price spectrum.

Wal-Mart's top rival Target Corp. (TGT 48.60, -0.08, -0.15%) , for instance, chose New York's bi-annual Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, where media and retail buyers from around the world congregate, to launch its limited-edition designer Anna Sui collection. Midpriced department store operator J.C. Penney Co. (JCP 33.67, +0.09, +0.27%) also chose the occasion to launch its Cindy Crawford Style home collection.

"It's still Anna Sui wear," said former Project Runway model Tia Shipman, who said she will be shopping Target for the collection even though she counts Saks and Barneys New York among her favorite stores. "You get to go to one of the cheapest places. You are getting the best of both worlds."

The 20-year old Shipman, who said she was used to buying at least one pair of French designer Christian Louboutin's shoes a month, has had to cut back as well. Designers changing their business model to respond to the retail climate has also impacted models like her, she said.

"Designers are doing more presentations" instead of runway shows, the Maryland native said, adding she's doing much fewer shows compared with her average of 10 to 15 shows in the past. "The pay for presentation isn't just the same. Designers also are trying to do more trade in (and give clothes) instead of money. Who wants clothes when you have to pay rent? The economy is really taking away from everybody's pocket."

Indeed, as designers gathered for the Fashion Week, more of them are experimenting with different ways to make their names and designs known to their target consumers. The rise of the 24x7 digital media and bloggers that also became endorsed show attendees meant the coverage and any commentary would become instantly available to the public.

"It's no longer a front-row event where a few important people get to see things first," said Kamali, who is taking her show, titled "The Democratization of Fashion" to an untraditional venue at Apple Inc. store in SoHo with her runway fares being available for sale right after her show. "Everybody gets to see everything right away. The economy and new technology change every industry. We have to change the way we sell clothes, the way we present them, when we present them and how we communicate with our customers."

Designer Carmen Marc Valvo for the second straight season, after 15 years, decided to forgo the traditional Bryant Park tents and this time took his runway to the Nasdaq tower in Times Square where his show was broadcast on jumbo screens in the busy tourist zone over a three-hour period.

A CD of the fashion show also was made immediately available to the media, retailers and other guests.

In-house manufacturing

"With fashion week being so crazy, buyers went from one show to another," said Valvo. "This was a continuous presentation. Retailers and press could talk to me. It's a much nicer experience to view the clothing."

The format also saved Valvo money. Instead of shelling out for a Bryant Park show that could have cost him $200,000, his show at Times Square was about a fourth of that.

Designer Tia Cibani of Ports 1961, on the other hand, opted to move her show for the first time within Bryant Park space to the biggest and priciest tent so she could accommodate more guests to see her Japanese-inspired designs and a collection that included using stingray and bamboo for the first time and mixing the biggest variety of textures -- from glass beads and bamboo chips to metal and crochet yarn, in some pieces.

She also went ahead to open her first store in New York in February, even as retailers and designers were curtailing or slowing their opening plans.

"Bloomingdale's (M 17.59, -0.04, -0.23%) picked us up for the first time in pre-spring collection," the designer said, adding the company's owning its own factories and doing most manufacturing in house in China without paying middlemen has given it a competitive advantage and allowed it to sell clothing at a lower price that's increasingly attractive to retailers. "We had positive feedback from other clients. They are placing the orders and moving forward. We beat our projections."

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New normal? U.S. consumers coming back cautiously

By Emily Kaiser,
Reuters
September 16th, 2009                [back to top] 

U.S. grocery store chain Kroger Co (KR.N) says shoppers are starting to buy national brands again instead of lower-priced store-label versions.

Best Buy Co (BBY.N), the largest U.S. electronics chain, sees sales trends improving and customer traffic stabilizing, although people are still gravitating toward cheaper items.

This certainly isn't 2005, when Americans were feeling flush from rising real estate and stock market values and buying up flashy cars and flat-screen televisions, piling up a record amount of debt in the process.

But it isn't late 2008 either, when retailers suffered a sudden, steep drop in demand for everything but the bare essentials, driving several large chains -- including Best Buy's competitor Circuit City -- out of business.

Think of it as a return to inconspicuous consumption, and perhaps an early indication of how the economy might look as it adjusts to a new era of frugality after the mid-decade boom.

Any improvement in discretionary spending is a welcome development as the economy climbs out of recession. Indeed, Tuesday's surprisingly strong retail sales figures for August were seen as a strong signal the downturn was over.

But the trends described by these large retail chains put a bit of a damper on the optimism inspired by the sales figures. They are more consistent with the sort of sluggish recovery the Federal Reserve and many private economists expect.

"The recovery will be slow and uneven, and it could take a decade or more for consumers to restore their sense of financial security to pre-recession levels," said Richard Curtin, the University of Michigan economist who heads up the Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment surveys.

Perhaps the most telling comment came from Wal-Mart Stores Inc's (WMT.N) chief executive, Mike Duke, who said at a recent investor conference that customers remained cautious and were shunning lower-quality "throw-away" items.

"This is the new normal. This is not something that is going to change," he said.

PAYCHECKS AND SPENDING

Some of the recent improvement in consumption probably reflects pent-up demand. At Kroger, for example, it remains to be seen whether the appetite for more expensive national brands has staying power or is just a burst of pantry restocking.

"Don't underestimate the power of pent-up demand," said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group in Princeton, New Jersey.

"This is not to say consumers will come back in full force -- only that we are likely to see some more upward surprises in household spending in the months ahead," he added.

Pent-up demand is also a big reason why deep recessions are typically followed by sharp recoveries. Some investors and economists are banking on a big bounce-back this time. But the hallmark of those recoveries was a consumer revival far more powerful than what has been seen so far in this episode.

While August's sales were surprisingly strong, July's were weak and many economists think the current month will be lackluster because of the end of the government's "cash for clunkers" program that offered incentives to buy new cars.

To be sure, that could very well add up to the strongest quarterly consumption reading since before the recession started in December 2007. But it may still pale in comparison to earlier robust recoveries.

For example, in the quarter that marked the end of the 1953 recession, personal consumption expenditures rose at a 5.3 percent annual rate, more than triple the pace recorded in the prior quarter.

Following the 1973 downturn, one of the longest since World War Two, the spending rate doubled to 6.8 percent just after the downturn officially ended. In the fourth quarter of 1982, the end of back-to-back recessions, consumer spending jumped at a 7.5 percent annual rate.

That doesn't mean the economy won't turn in a couple of quarters of above-trend growth to close out 2009. In fact, prospects for that look quite promising as automakers and other manufacturers ramp up production.

But there are plenty of reasons to doubt this will be a sustainably strong consumer-led recovery.

In addition to the well-documented pain in the labor market and clamp-down on consumer credit, there is also evidence that wealthy consumers -- who account for a disproportionate amount of spending -- are feeling unusually downbeat.

Michael Feroli, an economist at JPMorgan in New York, pointed out that sentiment among those earning more than $100,000 a year "has fallen off the table" in recent ABC News/Washington Post consumer comfort index readings.

"The economy isn't one man, one vote, so if the upper income consumer is worried that's going to have a pretty big impact on aggregate demand," he said.

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Living paycheck to paycheck: Three out of five workers anxious for payday

By Mercedes Cardona,
Daily Finance
September 16th, 2009                        [back to top] 

With a consensus building that we've now seen the worst of this recession, economists worry that the recovery won't happen unless consumer spending bounces up. And that's going to take a while. A disturbing poll hints at why: 61 percent of workers live paycheck to paycheck.

The number of people who wait anxiously for payday has skyrocketed from just 43 percent two years ago, according to the survey, by job-search website CareerBuilder.

Even people with six-figure salaries are not immune: 30 percent of workers earning $100,000 or more a year are also going payday-to-payday, up from 21 percent last year.

This is hardly a surprise. In a recent speech to investors, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) chairman Mike Duke said the "paycheck cycle" in his stores has become much more marked in the last year. Sales dip sharply towards the end of the month, even for essential items, then spike on the first of the month, as people's paychecks come in. Some 24-hour stores even get a bump in traffic after midnight on the first of the month, he said.

Retailers may have been encouraged by the August sales results, but with unemployment pushing 10 percent, it's a bad sign when even people with jobs have trouble making it to payday. The CareerBuilder survey polled 4,478 full-time workers, not temps or part-timers.

And many are dipping into savings or putting off saving just to keep going, another bad omen for getting out of this credit crunch.

Twenty-one percent of the employees polled say they have cut back on 401(k) contributions or savings to make ends meet and 33 percent said they are not putting any money aside. In an economy that had a low savings rate to begin with, that is a bad sign indeed.

As long as household budgets are that tight, a recovery will be an iffy proposition, since consumer spending makes up 70 percent of GDP and most economists see a "jobless recovery" in months ahead. If those households pulling in salaries are barely making it, large numbers of unemployed will have to find jobs before consumer spending -- and the economy as a whole -- can improve.

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Wal-Mart Solicits Opinions About Great Value Brand

Supermarket News
September 15th, 2009                     [back to top] 

Wal-Mart Stores is seeking consumers for its new Great Value Round Table.

“Take a few minutes to register, and we’ll email you a link to your first Great Value survey,” states the retailer on a website dedicated to the effort. “Every time you finish a survey, you get a chance to win a $500 Walmart Gift Card!”

After submitting demographic information, participants are asked whether they agree with statements including: “If I have to trade off between price and store conditions, like clutter, I will pick the better store environment, and I am less likely to shop a store if I don’t approve of their business practices, even if it saves me money to shop there.” Wal-Mart will also ask members to purchase specific products, evaluate them and provide feedback.

“Product evaluations that will be available to you will be based on the products you typically purchase,” according to Wal-Mart.

One drawing will be held each month the survey is conducted. Ten $500 gift cards will be awarded each month. Panel members will receive additional entries for fully completing multiple product tests per month. Four to six tests will earn one extra entry, seven to nine, two extra, and 10 will earn three extra. The value of the gift cards may be taxable as income.

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Wal-Mart Taking Mail Order Drug Program Nationwide

Associated Press
September 15th, 2009                  [back to top] 

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Tuesday it is going nationwide with a program that lets customers get 90-day supplies of prescription drugs through the mail for as little as $10.

Wal-Mart said a group of 300 generic drugs will cost $10 per order, and more than 3,000 other drugs will be included in the program. The company said the mail delivery service is free, although customers still have to pay for the drugs. There is no enrollment fee or membership, the company said.

Customers can place their orders at the company's Web site or by calling 1-800-2REFILL. Wal-Mart began testing the program in May and expanded it in August.

In midday trading, Wal-Mart shares lost 25 cents to $50.13.

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Wal-Mart to Raise 1 Billion Euros From 20-Year Bonds

By Esteban Duarte
and Caroline Hyde,
Bloomberg
September 14th, 2009                     [back to top] 

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, plans to raise 1 billion euros ($1.5 billion) from its first benchmark sale of bonds in the European currency, according to a banker involved in the transaction.

The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company will price the 20- year notes to yield 98 basis points more than the mid-swap rate, said the banker, who declined to be identified before the sale is completed. That compares with a spread of 131 for non- financial company euro bonds due in 10 years or more, Merrill Lynch & Co. data show. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.

“Wal-Mart is an attractive name as it seems to be relatively unscathed from the downturn,” said Stephan Ertz, a Frankfurt-based fund manager at Union Investment. “It’s the first time they are selling a bond in euros, allowing them to propose a relatively tight guidance for 20-year debt.”

The retailer drew more customers to its stores worldwide in August as it attracted wealthier shoppers, Chief Executive Officer Mike Duke said last week. In Europe, Wal-Mart owns U.K. supermarket chain Asda Group Ltd.

Wal-Mart’s euro issue follows its sale of 100 billion-yen ($1.1 billion) of notes in July, the first bonds sold by a U.S. company to Japanese investors since Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. defaulted on its debt in September 2008. The retailer’s debt is rated at Aa2 by Moody’s Investors Service, the third- highest investment-grade ranking, and an equivalent AA by Standard & Poor’s.

Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank AG and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc are managing the sale, the banker said.

A Wal-Mart spokesman in Bentonville couldn’t be reached outside of office hours.

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Wal-Mart names Scott Price CEO of Asian operations

Associated Press
September 10th, 2009                        [back to top] 

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, said Thursday it named Scott Price as executive vice president, president and chief executive of Walmart Asia, effective Oct. 15.

Price replaces Vicente Trius, who was CEO of Wal-Mart ( WMT - news - people )'s Asia region, but has been named CEO of Wal-Mart's Latin America segment.

Price most recently served as CEO of DHL Express Europe. He also served as CEO of DHL Express Asia Pacific and worked for 10 years at Coca-Cola Co. ( KO - news - people )

Price will assume responsibility for operations in Asia, which include China, India and Japan.

Shares of Wal-Mart declined 6 cents to $51.05 in morning trading.

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Outraged Parents Sue Wal-Mart, And Arizona for Taking Kids

By JAMIE ROSS,
Courthouse News Service
September 10th, 2009                            [back to top] 

PHOENIX (CN) - A married couple who took photos of their daughters in the bathtub sued Wal-Mart, the Arizona Attorney General and the City of Peoria, claiming the state took away their girls and placed them in foster care, and police and an assistant attorney general defamed them to dozens of their friends by saying they had "sexually abused" the girls by taking the photos.

Plaintiffs Lisa and A.J. Demaree say they photographed their daughters in the bathtub while on a family trip to San Diego, then dropped off the camera's memory stick at a Wal-Mart in Peoria to have the photos developed. The girls were 5, 4, and 1½ at the time.

The Peoria Wal-Mart reported the photos to the Peoria Police Department, said Richard Treon, the family's attorney.

Of 150 photos on the memory stick, about seven showed the girls "with a towel around and in various portions of nudity," Treon said.

"The photo policy is a bit of a stretch when it is pictures of your kids," the attorney said.

Wal-Mart has an "unsuitable print policy" by which it decides "(without telling the customer that it had this policy) whether any photographs supplied by a customer on a computer 'memory stick' contained nudity of a minor of any kind and, if so, Wal-Mart would then decide whether to turn those photographs over to the police," according to the complaint in Maricopa County Court.

The Demarees sued Wal-Mart in one complaint, and sued Arizona, the Arizona Attorney General and the City of Peoria in a second complaint in the same court.

According to the complaint against the state, Wal-Mart reported the photos to the Peoria Police Department, then Arizona Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Hunter "published defamatory remarks to more than 35 family members and friends of plaintiffs, falsely stating that plaintiffs Lisa and A.J. Demaree 'sexually abused' their children." A Peoria police detective named Krause "made false and defamatory statements to agents and employees of the defendants, medical providers, and others, including, but not limited to, accusations that plaintiffs had sexually abused their children, sexually exploited their children, took pornographic photos of their children, and/or that said parents were engaged in illegal actions by taking bath and play time photos of their children," according to the complaint against the state.

The state then took the children away from their parents to see if they had been sexually violated; the girls were separated and placed in foster care, Treon said.

"It's every parent's nightmare that the state would decide or have a better idea of how you should parent your children," Treon says. "You would think CPS [Child Protective Services] would have better things to do with their resources."

The Demarees want people to understand that if they take family photos to Wal-Mart, the store acts "as an agent of the police department by screening their photos," and turns clerks and managers into censors, Treon said.

The family seeks punitive damages for defamation and outrage.

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Wal-Mart Expects Christmas Buying To Come Late This Year

By Karen Talley,
Dow Jones Newswires
September 10th, 2009                           [back to top] 

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) expects another challenging Christmas for the retail industry, with shoppers holding off purchases until late in the season after they have been able to research where they can get the best prices and values.

"The customer will use every bit of intelligence, price comparisons and shopping on the Internet," said Wal-Mart Chief Executive Mike Duke at a Goldman Sachs retail conference Thursday.

As a result, Wal-Mart will plan its approach accordingly, said Treasurer Charles Holley. "You won't see us putting up Christmas decoration in September.

Wal-Mart Stores is seeing consumer frugality on a "global" basis, cutting across all incomes, in a development the retailer feels will help its international expansion, Duke said. "Our international business has much, much more upside and will continue to be the fastest-growing segment percentagewise," and also be a primary driver of increased profit and return on investment.

While Wal-Mart expands overseas, as it also engages in U.S. growth, the retailer appears to plan an evolutionary rather than revolutionary approach. Sizes for new stores, even superstores, may be a bit smaller. Wal-Mart is already experimenting with different sized and style stores in the various countries it operates in.

In terms of leverage, Wal-Mart is in a position to use its size to secure some of the best prices for merchandise, and Duke sees lower costs from operations, as well as greater efficiencies, key to bringing more customers into stores and keeping them coming back.

The retailer is, however, still seeing a considerable degree of deflation among the foods it carries, which Duke expects to continue at least through the end of the year.

Wal-Mart shares were recently off 0.4% at $50.91

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Wal-Mart's Rueful Victory at the Battle Of the Wilderness

By Robert McCartney,
The Washington Post
September 10th, 2009                      [back to top] 

In the hierarchy of Civil War engagements, the Battle of the Wilderness doesn't quite make the A-list. Although it ranks in the top 10 by the grisly measure of total casualties, it doesn't enjoy the fame of Gettysburg or Antietam. Wilderness doesn't even get top billing in its own national park, which includes four major battlefields and is named for Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania.

Given such shaky status, it's little surprise that Wilderness has lost to Wal-Mart Stores in the latest encounter in the nation's conflict between developers and the robust Civil War preservationist community. Unless final appeals soften its corporate heart, Wal-Mart will build a Supercenter right at the edge of the densely thicketed area in Virginia, 60 miles south of Washington, where 160,000 Americans fought for two bloody days in 1864.

That's frustrating, because a reasonable compromise has long been within reach. The preservationists say it's fine with them if Wal-Mart builds the store a few miles up the road. It would be a hassle, and costly, to find another piece of land and get it rezoned. But there's lots of empty forest there, and the company and authorities in Orange County should do it.

Otherwise, the new store and the additional development it will attract will destroy the mostly woodsy ambience at a crossroads once defended by Union troops where most visitors now enter the battlefield. Wal-Mart and its supporters make some good arguments but can't justify permanently defacing the entrance to a historic national site.

"Our main concern is what happens to that gateway," said Russ Smith, superintendent of the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. "We're hoping that Wal-Mart will show itself a good corporate citizen" by moving the site, he said.

The struggle between strip malls and hallowed ground crops up regularly in our region, the richest in the nation in Civil War history. The debate over Wilderness has been shaped significantly by preservation guidelines issued in 1993 amid bitter tussles over development around the two battlefields in Manassas.

At Wilderness, as elsewhere, the tug of war pits property rights against community rights. The Orange County supervisors, who voted 4 to 1 last month to approve the store, stressed that the 50-acre site had been zoned commercial for decades. That means the owner, an outside investor, has been paying higher taxes than if the site were zoned for homes or farming, so supervisors said he should have the right now to cash in. They also say the county needs the jobs, close-to-home shopping and half-million dollars in annual tax revenue that the project will generate.

The larger community also has rights, though, and in this case the community is the entire nation. In two years, the United States will mark the 150th anniversary of the nation's bloodiest conflict, whose impact we still feel today. Before the Civil War, most Americans the race of our current president were slaves. We should honor that history by making extra efforts to preserve the places that trigger memories of the brutal price paid for national unity and the end of slavery.

Wal-Mart and its supporters dismiss such opposition as exaggerated, because the store would not sit directly on parkland or on what is known as the core battlefield, where the most intense fighting took place. Instead, the site is in what was the Union rear. They point out that a Sheetz gasoline station and McDonald's are already at the intersection and that Wal-Mart has promised to take steps to minimize the store's visibility, such as leaving some trees between it and the road.

That's not quite the full story. The Wal-Mart would be well inside the battlefield's "historic boundary," according to historians chartered by Congress in 1993 to make such distinctions. That means it's an area that doesn't need absolute protection but should be treated with sensitivity. More important, though, the site would be four times the size of the commercial development that's already there and is universally expected to attract still more stores.

Teri Pace, the only supervisor who voted against Wal-Mart, called the store "a huge economic mistake," adding, "If you want to capitalize on tourism, you don't do that by building the kind of commercial retail that people are trying to escape."

Most outsiders have agreed. A bipartisan roster of Virginia's top politicians expressed opposition to the plan before the supervisors' vote. The list included Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D), House of Delegates Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford) and both candidates for governor. More than 250 prominent Civil War historians signed a letter of protest. The supervisors have received more than 3,500 e-mails urging them to put the store somewhere else.

Although it is little remembered and ended in a draw, Wilderness has the distinction of being the first encounter between the war's two best-known generals, Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. It was also the first battle in the 11-month Union campaign that ultimately captured Richmond and ended the war. Wal-Mart should move up the road. It has lots of stores. There's only one Wilderness.

Scrap That Law

On a separate matter, here's one objective for the next Virginia governor, whoever it is: Scrap or at least change the state law banning "crimes against nature." Among other things, it prohibits any oral or anal sex, including between married couples. It's not enforced and is almost certainly unconstitutional under a 2003 Supreme Court ruling. But it's still on the books and has drawn scrutiny because Republican candidate Robert F. McDonnell cited it six years ago in discussing a judicial appointment.

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Coalition Organizes Against Wal-Mart's "Race To The Bottom"

By Angela Caputo,
Progress Illinois
September 9th, 2009                             [back to top] 

It's no secret that Wal-Mart has been making inroads at City Hall. But in those South Side neighborhoods targeted by the company for new stores, there's still of skepticism over the mega-retailer's intentions. Today, the newly-formed Good Jobs Chicago coalition -- made up of clergy and community organizations -- showed up at City Hall to let aldermen know that three years after Mayor Daley vetoed the big box living wage ordinance, they still want to see Wal-Mart raise its wages and benefits before elected officials support any expansion.

This time around, organizers are looking for a legally-binding community benefits agreement from city officials that requires Wal-Mart to pay fair wages, make health care affordable, extend workers the right to organize, and sell locally-grown food. "It's the role of government to ensure its citizens that you should not have to work a 40-hour week and still be living in poverty and then have to rely on the government for food stamps and Medicaid," St. Sabina's Rev. Michael Pfleger said.

Representatives of Southside Organizing for Unity and Liberation (SOUL) pointed out today that, while they agree with Ald. Howard Brookins Jr. (21st Ward) that jobs are sorely needed in their communities, they take issue with the notion that any jobs -- particularly those with poverty wages -- will suffice. "At $8 an hour, that's $210 a week," Rev. Booker Vance said of the minimum wage handed out by many big box retailers. "Multiply that by four and that's not even enough to make rent on the South Side of Chicago. And that's not including food." Ironically, Brookins -- Wal-Mart's chief advocate in the City Council -- has refused to take the recommended 17 furlough days from his $110,000 a year (part-time) job, recently telling a CBS reporter, "Unless they suspend my child support payments, I can't afford it."

Wal-Mart workers, of course, make only a small fraction of that aldermanic salary. And many of those employees can't afford the basics, such as adequately feeding their families, the Illinois Hunger Coalition's Diane Doherty tells us. "Too many of our people who are working are hungry," she says. And that's only tipped more working people into government programs, such as food stamps, where the numbers continue to surge.

"We don't want these jobs to be a race to the bottom," Action Now director Denise Dixon said today. "'We tell any employer that wants to bring jobs into our community, 'Come on. But bring good jobs with you.' "

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Wal-Mart to settle wage lawsuit

By Kevin McCallum,
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
September 9th, 2009                          [back to top] 

Wal-Mart will settle the lawsuit brought by 116,000 California workers who won a landmark $172 million judgment against the company in 2005 for illegally denying them meal breaks.

In its quarterly report filed Wednesday, the world's largest retailer revealed that it had agreed July 13 to settle the class-action lawsuit led by prominent Sonoma County attorney Fred Furth.

The suit, Savaglio v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., accused the company of denying its workers meal and rest breaks.

State law require employers to provide an unpaid 30-minute meal break after five hours of work, and a second such break if the employee works more than 10 hours per day.

"I think it sends a message that Wal-Mart wants to get these kinds of practices behind them," Furth said. "I think it also sends a message to other companies that the law on meal breaks is a serious law."

Wal-Mart said the labor law violations do not reflect its corporate culture today.

"Regardless of its merits when it was filed, the allegations are not representative of the company we are today," said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Michelle Bradford.

An Alameda County Superior Court jury in 2005 ordered the company to pay $57 million in general damages and $115 million in punitive damages following a three-month trial. The company appealed.

In July, Wal-Mart agreed to pay between $77 million and $152 million, depending on the number of current and former workers who step forward. The settlement is "probably the largest employment lawsuit settlement in history," Furth said.

Each worker will receive a minimum of $75 and a maximum of $950, depending on the number of violations, Furth said.

The number of workers potentially covered by the class-action suit has swelled from 116,000 at trial to 326,000 today, Furth said. That's largely because the company agreed to expand the time period covered by the settlement, and because the company has opened many new stores in the state in recent years, he said.

The fact that the company has a fairly high turnover rate also contributed to the growth of the class, Furth said.

Previously, only associates who worked at the company's California stores between 2001 and May 2005 were covered by the case. But the settlement will cover the period from 2000 through July 2009, Furth said.

How many people ultimately step forward to be paid is hard to gauge, Furth said.

With such large numbers of workers over so long a period, some are bound to be unreachable or will choose not to participate, Furth said.

Both sides have lists of Wal-Mart employees during the period and will be making efforts to contact every worker potentially impacted, Furth said.

He agreed to settle the case for less than the amount awarded at trial to speed payment of the settlement to workers.

"In order to get my class members, many of whom live in Sonoma County, their money and to short circuit the legal process, we decided to settle the matter," Furth said.

Settling the case will also generate significant legal fees for Furth and his San Francisco firm, Zelle, Hofmann, Voelbel, Mason & Gette LLP.

Once the case is sent back from the appellate court to Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland, Furth said he will be requesting more than $50 million in attorney's fees. He filed the suit in 2001.

"I've invested millions in this case," he said.

Furth, 75, ran his own antitrust class-action firm in San Francisco for decades, chalking up multimillion-dollar victories against everyone from makers of gypsum wallboard to the NFL.

Fond of white suits, private jets and expensive cigars, the flamboyant Furth is an avid pilot and active in county philanthropic circles. He founded Chalk Hill Winery, a prestigious Healdsburg chardonnay specialist.

In 2008, he announced plans to move his practice to Santa Rosa. When few of the firm's attorneys agreed to follow him, Furth dissolved the firm and joined Zelle to help him complete the case.

The large San Francisco firm, which has been handling the Savaglio appeal, will get a percentage of the fees from the case and Furth will get the remainder, he said.

Even for someone as wealthy as Furth, waiting nearly nine years to see a case resolved has been a challenge.

"We all sort of live on cash flow and certainly one likes to get the fees sooner rather than later," he said.

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Death Comes To Wal-Mart

By Shaun Rein,
Forbes
September 9th, 2009                           [back to top] 

What would you do if several of your employees bludgeoned a customer to death? That is the nightmare scenario Wal-Mart executives are facing in China after five workers allegedly beat a suspected shoplifter to death on Aug. 30 in Jiangxi, China. While the details are murky, it seems that the employees followed a 37-year-old woman out of the store and ordered her to prove that she had bought, not shoplifted, some merchandise she was carrying. The woman, suspicious because the men weren't wearing uniforms, refused to cooperate, and a fight broke out that resulted in her death and the arrest of two people so far. Aside from the tragedy of a woman's loss of life, Wal-Mart is facing a public relations disaster in China, one much worse than any fallout from the poorly crafted advertising campaign I wrote about in "Learn from Burger King's Advertising Fiasco." The company has remained mum on the subject despite a growing firestorm on online message boards calling for boycotts.

It is still unclear whether all or some of the accused killers were even Wal-Mart ( WMT - news - people ) employees. Many companies outsource their security, along with other functions like production and accounting, to outside firms, as a way of reducing fixed costs. It certainly does lower costs and does allow companies to be more responsive to market conditions, but many fail to oversee the policies of their outsourcing partners.

Multinationals need to ensure oversight not just of their own employees but also of all companies they outsource to. They need to spend more money on the training of both their own employees and employees of the companies they outsource to. Consumers and the media make no distinction when something goes wrong.

In this age of Twitter and YouTube, companies' images can be tarnished not only by a single moronic employee, as happened to Domino's in the U.S., but also by the companies that they outsource to around the world. Wal-Mart needed to do a better job of policing its own employees or, if they hired an outside firm to handle security, of training its partners' employees. Unfortunately, many companies view such spending on employees as an unnecessary tax made useless by high turnover. But their short-term savings translate into big costs when something goes wrong.

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Mexico's Wal-Mart to relaunch bank unit

By Noel Randewich,
Reuters
September 9th, 2009                              [back to top] 

Wal-Mart de Mexico plans to relaunch its Mexican bank in coming months, using its thousands of store cashiers to take deposits, in a bid to gain a foothold in an industry dominated by Citigroup (C.N) and Spain's BBVA (BBVA.MC).

By far Mexico's largest retailer, Wal-Mart de Mexico (WALMEXV.MX) plans to offer savings accounts and credit cards to the 3 million customers who visit its stores every day, two-thirds of whom currently have no relationship with any bank, Chief Executive Eduardo Solorzano said on Wednesday.

"By year-end, we'll offer our consumers almost 20,000 cashiers for the bank. That's all the cashiers we have," Solorzano told analysts on a conference call.

Wal-Mart de Mexico, controlled by Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N), first unveiled its bank in 2007 but made little progress in opening branches at its retail stores or heavily promoting its products.

"You're going to see a relaunch of the bank, something maybe between 100 and 150 branches," Solorzano told a conference call. "You'll see that the footprint of the bank will be much clearer than it has been so far."

As well, Wal-Mart de Mexico expects to open 270 stores in 2009, 18 more than previously forecast, Solorzano said.

In the United States, authorities have prevented Wal-Mart from moving into the financial industry, to protect small banks.

In Mexico, government officials say the banking sector is not competitive enough and have authorized Wal-Mart de Mexico and other retailers to open banks to shake up the industry.

The bank's relaunch will include the installation of automated teller machines, currently being tested, in Walmart stores, as well as an advertising campaign.

Solorzano said the company is well positioned to focus on Mexicans with little or no experience with banks.

He gave the example of a customer who might pay for a 97-peso purchase with a 100-peso bill and deposit the 3 pesos of change in his account while at the cash register rather than take back cash.

Mexico's financial industry is dominated by big foreign banks that have made little progress attracting low-income Mexicans, who cannot afford to pay high account maintenance fees.

Shares of Wal-Mart de Mexico were up 0.21 percent at 47.90 pesos. (Reporting by Noel Randewich, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

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Wal-Mart And An Accounting Firm Fire A Muslim For Praying, Suit Says

By Chris Vogel,
Houston Press
September 9th, 2009                        [back to top] 

Mohammed Zakaria Memon just wanted to wash up. To just splash a little water over his face, hands, head and feet before a quick prayer five times a day in accordance with his Muslim religion.

But no. That was too much for the folks at Wal-Mart and Deloitte Consulting. Instead, they canned Memon.

That's according to a lawsuit Memon recently filed against his former employer, Deloitte, and his client, Wal-Mart, in Houston federal court. Memon, a 59-year-old Pakistani-American from Fort Bend who had a $140,000 a year job as a Lead Consultant, claims his civil rights were violated when he was fired for exercising his religious right to pray and clean himself beforehand in a ritual known as "Wazu."

"It's very unfortunate that this happened," Memon's lawyer, Ali Ahmed, tells Hair Balls.

According to the lawsuit, Deloitte assigned Memon to a consulting project at Wal-Mart's corporate office in Bentonville, Arkansas in November 2007. Memon claims he would wash up in the restroom before going to pray in an area designated by Wal-Mart, such as the parking lot or in a hallway. The whole process took about five minutes or so. After a few days, the lawsuit states, Wal-Mart employees began to get upset with Memon for using the bathroom to sprinkle water on himself and Memon was told not to perform the "Wazu." Trying to come up with a fix, Memon's boss at Deloitte suggested that Memon pray at the hotel. However, this was not practical because it meant driving more than half an hour for each prayer instead of just taking a short five-minute break.

It didn't take long until Memon was then taken off the Wal-Mart project. He claims that a Deloitte project manager told him that other colleagues would also be removed from the job, but in the end he was the only one.

According to the lawsuit, the project manager told Memon that, "Americans do not deal with Islamic practices and clients particularly in the South do not understand these religious practices." The manager also allegedly said that Memon "is putting himself at risk" by practicing his religion. Deloitte then fired Memon, citing "poor performance," the lawsuit states.

"It is unlikely that Mr. Memon, who had only good reviews after each [project] ... could have suddenly failed in his performance just days after his religious practices did not sit well with the Wal-Mart employees in Arkansas," Ahmed wrote in the complaint. "Unjustifiably and with prejudicial motive, letting go of a high level consultant with satisfactory performance ... is not only illegal but also despicable. Neither Wal-Mart nor Deloitte Consulting suffered any undue hardship, nor did Mr. Memon's prayer disrupt Wal-Mart's or his employer's business operations."

Ahmed says that Memon has not been able to find work since being fired and is still unemployed.

Update: Wal-Mart has responded to our request for comment. "Respect for the individual is one of our company's core values," says Wal-Mart spokeswoman Michelle Bradford. "We recognize that our business depends on a diverse workforce and customer base and we think it's important to accept and embrace each other's differences."

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Professor criticizes Walmart practices during speech in Ventura

By Rachel McGrath ,
Ventura County Star
September 7th, 2009                      [back to top] 

UC Santa Barbara professor and author Nelson Lichtenstein criticized Walmart’s business practices Sunday in a speech to supporters of an initiative to block big-box stores in Ventura.

Lichtenstein, who was publicizing his book “The Retail Revolution: How Walmart created a Brave New World of Business,” was invited to speak at the E.P. Foster Library by Citizens for Peaceful Resolutions to raise support for Measure C, an initiative on the Nov. 3 ballot that seeks to limit the size of big-box stores in the city.

Lichtenstein spoke about the history of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., from its founding in Arkansas in the 1950s and 60s to its position as a multibillion-dollar corporation today.

He said that technological advances of the modern era allowed Walmart to become a huge success, using the barcode and computer systems to gather information and create a database of shopping habits, prices and demand for goods.

“The retail revolution is the supremacy of the retailer over the manufacturer,” he said.

“Walmart is efficient and does have low prices,” he said. “Distribution is at the heart of the company.”

Walmart recently submitted new plans to renovate and move into a former Kmart location on Victoria Avenue in Ventura. It is the third time Wal-Mart has submitted conceptual drawings for the store, and each proposal has progressively gotten smaller. The latest plan shows a 98,000-square-foot store with food sales, which would comply with new city rules that restrict stores along the busy Victoria corridor to no more than 100,000 square feet.

Critics, though, worry that a Walmart store would hurt local businesses, add low-wage jobs in a community without affordable housing and worsen traffic. The 30 or so people who attended Sunday’s talk reacted enthusiastically to Lichtenstein’s characterizations and opinions of Walmart and its founder, Sam Walton. Lichtenstein accused Walmart of exploiting female workers and the rural poor, and of paying low wages.

Lichtenstein said economic policies associated with former President Ronald Reagan led to the expansion of Walmart into California as cities sought to welcome new sources of sales tax revenue.

“Walmart’s period of greatest growth took place in the era of the Reagan revolution, the Reagan conservative politics, and one part of that conservative politics was the shifting of the tax base away from income, away even from property, and to sales taxes,” he said.

After Lichtenstein’s presentation, Das Williams of CAUSE — Central Coast Alliance United for A Sustainable Economy — took the floor and urged people to “fight Walmart.” He said that the initiative known as Measure C is specifically designed to prevent Walmart coming to Ventura but the law prevents the retail outlet from being specifically named in the proposed initiative.

If approved, the measure would prohibit any new store selling groceries that is larger than 90,000 square feet, scuttling Walmart’s current proposal for the former Kmart site.

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Walmart's workers no longer getting paychecks

By Geoff Williams,
Wallet Pop
September 4th, 2009                            [back to top]

On the heels of a bill-paying service for its customers, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has announced that employees will no longer be receiving paychecks.

But wait, it's not as bad as it sounds. In fact, it's quite good.

Walmart will be paying all of its employees through direct deposit, and for those who don't have a bank account -- and this is where things get decidedly 21st century -- they will instead receive their money in a debit card.

The paper paychecks is what's going out the proverbial window. It's part of what the company calls the "Walmart Sustainability Commitment," where the chain is in the midst of trying to be supplied by only renewable energy, create zero waste and sell environmentally friendly products.

That it will save a mountain of money by no longer printing paper checks for 2.1 million employees around the world is a nice side benefit, but undeniably more than a few trees will also be saved.

There's also another benefit. People who work at Walmart and don't have a checking account -- the "unbanked," they're often called -- will no longer have to go somewhere to cash their checks and lose a portion of their paycheck to a third party. They'll get it all on their prepaid fee-free Debit Mastercard.

One can only wonder if other major retail corporations will eventually follow suit, and if that might inspire other smaller companies to forgo paper checks and instead do direct deposit, which would surely please America's contract employees, freelance writers and solopreneurs who often rely on the postal service to bring their checks. "The check is in the mail," since it often isn't in the mail, has to be one of the more dreaded sentences contract workers hear.

On the other hand, maybe this new development just foreshadows that someday instead of paper checks, companies will just follow Walmart's example, and in an effort to delay sending out payment even longer, will mail their contract employees a prepaid debit card.

Which would take some getting used to. "The prepaid debit card is in the mail" doesn't quite roll off the tongue. Source

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Wal-Mart and healthcare

By Nelson Lichtenstein,
The Los Angeles Times
September 4th, 2009                          [back to top]

Is Wal-Mart turning blue -- blue enough to pull President Obama's healthcare chestnuts out of the fire?

If the nation's largest employer is signing on to the president's agenda, his efforts to pass healthcare reform will have won an important ally. The company employs 1.4 million "associates," has stores in more than 400 congressional districts and maintains a powerful lobbying operation in Washington.

For years, Wal-Mart has been a poster child for low wages, skimpy health insurance and conservative red-state values. Just a year ago, Wal-Mart managers organized meetings in hundreds of store to warn employees that if the Democrats won the White House, the company would face a disruptive unionization campaign.

But now, Wal-Mart supports a key, controversial plank in the health insurance reform plan: an employer mandate that would require big firms to "pay or play" -- either offer their workers an insurance plan or require a company to pay as much as $750 a year per employee to the government for coverage.

This "pay or play" plan puts Wal-Mart on the side of the unions and liberals and has evoked a virtual declaration of war from the National Retail Federation, whose officers reported themselves "astonished" at what they considered Wal-Mart's "catastrophic" endorsement of a government mandate that most retailers -- once including Wal-Mart -- have long considered anathema.

So why Wal-Mart's big switch?

Critics have pounded Wal-Mart for years for its violation of the country's labor laws, for its low wages and for its failure to offer a health insurance plan that more than half of its employees would actually purchase. During the presidential campaign, Obama told a cheering union audience that "the battle to engage Wal-Mart and force them to examine their own corporate values and ... policies ... is absolutely vital."

Criticism of this sort has had a real effect on the company's fortunes. One of its own surveys found that almost 10% of those polled refused to shop there for essentially political reasons, and the company has been stymied in its effort to put a new generation of "supercenters" in coastal California, in Chicago and in liberal cities such as Boston, Washington and New York. Two years ago, Wal-Mart slashed the number of store openings in the U.S. by a third. Its stock price has been flat for almost a decade.

And then the new administration came to power, with Obama appointing Hilda Solis, a genuine labor liberal, to be secretary of Labor. Solis would soon declare that "there's a new sheriff in town" when it came to stepped-up enforcement of the nation's labor laws. Wal-Mart knew it would be a prime target, so in late December 2008 it announced that it was resolving 63 lawsuits in 42 states to settle accusations that it forced employees to skip lunch breaks, work off the clock and sidestep overtime laws. The cost: somewhere between $352 million and $640 million.

The company has made the same kind of calculation when it comes to health insurance, not only to forestall bad press but because an employer mandate actually saves the company money when compared with the more conservative, small-government scheme being put together by the Senate Finance Committee. Without a fixed employer mandate, individual firms would be expected to shoulder part of the cost of the federal subsidy that each of their low-income employees would need to afford the coverage they would be required to buy. Because Wal-Mart, which still has most of its stores in the South and Midwest, has a lot of workers who come from poor families, the company would have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to offset those government payments.

The Senate Finance Committee plan is a Rube Goldberg contraption, sure to generate endless conflict and dispute over both the size of the employee subsidy and the company payment. Indeed, it makes it likely that many firms will discriminate against potential employees who happen to have a lot of kids or come from poor neighborhoods.

So Wal-Mart has put aside founder Sam Walton's disdain for any new government regulation and the ideologically motivated hostility of the rest of the retail industry. An employer mandate is a cheaper, simpler and more universal way to cover those workers who cannot now afford health insurance.

Here is an instance where we can hope that Wal-Mart throws around a bit of its legendary political and economic influence, especially with all those Blue Dog Democrats who hail from the red-state districts where its stores are clustered so thickly.

Nelson Lichtenstein, a professor of history at UC Santa Barbara, is the author of "The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business."

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Wal-Mart aims to silence workers

By WAYNE HANLEY,
THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR
September 4th, 2009                                [back to top]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is the world's largest and most influential corporation. If it were a country, Wal-Mart's economy would be the 26th largest in the world, placing it ahead of Argentina, Greece and Denmark.

Nearly one out of every hundred working North Americans works for Wal-Mart. As a corporation, its size, power and wealth has few -- if any -- rivals in history, and its actions affect us all.

On June 19, Wal-Mart filed an injunction request with the Quebec Superior Court against the website Walmart Workers Canada. Since 2003, this informational website has been owned and operated by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in Canada (UFCW Canada). It was successful in its mandate to help Wal-Mart workers in Canada learn about their rights as workers and to share their stories about working for Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart's injunction request seeks to use trademark law to impose a broad list of orders onto the website.

If successful, the site will be prohibited from using Wal-Mart's name and colour scheme, a parody of Wal-Mart's slogan, or any photograph of a person wearing any blue vest. The site would also have to abandon its established web address.

Most absurdly, they demand the site not use certain "oval, circular or semi-circular" designs.

Given Wal-Mart's unlimited legal budget and its long history of delaying justice through the courts, we have learned to take each Wal-Mart case with a grain of salt.

Our attorneys and legal experts are confident their case against our site is unfounded. So the site remains online, unchanged.

We believe this case is more concerned with the content of our message than with the integrity of Wal-Mart's trademarks.

Given Wal-Mart's famous anti-union ideology, it is not surprising they feel threatened by a website that tells workers how to form a union, among other things. We are concerned that, if the injunction is granted, it would impede our ability to effectively communicate with these workers.

Any attempt to censor an independent website should raise serious questions about the freedom of expression and freedom of association in the digital world. We cannot allow a corporation to determine what is and what is not appropriate content on a not-for-profit informational website. Citizens and working people are increasingly turning to the web to exercise their freedoms of expression and association.

This injunction threatens these rights, which are deeply rooted in Canadian law and culture.

The approach of Labour Day gives a special significance to this legal battle. On the first Monday of each September, we pay tribute to the battles workers have fought and to the gains they have made on history's shop floors and picket lines.

But these battles are far from over.

Working people today continue to fight for their collective rights, which are under constant assault in the globalized world.

This fight against Wal-Mart is one such battle. UFCW Canada hopes it will help keep the Internet a truly free place where workers can come together to exercise their freedom of expression and association without fear of reprisal.

If we can come together to defeat Wal-Mart's injunction, we will send a strong message to the corporate world: your most powerful and influential member tried to restrict our ability to effectively communicate with each other online and they failed.

If such a precedent is set, other corporations will be less likely to make further attempts to divide us online -- and next September we will have one more victory to celebrate.

Wayne Hanley is the national president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in Canada.

The website under threat of censorship is walmartworkerscanada.ca

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First Data teams with Wal-Mart on electronic pay

Denver Business Journal
September 3rd, 2009               [back to top]

First Data will provide the processing and reload network for a new electronic pay program rolling out nationwide at Walmart and Sam’s Club stores, the company said Thursday.

Walmart and Sam’s Club employees may elect to receive their pay on debit cards through the Money Network MasterCard Paycard program. They can still have their pay direct-deposited into bank accounts.

“Walmart is raising the bar for employers everywhere by providing associates who don’t have bank accounts with immediate access to funds on payday, without fee or discount, and access to cash at thousands of locations across the country,” said Ed Labry, president of retail and alliance services for First Data, in a statement. First Data is a Greenwood Village-based electronic payments processor.

Employee funds in the Money Network program are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., officials said.

Walmart and Sam’s Club are units of Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT).

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Antitrust Class Seeks Standing in Netflix-WalMart Conspiracy Claim

By MARIA DINZEO ,
Courthouse News Service
September 3rd, 2009                                        [back to top]

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - A federal judge heard arguments Wednesday on Netflix and WalMart's request to dismiss an antitrust class action that claims they conspired to charge higher prices for Netflix's online DVD rental service, which led Blockbuster to raise its prices too. "The real question is whether you can prove that Blockbuster's response was connected to this alleged conspiracy," U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton told class attorney Robert Abrams. Judge Hamilton said she was more concerned about the directness of the class's alleged injury, since she agreed that customers had been hurt by the higher prices. The class claims that before WalMart and Netflix colluded, they had been in a three-way price war with Blockbuster. Abrams said that sometime in January 2005, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings invited Wal-Mart.com CEO John Fleming to dinner, where they discussed their companies' DVD sales and rental businesses. "Our allegation is that this was when they began the conspiracy," Abrams said. Abrams claimed the companies agreed that Netflix would eschew DVD sales if WalMart would stay away from online DVD rentals. He pointed out that neither company dropped their prices after that meeting and that in June 2005, WalMart dropped out of the online DVD rental market entirely. In May 2005, Blockbuster announced that it would begin "testing" a price increase from $14.99 to $17.99 for a three-movie plan, which eventually became permanent. "This conspiracy is the material cause of Blockbuster's prices going up," Abrams said. "Wal-Mart dropping out is what allowed them to do it. They were a key competitor. Get them out and you're left with a market of only Netflix and Blockbuster." But defendants' attorney Jonathan Jacobson claims the class does not have standing because they were only indirectly injured by what he called "a promotion agreement" between the companies. That agreement allowed WalMart DVD rental customers to switch to Netflix at the same subscription cost. "The plaintiffs' series of facts is plainly speculative and wrong," Jacobson said. Judge Hamilton said that whether the class has standing "is a tough question, just like with all these other antitrust cases you all keep bringing me. I'll have to wade through the case and figure out which direction it should go."

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Wal-Mart to Pay Via Check Cards

By MIGUEL BUSTILLO,
The Wall Street Journal
September 3rd, 2009                         [back to top]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the nation's largest private employer, is eliminating paper payroll checks in the U.S., transferring workers' earnings to a debit card if they decline direct deposit to a bank.

Wal-Mart is the biggest company yet to make the move that it said will save paper and money. It estimates the move will save 257,572 pounds of paper a year. It declined to specify the savings but said the shift will reduce its payroll costs.

Government agencies such as the Social Security Administration have recently begun using similar cards to dispense payments to benefit recipients.

Some Wal-Mart workers last month received earnings electronically in the form of credit to a MasterCard Inc. debit card. All the company's more than 1.4 million U.S. workers at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club warehouse will be paid electronically by month's end, it said. About half of its U.S. workers now receive paper checks.

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

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

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

Workers will be able to use the cards wherever debit cards are accepted, including at ATMs, and will be able to withdraw cash without fees at Wal-Mart and Sam's club registers.

In addition, Wal-Mart workers can receive checkbooks that they can use to write checks on their debit accounts to baby sitters and others who don't accept MasterCard. The workers will still be able to access electronic pay stubs if needed.

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Wal-Mart, Kroger Hold Sustainability Talks

Environmental Leader
September 2nd, 2009                         [back to top]

Normally, Wal-Mart holds court. But to kick-start its sustainability index, Wal-Mart took the unusual step of traveling to the Cincinnati headquarters of competitor Kroger to talk up the effort.

“Having Wal-Mart go to a meeting at Kroger’s headquarters and talk about the sustainability index was a first,” said Matt Kistler, senior vice president for sustainability at Wal-Mart, at a recent Grocery Manufacturers Association meeting, reports Supermarket News.

Kistler credited the GMA with helping to coordinate the meeting with Kroger.

The sustainability index may prompt a new line of thinking at Wal-Mart, which has built its business on selling the cheapest products available.

Kistler said the retailer is considering products based on total system costs, not simply individual product costs.

“We may pay more for packaging because it ships products better and has recyclable value,” he said in the article.

With the creation of a consortium to define the index, Wal-Mart went to extra lengths to be transparent and inclusive with its sustainability index. Wal-Mart invited competitors Costco and Target, along with Kroger, to join the consortium.

The consortium will be led by Jon Johnson, who holds the Walton professorship in sustainability at the University of Arkansas, along with Jay Golden, an assistant professor in the school of sustainability at Arizona State. Among major suppliers said to be involved are Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Tyson, General Mills and Tyson, among others.

To ensure that companies faithfully report their emissions, suppliers to Wal-Mart will be required to report their emissions through the Carbon Disclosure Project.

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Wal-Mart expands DVD player recall

By Catherine Clifford
and Julianne Pepitone,
CNNMoney
September 1st, 2009                     [back to top]

Wal-Mart is recalling 4.2 million Durabrand DVD players, expanding a previous announcement, because of a potential for the device to burst into flames, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said Tuesday.

Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) received 14 complaints of the DVD players overheating; in seven of the cases, the overheating caused a fire that damaged property, according to a statement from the CPSC. No injuries have been reported.

The previous recall, announced on Aug. 20, included 1.5 million silver DVD players. Tuesday's statement expanded the recall to pink and purple versions of the same devices, for a total of 4.2 million players.

The DVD player, imported from China, was sold at Wal-Mart stores from January 2006 through July 2009 for $29.

The DVD player came with a remote control and is silver with a U-shaped opening at the top to insert the DVD.

Consumers should stop using the DVD player immediately and return it to Wal-Mart for a full refund.

For additional information, contact Wal-Mart at (800) 925-6278 or visit the company's Web site at http://walmartstores.com/.

Visa Follows MasterCard in Prepaying Its ‘Wal-Mart’ Obligations

Digital Transactions
September 1st, 2009                           [back to top]

As an attorney for the merchant plaintiffs predicted earlier this summer, Visa Inc. disclosed Monday that it plans to prepay the remaining $800 million of its settlement obligations with merchants under the so-called Wal-Mart debit card class action for a discounted $682 million. If the plan gets court approval, the prepayments from Visa and MasterCard Inc. for a combined $1.02 billion would end one of the most litigious chapters in the bank card networks’ history book. But future pages almost certainly will contain accounts of more courtroom and political battles over merchants’ costs for accepting payment cards. In a regulatory filing, Visa said it would make the payment on Sept. 30 or the day after the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, N.Y., approves the plan, whichever is later. Under the current schedule, Visa has four more annual payments of $200 million to go, with the final one scheduled for Dec. 22, 2012.

Visa’s filing indicates that the proposal has the approval of the merchants’ attorneys. New York attorney Lloyd Constantine of Constantine Cannon LLP, co-lead counsel for the merchant plaintiffs, was unavailable for comment late Monday. But when MasterCard said it would prepay its remaining $400 million settlement obligation for a discounted $335 million, Constantine said he wouldn’t be surprised if Visa followed suit (Digital Transactions News, July 2).

In a brief statement to Digital Transactions News, Visa said it was “pleased to have reached an agreement” to prepay its settlement obligations at a discount. “We believe this agreement is in the best interest of the company and its shareholders,” the statement says.

The settlements arose out of a class-action lawsuit retailers initiated back in 1996. Upset about the cost of accepting rapidly proliferating debit cards, the 8 million class members challenged Visa and MasterCard’s so-called honor-all-cards rules, which required merchants that accepted the networks’ credit cards to also accept their debit cards. The lawsuit became known as the “Wal-Mart case” because of the participation of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the nation’s largest retailer, though Visa and MasterCard call it the “Visa Check/MasterMoney” case in reference to the product names of their signature-based debit cards at the time.

The networks settled in 2003 for just over $3 billion as the case headed to trial, MasterCard for $1 billion and Visa for $2 billion. Visa and MasterCard also agreed to drop their honor-all-cards rules and temporarily lowered signature-debit interchange.

Consultant Eric Grover of Menlo Park, Calif.-based Intrepid Ventures says the prepayment lets Visa “close the door completely” on the Wal-Mart case. “There are bigger problems going forward,” says Grover, a former Visa International executive. Some of those could include yet another pending class action challenging credit card interchange as well as several bills in Congress that would regulate interchange and other aspects of merchants’ acceptance costs. “I don’t think it [the prepayment] will have any effect on the outstanding litigation, and I don’t think it will have an effect on the political debate,” Grover says.

But as Constantine noted when MasterCard announced its prepayment plans, Grover also believes that merchants hurt by the recession will appreciate one big payment soon, even if it is at a discount to the total they would get if they waited through 2012. “It’s a painful economic environment for retailers, and I suspect they would rather have a payout today than a stream of payments to come,” he says.

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Coalition of labor groups challenge Wal-Mart to change

By Kay Mathews,
Digital Journal
September 1st, 2009                     [back to top]

A coalition of more than 18 labor groups announced Sept. 1 that “On Labor Day 2009, we are challenging Walmart to Change.” The coalition, led by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, is urging Wal-Mart to improve the company’s health care, environmental, wage, and labor policies. Previous union efforts resulted in Wal-Mart changing some of its policies, but those efforts were deemed “incremental” by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union. According to The Washington Post, Patrick J. O’Neill, international vice president of the union, said, “We want to see some real change.” O’Neill said: Labor Day is an important time to reflect on the state of the American workplace and worker. As the world’s largest retailer, and America’s number one private employer, Walmart has the largest, most profound impact on jobs and on our economy. Nobody wants an economy where workers earn wages that can’t support a family. Nobody wants an economy where people who go to work everyday and work hard have to turn to public assistance for basic needs. WakeUpWalmart.com, in conjunction with the coalition’s campaign, will be releasing two new television advertisements called “Common Sense Economics Rules.” The ads call on Walmart to offer quality, affordable health care coverage to all its employees. A link to one of the ads is included in this report. Nelson Lichtenstein, author of The Retail Revolution: How Walmart Created a Brave New World of Business, who joined O’Neill to announce the coalition’s campaign, said: When a company gets to be as big as Wal-Mart and employs so many workers - more than any other private enterprise in the world - it is no longer a ‘private’ entity. It sets the wage and benefit standard for every other mass retailer and influences the business practices of just about every firm in America's huge service sector. So Wal-Mart is part of this country's debate: on health care, wages, equal employment, and the role of trade unionism in our democracy. Coalition members include: AFL-CIO, Sierra Club, Campaign for America’s Future, National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, National Consumers League, AFSCME, Communications Workers of America, Interfaith Worker Justice, National Labor Coordinating Committee, Service Employees International Union, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, United Auto Workers, United Farmer Workers and United Steel Workers. In response to the coalition of labor groups’ announcement, Daphne Moore, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart said, "In today's economy, when families are being squeezed, Wal-Mart is playing an important part in their lives," reported The Washington Post. Note: According to Wal-Mart, the terms “Wal-Mart” and “Wal-Mart Stores” refer to the corporate entity. “Walmart,” expressed as one word and without hyphenation, refers to the brand name of the company’s U.S. operations.

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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)