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Wal-Mart Supercenter to anchor planned Turf Paradise Marketplace
Mike Padgett
The Business Journal
June 29, 2005
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A Wal-Mart Supercenter will head the
lineup of several new businesses that soon will be among the attractions
next to Turf Paradise in northwest Phoenix.
The new development, named Turf
Paradise Marketplace, is planned on 70 acres next to the track.
"A Wal-Mart Supercenter will be coming
in, and a Sam's Club and Checker Auto, those will be the first three
built," said track owner Jeremy Simms.
Simms said a major commercial
development has been proposed on the unused property northwest of the
track since 2000, when he bought the race track on a total of more than
300 acres southeast of Bell Road and 19th Avenue.
Both Wal-Mart and Sam's Club are
expected to open by late summer 2006. Wal-Mart spokesman Jack Bisio said
construction is planned to start later this summer. He said an existing
Wal-Mart at 330 W. Bell Road will be closed for relocation to the new
Supercenter at Turf Paradise Marketplace.
The Supercenter will have about
200,000 square feet and employ from 350 to 500 workers. Sam's Club will
have 135,000 square feet and about 200 employees, Bisio said.
Wal-Mart currently has nine
Supercenters in the Valley -- two in Phoenix, two in Glendale, two in
Mesa, and one each in Scottsdale, Surprise and Apache Junction. The
company also has 11 regular Wal-Marts throughout metro Phoenix.
Existing businesses on the south side
of Bell Road, including a renovated McDonald's at the southeast corner
of 19th Avenue and Bell, will be integrated into the new development.
Simms said the design includes a new
four-lane road that will offer access to the track and the new stores.
The road will meander eastward from 19th Avenue toward the track and
then veer north on the existing street from Bell Road.
The race track will remain open during
construction, said Paul Gilbert, Simms' attorney.
The buildings' exteriors will be
similar to retail designs seen in North Scottsdale, such as Gainey Ranch
Villages at Scottsdale and Doubletree Ranch roads.
The signage for Turf Paradise
Marketplace will include a depiction of a miniature racetrack with three
metal jockeys.
On the east side of the Bell Road
entrance to the track is a smaller parcel where Simms said he has plans
for a selection of restaurants and small retailers. He said he has
rejected an earlier idea for office buildings as part of his total
redevelopment proposal.
© 2005 American City Business Journals
Inc.
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Vancouver council turns
down Wal-Mart
Canadian Press
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
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Vancouver — The "green" Wal-Mart
designed especially for Vancouver was turned down overwhelmingly by
Vancouver city council on Tuesday after developers spent four years
working on it and opponents spent just as long battling against it.
Only Mayor Larry Campbell and his two
political opponents from the Non-Partisan Association supported the
big-box store proposal for a former car dealership site on the city's
Southeast Marine Drive.
In a rare display of unity on a
controversial issue, both factions of the centre-left Coalition of
Progressive Electors voted together in opposing the project.
Everyone also voted the same way in
voting down a giant Canadian Tire store planned for a site nearby.
The surprise decision made people like
Louise Seto, a southeast Vancouver resident who led a campaign against
both big-box stores, ecstatic.
"I think they really validated the
whole vision of the city. They put the teeth behind the words," she
said.
But those who had worked on the
Wal-Mart and Canadian Tire applications were dismayed by the decision
that many had believed would be much closer than the 8-3 split that
emerged Tuesday.
Architect Peter Busby, a renowned
sustainability advocate who designed a Wal-Mart concept with windmills
on the roof, natural light, and significant energy efficiency, said he
was tremendously disappointed.
"Vancouver lost an important
opportunity. It became political. It wasn't about the design. It wasn't
about the land use."
Wal-Mart's local development
consultant, Darren Kwiatkowski of First-Pro Shopping, described himself
as "flabbergasted and stunned" that council rejected it after the
proposal had been supported by both staff and the city's urban design
panel.
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Wal-Mart acquires Carolina Circle Mall without incentives
The Business Journal of the Greater Triad Area
June 29, 2005
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Without economic incentives, Wal-Mart
Stores Inc. is buying the former Carolina Circle Mall in eastern
Greensboro and will convert it into a giant retail store next year.
Greensboro businessman Don Linder, who
owns almost all of the property and arranged the deal, confirmed that
Wal-Mart is buying the 78-acre site off N.C. 29 for $3.3 million and
will have its contractors start construction of a new
206,000-square-foot "supercenter" store in January. That store should
take about eight months to be ready and should open in fall 2006, Linder
said.
Linder has spent the last three years
buying up parcels of the vacant 78-acre site with the hopes of selling
it to a larger industrial company. Wal-Mart was willing, but only if the
location was ready by November.
In June, Linder asked the Greensboro
City Council for $300,000 in economic incentives to help get the site
ready and built for Wal-Mart. But amid public opposition by those
against tax incentives and eastern Greensboro neighborhood groups that
supported the Wal-Mart proposal, Linder withdrew his request two weeks
ago.
Wakefield Associates demolition crews
have already cleared out the out-parcel stores around the mall and this
week have been removing walls inside the 600,000-square-foot mall. At
this pace, the demolition will be completed by fall and the site can be
graded by December in order to meet Wal-Mart's deadline, Linder said.
"A project like this is very
difficult," Linder said. "There are hundreds of issues that we've
addressed from many groups, and we're still moving forward."
Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) anticipates
60,000 shoppers a week at the new store.
© 2005 American City Business Journals
Inc.
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Upscale Tastes Invade Wal-Mart's Hometown Migration of High-Priced
Executives Transforms Arkansas County
By Michael Barbaro
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 27, 2005
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BENTONVILLE, Ark. -- Wal-Mart's
folksy, baseball cap-wearing founder, Sam Walton, so despised public
displays of wealth that, after his death in 1992, the billionaire's
heirs decided to enshrine his prized possession, a battered Ford pickup,
behind a simple storefront on the town square here.
But Walton's spirit of restraint is
harder to find next door to the museum at Fusion, a new fine-arts
gallery that sells $2,500 abstract paintings and $1,200 urns. Or at the
nearby Landers Hummer dealership, crowded with $62,000 sport-utility
trucks. Or inside Shadow Valley, a gated community where four-bedroom
houses fetch $1 million.
The hard-nosed retailing tactics of
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. have transformed communities across the country,
but none more so than the one in its own back yard. Benton County, once
a sedate backwater, is quickly morphing into a swanky oasis in the
middle of the Ozarks.
Wal-Mart's unchallenged dominance in
American retailing--it now sells about 30 percent of many household
consumables--has persuaded scores of suppliers to open satellite offices
around its headquarters to ensure their products remain on the chain's
coveted shelves.
The result is an unprecedented
migration of high-paid executives to the northwest corner of Arkansas --
professionals from amenity-rich cities like New York, San Francisco,
Atlanta and Miami, who bring not only their six-figure salaries, but an
appetite for Jaguars, sushi, pet day-care centers, Gucci shoes and
Chanel sunglasses.
Every week or so a new retailer,
restaurant or spa sprouts up amid the cow patches here to satisfy their
every need and, seemingly overnight, a county synonymous with a purveyor
of cheap socks, dolls and televisions is earning a reputation for
something altogether different: luxurious living.
Until recently, being dispatched to a
supplier's Wal-Mart office was a dreaded assignment -- two years of
eating at a nearby Applebee's and shopping at, well, Wal-Mart. "Nobody
wanted to do it," said Ron Johnson, who runs the Wal-Mart office for
Walt Disney Co.'s consumer products division. "That's not a problem
anymore. So much has changed."
Wal-Mart has produced a fair share of
millionaires, but Walton's rigid code of humility -- even top executives
stay at a Holiday Inn when traveling on the company dime -- remains
deeply ingrained in the company's culture, discouraging conspicuous
consumption.
Wal-Mart's suppliers, however, honor
no such vow of modesty.
In Rogers, just north of Bentonville,
nattily dressed executives from Kellogg Co. and Colgate-Palmolive Co.
sip lattes and lunch on cold Thai salmon at the Market, a gourmet
grocery store that offers sushi-making lessons. Up the street, at
Murphy's Jewelry, the latest Versace fashion show flickers on a
flat-panel television and $100,000 necklaces glimmer from behind a glass
case.
Jeff Collins, an economist the
University of Arkansas's Sam Walton School of Business, said the
thousands of suppliers who have moved to the region are "trying to
recreate the world they knew back home, wherever that was, and they have
the money to do it."
From 1990 to 2000, Benton County's
population jumped 57 percent, to 153,406 from 97,499, while the average
household income rose to $40,281 from $26,021, according to census data.
Wal-Mart is not the only company
cranking out wealth in northwest Arkansas. J.B. Hunt Transport Inc., the
trucking company, and Tyson Foods Inc., both major employers, are based
here. But neither has the global reach or supplier network of Wal-Mart.
"Around here, Wal-Mart is the catalyst," said Bill W. Schwyhart, a
partner at Pinnacle Group, which is developing a $200 million upscale
shopping center near Wal-Mart's headquarters.
And by Wal-Mart, Schwyhart means its
vendors.
In nondescript office parks that have
cropped up across the region, the biggest names in consumer
goods--Procter & Gamble, Gillette Co., Nestle and PepsiCo Inc.--are
packed in cheek-by-jowl with tiny manufacturers such as Dolly Inc., a
children's clothing firm, and cigar-maker Swisher International Inc.
No one knows the exact number of
suppliers who have opened shop near Wal-Mart, but local officials put
the number at 2,000, and predict the figure could eventually double.
The phenomenon began in 1989 after
Procter & Gamble, Wal-Mart's largest supplier, opened a 10-person office
in Fayetteville, Bentonville's neighbor to the south. Today, P&G's
Wal-Mart staff has ballooned to 200.
There are now 20 office parks
dedicated to Wal-Mart vendors. Disney, for example, shares a building
with Vivendi-Universal, Welch Food Inc. and Sargento Foods Inc. Signs on
the office doors read "Wal-Mart-support unit" or "Team Wal-Mart" and,
inside, the walls are covered with photos of and quotes from Sam Walton,
a tribute designed to catch the attention of visiting Wal-Mart
executives more than the supplier's staff.
A long-running debate rages about
whether Wal-Mart encourages its suppliers to operate in the area --
Wal-Mart says it takes no position on the issue -- but no one
underestimates the importance of being in town. Suppliers who live and
work near Wal-Mart's headquarters can schedule last-minute meetings with
buyers, hand-deliver samples of their latest products at all hours and,
most importantly, cultivate strong personal ties with company
executives.
A decade ago, Wal-Mart's suppliers
flew into town for a round of meetings with buyers and returned home to
Cincinnati, Houston or Boston at the end of the day. Now suppliers and
buyers live on the same street, attend the same churches and coach the
same little league teams.
"Suppliers know that if they don't
have a presence here, their competitors will," said Chuck Sharpe, whose
company, C. Sharpe Real Estate Group, owns eight Bentonville office
parks occupied by Wal-Mart vendors. "They can't afford that."
Once here, suppliers demand the life
they left behind--and, if they cannot find it, they build it. Lou
McCleese, a logistics expert for Johnson & Johnson's Wal-Mart office,
plowed her savings into Fusion, the art gallery and supply store in
downtown Bentonville.
When Phyllis Charette, the wife of a
Johnson & Johnson executive, could not find the kind of upscale women's
apparel store required to fill out her wardrobe, she started her own,
calling it All About Her.
Across the street from Wal-Mart's
headquarters, several out-of-town Jewish suppliers have converted a
three-room office into a prayer space, available whenever they come
through town. A basket of yarmulkes sits on a conference table and
copies of the Old Testament line a bookcase.
A new synagogue, Benton County's
first, recently opened with 37 families, a large number of them
transplants dispatched to Bentonville by a Wal-Mart supplier.
As suppliers move in, their spending
power is transforming the lives of those with no connection to Wal-Mart.
Catherine Holmes, 31, bought a hair
salon in 1997 that employed 12, most of them earning about $25,000 a
year. As more suppliers arrived, she moved closer to an office park
filled with executives from Eastman Kodak Co. and Kraft Foods Inc. and
began offering exotic facial scrubs, massages and therapeutic baths.
Now she has a staff of 50, several of
whom earn $100,000 a year. "Half of my clients are vendors," said
Holmes, the daughter of a Wal-Mart employee who drives a $50,000
Cadillac Escalade. "They are a totally different customer than what we
were used to."
But not everyone is overjoyed by the
influx of high-rollers. Rising housing prices have cost long-time
Bentonville residents hundreds of dollars in higher property taxes. "We
used to have moderately priced homes here," said John Rickert, who has
lived in Bentonville for 41 years. "Now it's all exclusive, planned
developments."
At the same time, gentrification is
creating some powerful--and, to some local residents,
troubling--juxtapositions. In Bentonville, a Golf Headquarters shop that
uses high-tech computers to analyze a player's swing opened next to the
U.S. Army recruitment center. Nearby, a contemporary furniture store
selling pink leather club chairs opened across the street from a pawn
shop.
"Everything is higher-end now," said
Rickert, who manages a cafe in downtown Bentonville.
Some residents are scrambling to slow
the explosion of new housing and retail complexes that are gobbling up
farm land and clogging traffic. But most are just watching quietly from
the sidelines, with a mix of frustration and wonder, as the little-known
rural community that Sam Walton picked to start his company four decades
ago grows into a bustling global capital of retail.
"People are tired of sitting in
traffic, tired of waiting in line for dinner at their favorite
restaurant, tired of change, really," economist Collins said. "But
Wal-Mart isn't going anywhere. You cannot put this genie back in the
bottle."
Staff researcher Richard Drezen
contributed to this report.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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Attorney General accuses Wal-Mart of selling illegal fireworks
June 27, 2005, 6:09 PM EDT
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HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) _ State Attorney
General Richard Blumenthal on Monday accused Wal-Mart of selling illegal
fireworks in some of its Connecticut stores.
Blumenthal said he has sent a letter
to the retailer and the fireworks' distributor, TNT Fireworks, ordering
them to take the firework, "Piccolo Petes," off store shelves.
"Sales of these dangerous devices
should stop immediately," Blumenthal said. "Wal-Mart or TNT Fireworks
will face legal fireworks in state court, if they defy this order."
The product emits a 5-inch flame when
lit, Blumenthal said.
Since 2001, Connecticut has allowed
the sale of sparklers. Other fireworks, including Roman candles, remain
illegal.
Jerry O'Malley, an attorney for
Alabama-based TNT Fireworks, said "Piccolo Petes" is a sparkler under
state law, and has been sold here for several years.
"It's non-aerial, non-exploding and
contains less than 100 grams of pyrotechnic composition," he said. "It
is no or more less hazardous than a sparkler that emits a shower of
sparks."
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Karen Burk said
the company was not aware that the item violated any law, but it is
removing the product from the shelves of its 28 Connecticut stores.
Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.
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Wal-Mart put to test in
Vancouver
Council to decide
if retail giant can call city its new home
John Greenwood
Financial Post
June 27, 2005
VANCOUVER - An unprecedented four-year
struggle by Wal-Mart Canada Corp. to win approval to build a store in
Vancouver is set to come to an end tomorrow when the left-leaning city
council holds a final vote on the issue.
Since 2001, when Wal-Mart first
unveiled plans for a location in a down-at-the-heels shopping area close
to the southern edge of the city, the retail giant has spent tens of
millions of dollars on countless traffic studies, opinion polls and
economic impact reports in a bid to persuade the city to issue an
approval.
When local activists complained the
store would lead to increased traffic and air pollution, Wal-Mart asked
one of Canada's leading green architects to come up with an
environmentally friendly design. The proposal by Peter Busby that was
unveiled last year is unlike any other Wal-Mart store in the world,
including such features as a windmill to generate electricity,
underground wells to heat and cool the building and skylights to replace
traditional florescent lamps.
"We spent significantly more than we
normally spend," said Andrew Pelletier, Wal-Mart's director of corporate
affairs. "We have done everything that could be done [to meet the city's
needs]."
Critics still aren't satisfied.
Despite the green design and Wal-Mart research suggesting the proposal
for the 140,000-square-foot outlet is supported by a majority of local
residents, a group of surprisingly vocal opponents has turned it into a
lightening rod for discontent over everything from labour issues to the
environment.
At a noisy public meeting last week,
city council listened to a string of mostly anti-Wal-Mart presenters,
including representatives of the Council of Canadians and a group of
seniors calling themselves the Raging Grannies.
"This store will wipe out the local
economy," said Suzanne Smythe, a resident who said she was there to
observe the proceedings. "I'm just terrified of the traffic it will
cause."
"It will have a terrible social
impact; it will take away the heart of the city," said Emily Sion, who
hopes Wal-Mart stays out of Vancouver even if it means she must continue
to buy her clothes second-hand at the Salvation Army.
According to the city planning
department, which has recommend the project be approved, most of the
concerns raised by Ms. Sion and others are overblown.
For instance, many Vancouverites drive
out of the city to visit Wal-Mart stores in the suburbs, so the new
store would significantly shorten the time they spend in their cars,
along with the resulting exhaust fumes. In fact, as much as 35% of the
traffic expected to visit the store already drives past it.
Another study cited by the planning
department suggests the impact on local retail would also be minimal,
with the competition being felt most strongly by other chain stores such
as Zellers and Real Canadian Superstore.
"Wal-Mart's presence should not be of
concern to existing neighbourhood retailers," said Richard Wozny, a
vice-president and manager at Royal LePage Advisors Inc. "It will
complement rather than compete with them."
Ironically, a proposal to build a
Canadian Tire store that is even larger and would draw more traffic
adjacent to the controversial Wal-Mart site has attracted almost no
attention. Indeed, in May, the city gave its blessing to a major new
Canadian Tire location on Vancouver's Grandview Highway, with barely a
whimper from community activists.
"When you're the world's biggest
retailer, it just provides a forum for people will all kinds of hobby
horses," says local retail consultant Blake Hudema.
Mr. Pelletier declined to comment on
the heightened level of scrutiny his company is facing. "We deliberately
spent a lot of time on this," he said. "We've done everything that could
be done."
© National Post 2005
Walmart eyes
expansion in eastern Europe report
06.27.2005, 01:30 AM
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HONG KONG (AFX) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc,
the world's largest retailer, said it is looking to expand in central
and eastern Europe, the Financial Times reported.
In an interview with the newspaper,
the company's chief executive, Lee Scott said the firm is looking at
Poland and Hungary, both new members of the EU, as well as Russia.
'We have a portfolio we are working
on,' Lee said.
'It doesn't matter to us which of
these will be first, we want all of them at some point,' he said, adding
that Wal-Mart wanted to continue achieving 30 pct of its sales growth
outside the US.
In central and eastern Europe, he said
acquisitions would make more sense than establishing new operations.
The report said last year that
international sales accounted for 21 pct of Wal-Mart's 285 bln usd in
sales, and for 31 pct of its annual sales growth of 28 bln usd.
Scott said he was also looking closely
at India.
'It has specific rules on foreign
direct investment, but at some point [we would like to enter] India. It
is such an exciting country with a growing middle class,' he said.
Mr Scott said that Wal-Mart would
continue sourcing some goods from suppliers in Central America and
Bangladesh, despite the lifting of quota controls on Chinese apparel.
'We are not going to move radically to
China, we will continue to source in Central America and Bangladesh,' he
said.
'So as long as we can be competitive,
we continue to have production from different countries. We are
dedicated to that and we get support from non-governmental organisations
for that.'
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Wal-Mart's Most Wanted
Attention, affluent
shoppers. The retail giant is bent on capturing your dollars
By Marianne Lavelle
US News
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At Fair Lakes shopping center in
Northern Virginia, where the median household income of $81,000 is
nearly double the national average, Wal-Mart certainly has no problem
attracting the customers it sees as its future. But a peek in their
shopping carts reveals the retailing titan's plight. Laura Swearingen,
who lives 25 miles away in Alexandria, Va., comes to buy cleaning
supplies and cat food and perhaps "tank tops and stuff for softball."
Penny Peyton of Annandale also has made a long drive from the inner
suburbs to look for staples such as paper towels and toothpaste. As for
clothing, she'd look to Wal-Mart only for "maybe something cheap to
knock around in" and, of course, for underwear. Not for a nice outfit
for work or a special occasion. "They don't have the selection or
quality," says Peyton.
A low-cost, middle-America image
certainly has served Wal-Mart well on its march to worldwide dominance
in the retail industry. With annual sales of $285 billion and 5,350
stores (3,700 in the United States), Wal-Mart has pushed aside Main
Street small businesses, crushed competing grocery chains, and changed
the way America shops. It is still retail's undisputed king, but now
Wal-Mart faces new challenges in its drive for future growth. Sales at
existing stores--an important industry benchmark--increased just 2.9
percent in the first quarter, considered lackluster compared with the
6.2 percent hike at cheap-but-chic competitor Target. Although
Wal-Mart's revenues are still six times as high, its stock price has
slid 15 percent since March 2004, while the value of Target shares has
soared 23 percent. High gasoline prices and the uptick in interest rates
have dealt a bigger blow to Wal-Mart because its average shopper has
less disposable income, an annual salary of $35,000, compared with
$50,000 for the Target regular.
When Wal-Mart shareholders convened
near the Bentonville, Ark., headquarters earlier this month for the
company's annual meeting, Chief Executive Officer Lee Scott confessed,
"We aren't where we need to be." He wasn't talking primarily about the
myriad troubles that have made headlines in the past few years: the
largest class action lawsuit ever, a discrimination case on behalf of
its 1.6 million female employees; the union-funded campaign against the
company's labor practices; or the activism that has blocked the opening
of new stores. Scott's main concern now is how to capture a new prey,
the upscale customer.
Americans already know they can turn
to Wal-Mart for low prices on food, detergent, and underwear. But its
executives are convinced that if the behemoth is to maintain the
momentum that Wall Street expects, it will have to sell more profitable
goods like stylish apparel, home fashion, and electronics.
"Historically, they're the low-cost replenishment leader," says Mandy
Putnam, analyst at Retail Forward, a market research firm in Columbus,
Ohio. "Their challenge has been how to get that shopper across the store
to shop for something other than basics."
Nice threads. Wal-Mart's efforts thus
far have often fallen flat. Analysts at Credit Suisse First Boston noted
recently that the quality of goods has improved, including, for example,
high-thread-count cotton bedsheets. But in stores the analysts visited,
nothing distinguished the fancy sheets from the cheaper alternatives.
"The merchandising of the improved product has not kept up," said the
CSFB report.
At the Fair Lakes store, Wal-Mart has
a display showcasing its designer line of apparel, George, named after
British fashion guru George Davies. Wal-Mart acquired the line as part
of its purchase of the United Kingdom's ASDA supermarket chain in 1999.
But Wal-Mart has done little to trumpet the brand it clearly hopes will
appeal to higher-income consumers. In the center of the George display,
for example, stands a well-picked-over rack of clearance items,
including sleepwear, maternity blouses, and house-brand casual wear,
with quite a few of the items strewn on the floor.
Sticking a "pile-it-high, let-it-fly"
rack amid the stylish coordinates is a "Merchandising 101" error that is
all too common at Wal-Mart, says Putnam. She contrasts Wal-Mart's
approach with that of Target, which heavily advertised its partnership
with designer Isaac Mizrahi. In contrast, Wal-Mart did nothing to
introduce its designer line. "I'll literally stand in a Wal-Mart and
hear people ask, 'Who the heck is George?'" says Putnam. Scott has
admitted that crowding stores with cheap items has turned off customers.
"The more congested the store, the junkier the store looked," said
Scott, and "it became less relevant" to shoppers with more disposable
income.
Wal-Mart brass have laid out an
aggressive merchandising campaign. The company is hiring fashion experts
to help train store managers to, say, feature items that will catch the
consumer's eye and draw it toward more expensive goods. Wal-Mart plans
to make some of its stores showcases for new tech goodies, including
wall-length displays of high-end TV s. Wal-Mart also hopes to widen its
appeal by offering more organic and natural foods--at lower cost than
groceries or specialty stores, of course. "We don't think you should
have to have a lot of money to feed your family organic foods," said
Scott at the annual meeting. "Let's face it, affluent customers
appreciate saving money, too."
At the same time Wal-Mart is making
its pitch to the well heeled, it is forging ahead with its better-known
strategy: expanding its so-called Supercenters. Providing groceries
along with apparel, sporting goods, tires, and eyeglasses has proved
enormously successful. Groceries are a lower-margin business than
designer clothing or electronic gadgetry. But the volume Wal-Mart
generates at Supercenters is so high--more than $100 million in annual
sales at some locations--that the company says the return on investment
outstrips that of its traditional discount stores. (Wal-Mart does not
disclose sales figures for individual stores.) An example of the impact
on the market: Earlier this year, venerable supermarket chain
Winn-Dixie, which operates 920 stores in the Southeast, was driven to
seek bankruptcy protection, largely, in analysts' view, because it could
not beat Wal-Mart prices.
Wal-Mart currently has 1,713
Supercenters, and it plans to open 2,700 more and convert 1,200 current
stores to the format. But as the nonunion company has steamrolled
traditional grocers, Wal-Mart has made a slew of enemies, many of whom
are now uniting to battle the retailer. Both the United Food and
Commercial Workers union and the Service Employees International Union
have mounted anti-Wal-Mart campaigns, arguing the retailer does not pay
a fair wage and burdens state governments by failing to provide adequate
healthcare benefits. The UFCW has hired Paul Blank, former political
director for Howard Dean, to organize the opposition.
Sometimes joining with grocery chains,
the unions have had some triumphs. In Turlock, Calif., the City Council
passed an ordinance banning retailers larger than 100,000 square feet.
Wal-Mart, which planned to place a 226,000-square-foot store there has
sued to overturn the restriction. Meanwhile, Maryland's state
legislature recently passed a law that would have forced Wal-Mart to pay
more of its workers' health benefits. Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich
vetoed it, but the UFCW is lobbying for the same bill in all 50 states.
"We're the focus of one of the most organized, most sophisticated, most
expensive corporate campaigns ever launched against a single company,"
Scott told shareholders.
Bad press. Blank says Wal-Mart
shouldn't blame the unions but the press it has gotten over the
discrimination lawsuit and the fines it paid for federal child and
immigrant labor violations. "It is going to be a problem as Wal-Mart
gets into markets where price isn't the only consideration, and people
can afford to ask, 'Does this company reflect my values?'" he says,
noting that Wal-Mart has opened only four of the 40 Superstores it said
in 2002 it hoped to in California. Bob McAdam, Wal-Mart's vice president
for community affairs, says that figure is a four-to-six-year goal.
"Even in places where we've seen opposition, once the stores open, they
are phenomenally successful," he says.
Resistance to new stores could pose a
problem, however, since many of those planned locations are in
more-affluent areas. "It's a complicated issue, because large numbers of
people want to shop at Wal-Mart. They just don't want them across the
street," says Edward Weller at ThinkEquity Partners in San Francisco.
But based on how Wal-Mart has reigned supreme since the early 1990s, he
and many analysts are betting the company will weather its current woes.
And if U.S. growth proves difficult, there's the rest of the world,
which already accounts for 20 percent of the retailer's business. "I
don't think Wal-Mart can ever be underestimated," Weller says. "They are
so very good."
[back to top]
Eminent domain: A big-box
bonanza?
Court's ruling OKed
land grab for business like Target, Home Depot, CostCo, Bed Bath &
Beyond
By Parija Bhatnagar
CNN/Money
June 24, 2005: 3:20 PM EDT [back to top]
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The Supreme
Court may have just delivered an early Christmas gift to the nation's
biggest retailers by its ruling Thursday allowing governments to take
private land for business development.
Retailers such as Target (Research),
Home Depot (Research) and Bed, Bath & Beyond (Research) have thus far
managed to keep the "eminent domain" issue under the radar -- and
sidestep a prickly public relations problem -- even as these companies
continue to expand their footprint into more urban residential areas
where prime retail space isn't always easily found.
Eminent domain is a legal principle
that allows the government to take private property for a "public use,"
such as a school or roads and bridges, in exchange for just
compensation.
Local governments have increasingly
expanded the scope of public use to include commercial entities such as
shopping malls or independent retail stores. Critics of the process
maintain that local governments are too quick to invoke eminent domain
on behalf of big retailers because of the potential for tax revenue
generation and job creation.
The Supreme Court's decision Thursday
clarified that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses
-- even against their will -- for private and public economic
development.
The ruling would seem to offer new
opportunities to retailers. However, some industry watchers caution that
with Thursday's decision thrusting the eminent domain issue into the
national spotlight, companies using eminent domain risk a very public
backlash.
Craig Johnson, president of retail
consulting group Customer Growth Partners, said that retailers shouldn't
interpret the high court's decision to be a green light to aggressively
expand even into those neighborhoods where a big-box presence is
unwelcome.
"Even with the Supreme Court's
decision potentially in their favor, smart retailers would rather go
into communities wearing a white hat rather than a black one," said
Johnson.
The appropriate move for companies
would be to selectively use eminent domain as a last resort, he said,
not as a first course of action. "I think companies have learned a few
lessons from Wal-Mart's public relations struggles," he said.
Where's the space crunch? According to
industry watchers, retailers face a different type of expansion problem
on the East Coast versus the West Coast.
"On the West Coast, land availability
takes a back seat to labor union issues and that's why Wal-Mart has
consistently run into problems in California," Johnson said. "On the
East Coast, because of population density it's very hard to get big open
space and the zoning is more restrictive," Johnson said.
Industry consultant George Whalin said
that's one reason that Target, the No. 2 retailer behind Wal-Mart,
(Research) has resorted to using eminent domain to set up shop in a few
East Coast markets.
Target and Wal-Mart could not
immediately be reached for comment.
"Wal-Mart and Target have both been
criticized for their eminent domain use," said Burt Flickinger, a
consultant with the Strategic Resources Group.
Meanwhile, eminent domain opponents
called the high court ruling a "big blow for small businesses."
"It's crazy to think about replacing
existing successful small businesses with other businesses," said Adrian
Moore, vice president of Los Angeles-based Reason Public Policy
Institute, a non-profit organization opposed to eminent domain.
"There are many, many instances where
we've found that the cities that agreed to eminent domain use not only
destroyed local businesses but the tax revenue that the local government
had hoped to generate did not come to pass," Moore said.
But at least one retail industry
analyst sees things a little differently.
"Expanding for big box store is a
challenge, especially in the Northeast. Therefore, retailers will have
to devise a strategy for using eminent domain," said Candace Corlett,
retail analyst with WSL Strategic nRetail.
"Local communities may oppose Wal-Mart
and Target coming to their area but as consumers, they also want to shop
at these stores and they complain when they don't have these stores
nearby," she said. "The fact is that shoppers ultimately vote with their
dollars and retailers are very well aware of that."
Click here to read about whether the
government can force you to sell your house in the name of new
development.
Where is Wal-Mart looking to expand
overseas?
[back to top]
The United States of Wal-Mart
by John Dicker
BuzzFlash.com
[back to top]
Okay, they are anti-Union and a huge
chunk of their employees get paid so little that they are on Medicaid.
Okay, people with minimum wage jobs or no jobs shop at Wal-Mart because
their prices are low. Why are the prices so low? Because they pay their
employees so little -- and because they buy merchandise from overseas,
which eliminates many of the jobs formerly held by their customers.
It's kind of like the Bush
Administration economic policies all rolled up in one corporation, or
was that Enron?
But we digress.
Wal-Mart is becoming the big fat
target that symbolizes the widening income gap in America,
globalization, government subsidies of private businesses, and the
decline of the middle class, not to mention conservative politics and
onerous work demands of its employees.
And there's more coming. "Outfoxed"
producer is doing a documentary on Wal-Mart coming out in the fall (and
we can assure you it won't be a Valentine), and another book on the
company is do out around the same time.
To us, Wal-Mart is most symbolic of
the self-cannibalization it represents of the working poor, the
non-working, and the lower middle class who buy goods made overseas
because they can't afford ones made in the U.S.A. It's kind of like
patronizing your own economic slaughterhouse.
The book is chock full of factual and
anecdotal information about Wal-Mart and its founder Sam Walton, such
as, "It employs one of every 115 American workers. If it were a
nation-state, it would be one of the world's top twenty economies." It
has yearly sales of some $260 billion.
If Wal-Mart isn't slowed down, America
is headed toward third world status, subsidized by the taxpayers, who
foot the bill for worker's social needs beyond what their low wages can
afford them.
Wal-Mart may put forth a smiley face,
but it has one of the highest employee turnover rates in retailing.
Obviously, not everyone is happy -- and for good reason.
Book Description | "The United States
of Wal-Mart"
An irreverent, hard-hitting
examination of the world's largest-and most reviled-corporation, which
reveals that while Wal-Mart's dominance may be providing consumers with
cheap goods and plentiful jobs, it may also be breeding a culture of
discontent.
It employs one of every 115 American
workers. If it were a nation-state, it would be one of the world's top
twenty economies. With yearly sales of nearly $260 billion and an
average wage of $8 an hour, Wal-Mart represents an unprecedented-and
perhaps unstoppable-force in capitalism. And there have been few
corporations that have evoked the same levels of reverence and ire.
The United States of Wal-Mart is a
hard-hitting examination of how Sam Walton's empire has infiltrated not
just the geography of America but also its consciousness. Peeling away
layers of propaganda and politics, investigative journalist John Dicker
reveals an American (and, increasingly, a global) story that has no
clear-cut villains or heroes-one that could be the confused, complicated
story of America itself.
Pitched battles between economic
progress and quality of life, between the preservation of regional
identity and national homogeneity, and between low prices and the
dignity of the American worker are beginning to coalesce into an all-out
war to define our modern era. And, Dicker argues, Wal-Mart is winning.
Revealing that the company's business practices have been shaping
American culture, including the nation's social, political, and
industrial policy, The United States of Wal-Mart provides fresh insight
into a controversy that isn't going away.
John Dicker is a journalist whose work
has appeared in The Nation, Salon, and the Colorado Springs Independent,
among other publications.
[back to top]
Kennedy, Union Execs Blast Wal-Mart on Health Benefits
By Randy Hall
CNSNews.com
June 23, 2005
[back to top]
(CNSNews.com) - Union representatives,
backed by congressional Democrats, Wednesday escalated their attack on
the world's largest retailer. They accused Wal-Mart of being "morally
bankrupt" and "un-American" for the way it handles employee health care
benefits. A Wal-Mart executive at the event disputed those charges.
While introducing the Health Care
Accountability Act, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) charged that Wal-Mart
"doesn't want to pay their fair share for health insurance for their
employees," who then must receive health coverage through
taxpayer-funded plans like Medicaid.
Kennedy said that every elected
government official -- "every Democrat, every Republican" -- has health
insurance "because they understand the importance of providing health
care not only for themselves, but also for their families.
"If it's good enough for the Congress,
if it's good enough for the Senate, if it's good enough for the
president, it's good enough for all Americans," Kennedy said. "Everyone
believes that -- except Wal-Mart. See Video
"Medicaid and the Children's Health
Insurance Program provide a critical safety net for low-income women and
children, the disabled and the elderly," Kennedy said. "They should not
also have to underwrite the profits for large companies like Wal-Mart."
To provide greater public scrutiny of
employees' health insurance, Kennedy's bill would require every state to
generate a report each year naming companies that have 50 or more
workers on their payrolls who receive government-funded health care.
"Many states already track this kind
of data," Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), the sponsor of similar
legislation in the House, said. "And in 14 of the 15 states that do,
Wal-Mart is the biggest abuser of taxpayer-subsidized health care,
costing taxpayers more than $210 million," he added.
Citing the need for similar
information from other states, Weiner added that the proposed bills
"will allow us to paint a fuller picture of the Wal-Mart debate than a
superficial examination of the price of a pair of jeans."
Also attending the press conference
were members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), a union
that represents 1.3 million employees in the U.S.
"This act will help the American
people find out the truth about the 'Wal-Mart Economy,'" said Joe
Hansen, UFCW president. "It is not only morally bankrupt, it is
un-American for Wal-Mart, a company with over $10 billion in profits,
not to be able to give its workers better health insurance than our
public safety net," he declared. See Video
"The 'Wal-Martization' of our economy,
including Wal-Mart's health-care policy, jeopardizes our workers'
ability to join the middle class" because that company "puts profits
before people," Hansen added.
However, Mia Masten, director of
corporate affairs in Wal-Mart's East Region also attended the event.
Afterwards, Masten told Cybercast News Service that she and her company
agree that a discussion on the crisis of skyrocketing health care costs
is "long past due. We're all for it."
Masten called it "unfortunate,"
however, that so much of the legislators' attention has been focused on
just one company, even one as large as Wal-Mart. "The issue is much,
much broader than Wal-Mart," she said. "The issue right now is that we
need to have meaningful health-care reform.
"If we're going to move forward with
this data collection," Masten noted, "it needs to be accurate, it needs
to be comprehensive, it needs to be transparent, and something needs to
be done with that information besides just having a press conference."
Masten insisted that Wal-Mart does
provide health-care benefits for full and part-time employees. "We have
1.2 million associates in the U.S. We provide health care for more than
half of them, not to mention over 400,000 of their family members," she
said.
"All in all, Wal-Mart provides health
care for more than 900,000 Americans" despite the "misinformation" that
was presented at the news conference, she said. See Video
Kennedy and Weiner were joined by Sen.
Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) at the news conference, but the congressional
members answered only three questions from reporters before cutting off
the event.
When asked if she knew whether any of
the sponsors of the Health Care Accountability Act had ever been inside
a Wal-Mart store, Masten replied: "I don't know. It'd be interesting.
I'd love to take them on a tour."
(Cybercast News Service Correspondent
Jered Ede contributed to this report.)
[back to top]
Wal-Mart's healthcare
policy rapped
Kennedy wants
public aid listed
By Bloomberg News
June 23, 2005
[back to top]
WASHINGTON -- Democratic senators
Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Jon Corzine of New Jersey have
proposed a law requiring that states report the names of companies that
have 50 or more employees who receive government-funded healthcare.
The bill is intended to spotlight
large employers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's biggest
retailer, that rely on state aid for employee medical coverage. More
than 600,000 of Wal-Mart's 1.26 million US workers get benefits from
government programs or through a spouse's employer, the lawmakers said.
''This is the ultimate in turning your
back on responsibility to society," Corzine said. ''The numbers are
staggering."
Some states are considering laws that
would force the biggest employers to pay more for worker healthcare
benefits.
Fifteen states, including Florida and
California, already require disclosure of employers with large numbers
of workers on state programs, the lawmakers said. Florida reported
spending $61 million on healthcare for Wal-Mart employees, Kennedy said.
Government aid programs ''should not
also have to underwrite the profits for large companies like Wal-Mart,"
Kennedy said.
Arkansas-based Wal-Mart, the largest
US employer, reported net profit of $10.2 billion in the fiscal year
ended Jan. 31. It pays an average full-time hourly wage of $10.
Wal-Mart offers eight health plans,
with premiums starting at $40 a month for an individual, and doesn't cap
most expenses, the company said.
''We encourage transparency as long as
the collection of information includes all employers in the US,"
Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Fogleman said. ''The issue's much broader than
Wal-Mart. Our nation faces a healthcare crisis."
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times
Company
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Is
Focal Point Of Democrats' Health Bill
By Amy Joyce
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 23, 2005; D02
[back to top]
Several congressional Democrats
introduced a bill yesterday that would force states to report the names
of companies that have 50 or more employees who receive
government-funded health care, an effort to pressure Wal-Mart Stores
Inc. in particular to improve employee health coverage.
In introducing the Health Care
Accountability Act, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Rep. Anthony D.
Weiner (D-N.Y.), and Sen. Jon S. Corzine (D-N.J.) said they are
concerned that large employers such as Wal-Mart are transferring
responsibility for health care to government-funded programs such as
Medicaid.
Of Wal-Mart's 1.3 million full- and
part-time employers, the lawmakers estimate that more than 600,000 do
not have company insurance. Company critics say Wal-Mart wages are so
low and the health premiums charged to employees so high, even some
full-time employees qualify for government-funded health care.
"Every member of Congress has health
insurance because they understand the importance of providing for
themselves and family. If it's good enough for Congress . . . it's good
enough for everyone. Except for Wal-Mart," Kennedy said at a news
conference. "Every worker in America is paying a part of their taxes to
pay for Wal-Mart."
Wal-Mart has been the focus of
legislation nationwide that would force it to do more to insure its
workers. In April, the Maryland General Assembly passed a bill that
would have required Wal-Mart to spend more on employee health benefits.
Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. vetoed the bill, but Democratic legislative
leaders have vowed to override the veto. Legislators in Pennsylvania,
New Jersey and Delaware are moving in a similar direction, and
Wal-Mart's opponents have rallied around the health care issue.
Most recently, the company lobbied
against legislation in Minnesota that would show which employers have
been a drain on the state's health care system.
"We encourage transparency as long as
the collection includes all employers in the U.S. It is important that
if we use this data collection as a baseline moving forward that the
data be comprehensive and accurate," said Wal-Mart spokesman Nate Hurst.
Wal-Mart said it provides health
insurance to more than 568,000 of its employees. About 14 percent of its
workers have no coverage. The rest rely on health care coverage from
another source, such as a spouse or government program.
Some of the uninsured "may turn to
state Medicaid programs which were designed to provide medical coverage
at very low cost to relatively low-income residents, at better premiums
and related costs than even Wal-Mart can negotiate," Hurst said.
Wal-Mart provides full-time benefits
to employees who work 34 hours or more a week. Employees must wait 180
days before they receive health benefits. For families, premiums range
from about $155 a month with a $1,000 annual deductible and access to
Wal-Mart network doctors, to nearly $300 a month with a deductible of
$350 and the right to use any doctor, according to the company Web site.
Hurst said most Wal-Mart jobs are
full-time. Part-time workers can receive health care coverage for
themselves only after two years of employment.
In 14 states that already track which
companies' employees use the most government health care, Wal-Mart
workers are the biggest users of such programs, according to the
lawmakers. At least 27 states have introduced or plan to introduce
health care disclosure legislation. Massachusetts, Colorado, Hawaii and
Washington state all passed the Health Care Disclosure Act during 2005.
Washington's governor, Christine Gregoire, recently vetoed the bill.
Georgia was the first state to look at
such numbers. State Rep. Nan Grogan Orrock said more than 10,000
Wal-Mart employees were on a state health care program. The next-closest
employer had 700 on state health care. "I call it the Wal-Mart tax," she
said at the news conference. "This is a raging case of corporate
welfare."
Joseph T. Hansen, president of the
United Food and Commercial Workers Union, said the bill would be the
first step to forcing larger companies to cover employee health care.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
[back to top]
Styling With Wal-Mart
By Timothy M. Otte
June 23, 2005
[back to top]
Lord be praised ... Wal-Mart (NYSE:
WMT) is starting to figure it out! After three decades of a
single-minded pursuit of ever lower prices, the world's largest retailer
is finally discovering the law of diminishing returns: The more effort
you put into doing exactly the same thing, over and over again, the less
benefit you will reap from that effort over time. In other words, too
much of a good thing, even lower prices, can be unhealthy.
President Lee Scott recently admitted
in a Reuters article that in a bid to boost lagging sales, Wal-Mart
stores prominently displayed impulse items priced at less than $1, in
hopes that customers would throw an additional item into the cart. The
attempt backfired: Scott said that "the further we went that way, the
less relevant we got to be to the customer." He also noted the stores
began to look "junky," as if the rest of us hadn't already noticed. It
was becoming painfully obvious.
Wal-Mart has been struggling in its
attempt to grow comparable sales lately. In the current fiscal year's
first quarter, the company was able to eke out just a 2.9% gain, well
below rivals Target (NYSE: TGT), Costco (NASDAQ: COST), and Best Buy
(NYSE: BBY). It's fair to note that the deeper Wal-Mart gets into the
grocery business, the more difficult it will be for the company to
deliver strong comps. But Costco also relies heavily on food, and Best
Buy has to contend with price deflation in many key product categories.
No, something else has been going on
here. The company's competitors are simply doing a better job of getting
into the customers' heads, as I noted a month ago. For Wal-Mart, the
holy grail has always been having the lowest opening price point (OPP).
That's its strength, and with a motto of "Always low prices. Always,"
the customers expect low OPP merchandise. But the practice of driving
prices lower, year after year, eventually removes all quality from the
offering.
Is the customer only looking for the
lowest price? Hardly. Target is having great success with mixing a bit
of style into the assortment. Costco offers exceptional prices, but
often on truly upscale merchandise. Best Buy is adding labor into its
stores to help the customer figure out how to use technology. None of
these companies takes the customer for granted. Instead, they seek out
what the customer wants, and then price it attractively.
I'm not suggesting that Wal-Mart
should abandon low OPPs. But increasingly, the customer is seeking the
right mix of price and quality. There's a way for Wal-Mart to strike a
better balance and still remain the low price leader: Its legendary IT
and logistics systems are miles ahead of the competition and will
continue to provide a sustainable competitive advantage. The issue here
is mindset, not supply chain.
I can't tell you how encouraged I am
that the company has come to this realization -- and not just because I
own the stock. I think Wal-Mart is one of the world's great companies,
and it pains me to see the house that Sam built going through a soft
patch. Other writers are asking whether Wal-Mart should make this kind
of change. My answer is that Wal-Mart can do whatever it wants. Sure,
the change will take time. You don't change the mindset of a huge
merchandising organization overnight. But it appears the company has
taken the first step -- recognizing the problem.
[back to top]
Kennedy, Union Execs Blast Wal-Mart on Health Benefits
CNSNews.com [back to top]
Union representatives, backed by
congressional Democrats, Wednesday escalated their attack on the world's
largest retailer. They accused Wal-Mart of being "morally bankrupt" and
"un-American" for the way it handles employee health care benefits. A
Wal-Mart executive at the event disputed those charges.
While introducing the Health Care
Accountability Act, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) charged that Wal-Mart
"doesn't want to pay their fair share for health insurance for their
employees," who then must receive health coverage through
taxpayer-funded plans like Medicaid.
Kennedy said that every elected
government official -- "every Democrat, every Republican" -- has health
insurance "because they understand the importance of providing health
care not only for themselves, but also for their families.
"If it's good enough for the Congress,
if it's good enough for the Senate, if it's good enough for the
president, it's good enough for all Americans," Kennedy said. "Everyone
believes that -- except Wal-Mart.
"Medicaid and the Children's Health
Insurance Program provide a critical safety net for low-income women and
children, the disabled and the elderly," Kennedy said. "They should not
also have to underwrite the profits for large companies like Wal-Mart."
To provide greater public scrutiny of
employees' health insurance, Kennedy's bill would require every state to
generate a report each year naming companies that have 50 or more
workers on their payrolls who receive government-funded health care.
"Many states already track this kind
of data," Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), the sponsor of similar
legislation in the House, said. "And in 14 of the 15 states that do,
Wal-Mart is the biggest abuser of taxpayer-subsidized health care,
costing taxpayers more than $210 million," he added.
Citing the need for similar
information from other states, Weiner added that the proposed bills
"will allow us to paint a fuller picture of the Wal-Mart debate than a
superficial examination of the price of a pair of jeans."
Also attending the press conference
were members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), a union
that represents 1.3 million employees in the U.S.
"This act will help the American
people find out the truth about the 'Wal-Mart Economy,'" said Joe
Hansen, UFCW president. "It is not only morally bankrupt, it is
un-American for Wal-Mart, a company with over $10 billion in profits,
not to be able to give its workers better health insurance than our
public safety net," he declared.
"The 'Wal-Martization' of our economy,
including Wal-Mart's health-care policy, jeopardizes our workers'
ability to join the middle class" because that company "puts profits
before people," Hansen added.
However, Mia Masten, director of
corporate affairs in Wal-Mart's East Region also attended the event.
Afterwards, Masten told Cybercast News Service that she and her company
agree that a discussion on the crisis of skyrocketing health care costs
is "long past due. We're all for it."
Masten called it "unfortunate,"
however, that so much of the legislators' attention has been focused on
just one company, even one as large as Wal-Mart. "The issue is much,
much broader than Wal-Mart," she said. "The issue right now is that we
need to have meaningful health-care reform.
"If we're going to move forward with
this data collection," Masten noted, "it needs to be accurate, it needs
to be comprehensive, it needs to be transparent, and something needs to
be done with that information besides just having a press conference."
Masten insisted that Wal-Mart does
provide health-care benefits for full and part-time employees. "We have
1.2 million associates in the U.S. We provide health care for more than
half of them, not to mention over 400,000 of their family members," she
said.
"All in all, Wal-Mart provides health
care for more than 900,000 Americans" despite the "misinformation" that
was presented at the news conference, she said.
Kennedy and Weiner were joined by Sen.
Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) at the news conference, but the congressional
members answered only three questions from reporters before cutting off
the event.
When asked if she knew whether any of
the sponsors of the Health Care Accountability Act had ever been inside
a Wal-Mart store, Masten replied: "I don't know. It'd be interesting.
I'd love to take them on a tour."
[back to top]
Doing Something About
Wal-Mart
By Danny Glover
AlterNet
Posted on June 22, 2005
[back to top]
Look into the faces of America's
children. There you will find America's future. That's why all of us --
teachers, mentors and parents -- work our hardest to teach, to inspire,
to motivate, to instill values that we believe will make their lives
better and our nation a better place. It's not easy. But it is the most
valuable contribution we can make.
I know. As a kid, I was a hard case to
crack, to reach. But my teachers, and my parents, persevered. They
taught me a sense of social justice that won't quit. But there's a
threat looming that, as parents, teachers, mentors, we can't ignore. We
may be living in a time when the generation now in school will, for the
first time in our country's history, be worse off than the previous
generation.
While there are no doubt many reasons
for this threat, there's one that we can do something about. It's the
corrosive, drive-to-the-bottom approach some rogue corporations take
toward the people they employ. Wal-Mart, the world's -- and this
country's -- largest employer uses tactics that are shocking.
Wal-Mart puts kids around the world at
risk. It requires its suppliers to import goods from China and other
impoverished nations where young people work horrendous hours for little
pay. In this country, it was found guilty in April of violating child
labor laws. Wal-Mart exposed 85 of its own employees under 18 to
dangerous machinery such as chain saws, cardboard balers and forklifts.
It got a light fine, a slap on the wrist. Now it faces the largest class
action discrimination suit in history--for how it treats its female
employees.
My parents were both union members.
Because of their unions, we had a decent standard of living. Wal-Mart is
one of the most viciously anti-union companies in America. It takes two
Wal-Mart jobs just to earn above-poverty wages. 600,000 of its employees
can't afford their health care plan. Consequently, the taxpayers in
every state wind up paying for those employees' health care, either
through Medicaid, or through higher premiums for their own health care
plans.
That's just wrong and I think we can
change it. The first step toward changing Wal-Mart's anti-social
behavior is to use the Internet to recruit teachers, parents, mentors
and concerned citizens to send Wal-Mart a simple, loud, clear message:
"Because of your behavior, I'm going to do my shopping for
back-to-school supplies someplace else this fall."
I urge you to sign this pledge, then
become an essential player in this new movement to change America. It's
a chance for all of us to use new technology -- Internet and email --
that can bring about social change, to make America's corporations
accountable to America's communities and America's kids.
Danny Glover is an actor and longtime
human rights activist.
© 2005 Independent Media Institute.
All rights reserved.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Is
Fined for Child Labor Violations
From Bloomberg News
latimes.com
June 22, 2005
[back to top]
Connecticut fined Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
$3,300 over child labor violations after a state investigation found
that some minors lacked proper paperwork and were operating hazardous
equipment at the stores.
Gov. M. Jodi Rell said that the state
found 11 violations in three Wal-Mart stores in the state and that 337
minors worked at the company's 32 Connecticut stores from 2003 to 2005.
The probe came after the Labor Department in February said the retailer
had similar violations nationwide.
[back to top]
Senators want
Wal-Mart healthcare info
Legislation could
require companies like Wal-Mart to report number of employees on
Medicaid.
By David Ellis
CNN/Money Staff Writer
June 22, 2005: 6:45 PM EDT
[back to top]
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Hoping to
foster greater responsibility for workers' healthcare costs in such
companies as Wal-Mart, a group of Democratic lawmakers introduced a bill
Wednesday that would require states to report the number of employees of
large companies that rely on publicly-funded healthcare programs.
The Health Care Accountability Act,
which was sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Sen. John
Corzine of New Jersey and New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, would not
mandate a change in health insurance policies but require companies to
disclose the number of employees that rely on taxpayer-funded healthcare
programs such as Medicaid.
Wal-Mart, the number one retailer
nationwide, has faced criticism recently for failing to provide
healthcare coverage for many of its workers. Many of its critics believe
the cuts made in employee benefits only serve to help the company's
bottom line.
"Consumers shop at Wal-Mart and other
huge retailers because they offer 'rock bottom' prices," New Jersey
Senator John Corzine said in a statement. "The reason they can do so is
because they often give their employees 'rock bottom' health benefits."
15 states, including Georgia, Florida
and Massachusetts currently require large companies to report the number
of employees that rely on government healthcare. According to data
collected by lawmakers, the reliance of Wal-Mart employees on government
healthcare cost taxpayers in excess of $210 million. Among other top
abusers was Allied Domecq-owned Dunkin' Donuts.
In a statement, Wal-Mart defended its
employment practices and noted that it was unfairly being singled out.
"We encourage transparency as long as
the collection is equally applied to all employers in the U.S.," the
company said. "Unfairly targeting individual companies is simply not the
answer, especially when a company like ours provides over 1.2 million
jobs in the U.S. and insures more than 900,000 people (associates and
their families)."
While the legislation faces
significant hurdles in a Republican-controlled Congress, Laura Capps, a
spokesperson with Senator Kennedy's office, said with over 600,000
workers relying on government healthcare, the criticism is not undue.
"The point is they are an easy target
because of how egregious their negative impact is on states," said Laura
Capps, a spokesperson for Senator Kennedy's office. "We think with all
this pressure they can change their policy - this is money that is
coming from taxpayers and big employers are getting off without having
to pay."
Shares of Wal-Mart (up $0.26 to
$48.79, Research) edged higher in regular trade on the New York Stock
Exchange to end at $48.79.
[back to top]
Dems' bill
seeks health data from Wal-Mart, others
Reuters
Tue Jun 21, 2005
[back to top]
WASHINGTON, June 21 - In an
effort to put pressure on the health-care policies of large profitable
companies like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) ,
several Democrats said on Tuesday they would introduce a bill requiring
states to report annually on the number of workers relying on
taxpayer-funded health programs. The bill would not require companies to
offer affordable insurance to workers, but it would shed light on their
practices and establish how many workers rely on publicly-funded
programs such as Medicaid, a state-federal program for those who cannot
afford medical care.
"Programs like Medicaid provide a
critical safety net for low-income women and children, the disabled, and
the elderly and shouldn't be a profit center for large companies like
Wal-Mart," said Sen. Edward Kennedy on Massachusetts, one of the bill's
sponsors.
Wal-Mart denies charges that it steers
workers toward public assistance and says it typically picks up
two-thirds of the cost of health insurance premiums for its workers.
Spokesman Nate Hurst said Wal-Mart
employees can choose from health insurance plans starting at $40 a month
for a single person and less than $155 a month for family coverage.
Kennedy, John Corzine of New Jersey
and New York Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner, plan to introduce the bill
on Wednesday.
It is unclear if the Health Care
Accountability Act will advance in the Republican-controlled Congress.
The measure would not single out
Wal-Mart. A Kennedy aide said a similar law in Massachusetts found that
Wal-Mart placed third in the number of workers on public-sector health
care in the state, after Dunkin' Donuts, soon to be acquired by Pernod
Ricard (PERP.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) from Allied Domecq Plc (ALLD.L:
Quote, Profile, Research) , and the Stop & Shop grocery chain, a unit of
Dutch retailer Ahold (AHLN.AS: Quote, Profile, Research) .
But some state legislators have
focused on Wal-Mart because of its size and ranking as the world's
biggest retailer.
Maryland lawmakers approved
legislation recently that would have effectively forced Wal-Mart to
spend more on employee health benefits but Gov. Robert Ehrlich vetoed
it.
[back to top]
For Wal-Mart,
green is the colour of money
Peter Ladner
Business in Vancouver
June 21-27, 2005; issue 817
[back to top]
The hidden story behind the proposed
"green Wal-Mart" store on southeast Marine Drive in Vancouver is not the
company's labour practices, alleged sweatshop suppliers or its impact on
competing small businesses.
Yes, those are all worthy issues
(although not all pertinent at a rezoning hearing), but if this building
is approved, it's the greening of the building design that will be
remembered long after the debate about all the other issues moves on.
Sure, the green design is seen as a
sop to a council that is predisposed to dislike successful big
businesses unless they have green roofs, but there's a lot more to it
than that. Whether or not the store is approved in Vancouver, Wal-Mart
executives have decided that green buildings are worth the money. I'm
guessing the south Vancouver market is not so big that Wal-Mart, the
biggest commercial landowner in North America, would willingly invest in
a more expensive building than is necessary. Wal-Mart would not veer off
its world-leading pursuit of profit for the sake of a few members of
Vancouver City Council.
No, they're doing it because, having
been motivated by political concerns, they have crunched the numbers and
found out that a green building makes financial sense. They're not going
green to be cool; they're doing it to make money. The biggest, meanest
retailer in the world has signed on to a piece of sustainability.
According to architect Peter Busby, they did it only after analysing
every green feature to prove its business payoff.
If you haven't been feeling the green
building groundswell personally, a green Wal-Mart might seem like an
anomaly, but in planning and design circles, so-called green features,
validated by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)
certification, are rapidly becoming the new norm.
The Pacific Northwest region leads
North America in green buildings per capita, but everyone's in the race.
After starting with public sector and non-profit buildings, LEED
standards have moved into commercial and residential buildings. All new
civic buildings in Vancouver City will be built to at least a LEED
silver standard. Geothermal is becoming commonplace. Wal-Mart going
green sends a huge signal to the commercial marketplace. The first
responder locally is Canadian Tire, Wal-Mart's proposed Marine Drive
neighbour. Nobody blinked or even raised an eyebrow when it announced it
would achieve LEED gold status with its new building in the old Chrysler
headquarters.
Being the home of the first green
Wal-Mart, a potential prototype for all the chain's future stores, would
be another feather in Vancouver's green excellence cap. But before
complacency sets in, take note of what's going on elsewhere. A recent
issue of Grist Magazine (www.grist.org) reports that "shopping-mall
titan Robert Congel, one of the world's biggest commercial real-estate
developers, is about to begin building a multibillion-dollar, 800-acre
shopping and entertainment complex ... without so much as a barrel of
oil or a kilowatt of fossil-fuel-generated power... a 100 per cent
clean-energy mega-mall.
"Congel's bulldozers - fully powered
by pure biodiesel, along with the rest of his construction equipment -
are scheduled to begin levelling the development site in early June
(2005) on a massive brownfield in Syracuse, N.Y.... On it he plans to
erect the optimistically named DestiNY USA (www.destinyusa.com), a
retail complex powered entirely by wind turbines, solar panels, fuel
cells, and biofuels."
Like the Canadian Tire and Wal-Mart
green buildings, the DestiNY project screams hypocrisy when most
visitors arrive in fossil-fuel-powered cars and vans.
But that, too, is about to hit a
paradigm shift. As one speaker told Vancouver council last week, what
happens when oil goes to $100 a barrel, as it is predicted to do, and
gas prices make car travel uneconomical for people in search of $3
underwear? He was arguing against the Canadian Tire project, but my
answer would be that those "highway-oriented retail" stores would then
have to go the next green step, reaching out more to transit users,
cyclists and neighbourhood customers, with more shuttles to the nearby
RAV station and more home delivery services.
As I write this, Vancouver City
Council has wrapped up hearings on the proposed Canadian Tire Store on
southwest Marine Drive, with the Wal-Mart showdown coming June 20 and
21. A final decision on approval of both of these stores will happen at
the June 28 council meeting.
Correction: In my last column I
referred to John Godfrey by his old title, Parliamentary Secretary.
Since July, he has been Minister of State (Infrastructure and
Communities).
Peter Ladner is a Vancouver city
councillor and vice-president, Business in Vancouver Media Group,
pladner@biv.com. His column appears weekly.
[back to top]
More Child
Labor Exploitation Found at Wal-Mart
by Brendan Coyne
NewStandard
[back to top]
Jun 20 - Investigators with the
Connecticut State Attorney's General's office uncovered a series of
labor law violations at three Wal-Mart stores in the state and expect
more complaints to be confirmed in the coming weeks.
In total, eleven $300 fines have been
assessed against the company for breaking child labor laws at three
stores in Connecticut. Employees under the age of eighteen were found to
regularly work late at night and with machinery, both prohibited by
federal and state law.
Connecticut began the investigation
shortly after February's deal between the US Department of Labor and
Wal-Mart over alleged child labor law violations at stores in
Connecticut, Arkansas and New Hampshire. The much criticized agreement
calls for the company to pay $135,540.
Many groups denounced that settlement
as a "sweetheart deal" for Wal-Mart because of the low dollar amount of
the fines and a provision giving the company fifteen days' advance
notice before a federal investigation begins. The settled fine is
roughly half of what the DoJ could have sought in court.
By law, the maximum fine a company can
receive for each instance of breaking child labor laws in Connecticut is
$300. State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal pledged to continue
investigating Wal-Mart for illegal activities.
© 2005 The NewStandard. See our
reprint policy.
[back to top]
Court
to hear Wal-Mart's discrimination case in August
www.sfgate.com
Monday, June 20, 2005 [back to top]
A federal appeals court said Monday
that it would hear an appeal Aug. 8 by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of a San
Francisco judge's order approving class-action status for a
sex-discrimination lawsuit representing as many as 1.6 million current
and former women employees.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
did not comment on the merits of the appeal.
The suit claims that the retail giant
set up a system that frequently pays its female workers less than their
male counterparts for comparable jobs and bypasses them for promotions.
Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart, the
nation's largest private employer, said the company's 3,500 stores do
not have a policy discriminating against women, and said the class of
plaintiffs is so large that the case is "unmanageable."
If the appeals court does not overturn
last year's ruling by U.S. District Judge Martin Jenkins, the case will
become the nation's largest civil rights lawsuit targeting one company.
The case is Wal-Mart v. Dukes,
04-16688.
©2005 Associated Press
[back to top]
Fed
Waits to See If Wal-Mart Accepts Pricier Huggies
(Correct) (Corrects number of
commodities in index in the ninth paragraph.)
By Shobhana Chandra and Art Pine
Bloomberg
June 20
[back to top]
The makers of Huggies diapers want to
raise prices; Alan Greenspan will be watching the Wal-Mart checkout
counter to see if they succeed.
Kimberly-Clark Corp., along with other
consumer-products makers such as Clorox Co. and Procter & Gamble Co.,
have announced the first widespread price boosts in a decade, in an
effort to recoup higher raw-material costs. Discounters such as Wal-Mart
Stores Inc. and Target Corp. are pushing back. ``The very last thing
they want to do is to increase prices for the consumers,'' says Scott
Krugman, spokesman for the National Retail Federation, the industry's
Washington trade group.
The conflict highlights an important
force in the economy that is helping to keep prices stable: the
influence of ``big- box'' retailers such as Bentonville, Arkansas-based
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, and Minneapolis-based Target,
the No. 2 U.S. discounter. Wal-Mart alone accounts for close to
one-third of North American sales for major U.S. household goods
companies; the resistance of it and fellow retailers to price increases
helps make Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan and other policy makers
more confident that inflation is being contained.
``Over the past few years, the pricing
power in the marketplace has shifted away from the manufacturer to the
distributor-retailer like Wal-Mart,'' says Barry Bosworth, a senior
economist at the Brookings Institution, a research group in Washington.
``These chains are so big, they have the upper hand in setting prices.
If products don't sell, they eliminate them from the shelves.''
Pricing Power
Pricing power, the ability of
corporations to raise prices easily, is one of the key indicators the
Federal Reserve monitors continually in its deliberations over how far
to keep raising interest rates, Fed Governor Donald Kohn said June 14.
Greenspan, during congressional
testimony June 9, said that ``at the moment, we are finding little
evidence of inflationary pressures on the product side.'' While he cited
``some evidence'' that pricing power has been increasing, he said
overall inflation remains ``modest.''
That's why the household-goods
increases may be closely watched, despite the fact that they affect a
small part of the overall economy. On tap for the next two months are
announced plans for a 9 percent boost in prices of Clorox liquid bleach;
5 percent increases in diapers from Cincinnati-based P&G's Pampers line
and Dallas-based Kimberly-Clark's Huggies; and 6 percent to 7 percent
increases in prices of batteries from Boston-based Gillette Co. and St.
Louis-based Energizer Holdings Inc.
Raw Materials
Manufacturers say the planned price
increases, the first in a decade, are needed to cover the soaring cost
of raw materials. ``We have not taken enough pricing to recover
margins,'' Gerald Johnston, chief executive of Oakland, California-based
Clorox, told investors May 11.
The Reuters/Commodities Research
Bureau index of 19 major commodities, from platinum to soybeans, rose
8.5 percent from February through mid-March. It then dropped 6.6 percent
through mid-May and rose 5 percent over the past month.
Prices of pulp, used in paper and
packaging, surged in 2004 to a four-year high of $590 a metric ton. Raw
coffee prices hit a five-year high in March this year. PET resin, used
in plastic bottles, rose 22 percent in 2004 and is expected to jump 39
percent this year, according to estimates from Goldman, Sachs & Co.
A Collective Feeling
Bob Goldsborough, an industry analyst
at Ariel Capital Management Inc. in Chicago, which owns Clorox shares
among the $21 billion in assets that it manages, says that until
recently, competition made producers of household products leery about
raising prices for fear it would cost them market share. ``There's now,
in the case of managements, a collective feeling that they have to take
price increases and help make them stick,'' he says.
Retailers, meanwhile, are maintaining
a skeptical posture. ``When suppliers bring price increases to us, we
don't just accept it,'' says Karen Burk, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman. ``We
ask them to show us that raw materials costs have actually gone up and
that's the reason for the increase.''
Even then, ``if suppliers' costs are
going up it doesn't necessarily mean it'll be reflected in our stores,''
she says. ``If there's any way we can not pass the price increase on, we
try not to.''
Richard T. Curtin, director of the
University of Michigan's Survey for Consumers, whose monthly report on
consumer sentiment is closely watched by financial markets, doubts that
most of the price increases planned for household goods will stick.
Hands to the Fire
Companies ``have a slight degree more
pricing power than they did'' a year ago, ``but not as much as they
think they do,'' Curtin says. ``Consumers have been holding
manufacturers' hands to the discount fire, and I don't think they're
going to give up.''
Curtin predicts that many consumers
will shift ``from the name-brand product to the store-brand'' --
particularly in supermarkets. That's likely to be the strategy of Carla
McDonald, a 47-year-old Madison, Wisconsin, mother of two. ``What do
they want to do, drive us all to the store brands?'' she says. ``Good
luck, Colgate!''
New York-based Colgate-Palmolive Co.
plans price increases on its dishwasher detergent. Other price boosts
announced since January involve Clorox's Glad trash bags and containers,
Irvington, New York-based Prestige Brands Holdings Inc.'s Comet cleanser
and P&G's stomach remedy Pepto-Bismol.
One-Time Events
While Amy Chasen, an analyst at
Goldman Sachs in New York, sees ``an improving pricing environment,''
Robert Brusca, a former Federal Reserve economist who is now president
of Fact & Opinion Economics in New York, says that ``I don't see any
evidence'' that pricing power is up sharply. He thinks many of the
increases that have stuck are likely to be one-time events that don't
indicate a broader trend.
For the companies confronted by
pushback from the big retailers and consumers, ``it's the perfect
storm,'' says Jason Gere, a New York-based analyst at A.G. Edwards &
Sons Inc. who covers household goods companies such as P&G.
``Manufacturers are being hit by higher commodity costs and have to
increase prices somehow or their margins will get squeezed. But they
can't afford to raise prices too much if they want to remain competitive
on the shelf.''
[back to top]
Wal-Mart
confirms Vallejo Supercenter plans
By DAN JUDGE
Times-Herald
[back to top]
Arkansas-based retail giant Wal-Mart
will soon file an application to build one of its massive Supercenters
in Vallejo, company representatives confirmed Monday. Sometime this
week, Wal-Mart will submit its plans for a store of roughly 160,000
square feet at the site of a former Kmart on Sonoma Boulevard, company
spokesman Kevin Loscotoff said. "This is a great site for us," Loscotoff
told the Times-Herald. "There is a whole corridor there ripe for
revitalization, and we're excited about it." If the application is
successful, the move could give Wal-Mart two Supercenters - which
operate 24 hours a day and include grocery stores - within four miles of
one another. The company has already started construction on an American
Canyon Supercenter, which faces a legal challenge from two opposition
groups. Loscotoff said he does not believe two of the huge stores so
close together will over-saturate the market. He also described the
Vallejo and American Canyon communities as two distinctly different
markets, but did not offer details on how the customer base or stores
may differ in the adjoining cities. "We see it as meeting our customers'
demand," he said. Company officials estimate the new Vallejo store would
employ more than 400 and generate about $600,000 in sales tax revenue
for the city annually. They also claim that new architectural and design
processes will create a "softer" look for the store while increasing
energy efficiency by 30 percent. The company plans to close its
14-year-old Wal-Mart in Vallejo's Meadows Plaza when its American Canyon
location eventually opens, Loscotoff said. The current Vallejo store is
now in escrow, sources familiar with the deal say, and a Sonoma firm
plans to buy the building and lease it to Home Depot for that company's
second store in the city. It could take up to two years or more before
the Supercenter could be completed, Loscotoff said. Wal-Mart
representatives have had discussions with a number of City Council
members and city staffers about proposed plans for the store, said
William Fleishhacker, an attorney representing Wal-Mart. "We have gotten
mixed reaction from staff and the council on whether it is appropriate
for the site," Fleishhacker said, adding that council members are so far
"neutral" on the issue. Vallejo Mayor Tony Intintoli Jr. said he's
reserving judgment on whether he'll support a new Wal-Mart Supercenter
in Vallejo until he sees the results of the required studies the
application will trigger. "I don't have a position one way or the
other," Intintoli said. "As far as I'm concerned, it's a store like any
other. They'll put in an application, and it will follow a process that
almost certainly will require an economic impact study and public
hearings." The mayor said he doesn't know what Wal-Mart officials mean
when they say that Vallejo and American Canyon are "two separate
markets," able to support two Supercenters within four miles of each
other. He's sure, though, that they've done their homework and are
betting they can. "I worked in the real estate department of Lucky
Stores 25 years ago, and I know that before a store goes into a market,
they do a thorough analysis," Intintoli said. "They don't usually want
to go where they won't be successful. I haven't seen it, but I'm sure
they've done some sort of analysis of the market." The company's first
California Supercenter opened in Stockton last year, with one scheduled
to open in Gilroy this summer and two in Roseville and Marysville in the
fall. Suisun City and Fairfield also have been identified as future
sites for such stores. Wal-Mart's plans to bring Supercenters to
California has met with legal challenges by a variety of groups, often
arguing that the stores' impact on the environment has not been properly
considered by money-hungry jurisdictions. In American Canyon, two groups
have challenged the store that has been designed to anchor the new Napa
Junction Mixed-Use Project. The two - American Canyon United for
Responsible Growth and Citizens Against Poor Planning - filed suits
asking the courts to set aside 2004 land use approvals. The groups claim
the city violated its own zoning ordinances and the California
Environmental Quality Act by ignoring economic impacts the supercenter
might have on other businesses. Representatives of Wal-Mart, the city
and Napa Junction developer Lakestreet Ventures have argued that all the
proper procedures have been followed and much of the opposition is
actually generated by Wal-Mart's competitors and labor unions. Kathleen
Shamet, a spokesperson for American Canyon United, said having both
stores so near each other will only magnify the supercenters' negative
impact. In fact, she hopes neither store is built. "Vallejo has a lot
more potential that to put in a Supercenter," Shamet said. "I am
confident the Supercenter will never break ground in American Canyon."
The two American Canyon lawsuits are scheduled to be heard in Napa
Superior Court on Monday. - Times-Herald reporter Rachel Raskin-Zrihen
contributed to this report.
[back to top]
Springboro, developers to settle Wal-Mart lawsuit
John Wilfong
Dayton Business Journal
June 20, 2005
[back to top]
Springboro officials and local developers have reached a tentative
agreement after more than two years of legal wrangling over plans for a
Wal-Mart Supercenter.
The agreement, hammered out during 18
months of negotiations, calls for a much different development than the
initially planned 225,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter and Kohl's
department store.
The agreement instead maps out a
development that includes a limited amount of retail and service
businesses -- such as a grocery store or gas station -- a hotel and
conference center, and light industrial and office space. Buildings in
the development can be no larger than 30,000 square feet, except for an
anchor tenant that can be 90,000 square feet, said Springboro City
Manager Chris Thompson.
RG Properties Inc., a
Centerville-based developer of regional Wal-Marts that proposed the
original plan, still will develop the 54-acre area at the intersection
of state Route 741 and Austin Road.
"The picture (for that area) has
really changed as the Austin Road interchange is becoming a reality,"
Thompson said. "I think it's an excellent, creative settlement for the
city and the developer and the future development of the Austin Road
interchange."
Bruce Ingram, an attorney from
Columbus-based Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP who is representing
the developers, said he anticipates the plaintiffs will sign the
agreement, which then will be passed on to Montgomery County Court of
Common Pleas for final acceptance. As of June 15, no final decision had
been reached.
Officials with RG Properties could not
be reached for comment.
The Austin Road interchange is a joint
project among Springboro, Miamisburg, Miami Township, Washington
Township and Centerville to build an exit along Austin Road on
Interstate 75. The communities plan to add 28,000 jobs through business
and industrial park development there.
The Wal-Mart would have been permitted
under the land's initial zoning, but when plans for the new interchange
moved forward, the communities plotted a new course for the area focused
more on business and industrial than commercial development. Springboro
officials denied the plan for the Wal-Mart Supercenter soon afterward in
late 2002, saying it did not fit into the plans they had for the area.
GCG Austin Ltd., Wooster Associates
and Victory 4 LLC -- three companies related to RG Properties -- filed a
lawsuit Feb. 14, 2003 in the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas
against the city and its planning commission after the Springboro
Planning Commission and Springboro City Council denied the plans.
Thompson said the city and the
developers began negotiations in January 2004.
Wal-Mart currently has a traditional
store on state Route 741 in Miami Township and has plans to build a new
supercenter on Kingsridge Drive near the Dayton Mall.
E-mail jwilfong@bizjournals.com. Call
222-6900, ext. 120.
© 2005 American City Business Journals
Inc.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Nation
The world's largest retailer isn't
just buying--and selling--stuff in China. It has become a major force
for change
By DORINDA ELLIOTT
BILL POWELL/SHENZHEN
Sunday, Jun. 19, 2005
[back to top]
Joe Hatfield is the quintessential
Wal-Mart guy--a chain-smoking good ole boy from Baltimore who started as
an assistant store manager and toy buyer in the American heartland
nearly 30 years ago under the tutelage of Sam Walton. Today he is the
missionary from Bentonville, Ark., bringing the Wal-Mart way to China.
"I was blessed to work for Sam Walton," he says, "and I am doubly
blessed to work in China." Walking through a brightly lighted store in
Shenzhen, the boom town across the border from Hong Kong, Hatfield, who
heads Wal-Mart's retail operations in China, can't disguise his delight
over the--what else?--"everyday low prices!" He zips over to an
electronic keyboard selling for $20. "It was three times more a few
years ago!" he exclaims. He pauses at a bathroom scale that used to sell
for $6 and now is just $2.50. "We found a new vendor," he says. "It's
amazing. We're bringing people a great shopping experience!" Chinese
customers, piling goods into their shopping carts, seem to agree. In a
corner of the food department, Wal-Mart salespeople lead a group of
giggling women shoppers in a rousing relay race, transporting small
sausages down the aisle with chopsticks.
From Wal-Mart's modest offices across
town--a sea of small cubicles plastered with Sam Walton's inspirational
messages (DON'T ALLOW YOURSELF TO FALL INTO DIFFICULT SITUATIONS YOU
CAN'T CHANGE!) in Chinese--Hatfield is staging his own little
revolution. He runs 46 stores today but has much bigger plans. In two
years, Wal-Mart will double that number and, in the next year alone, he
will train some 25,000 new employees in the art of delivering those
everyday low prices to China's growing middle class. It's a grueling,
nonstop job. Hatfield has visited 70 Chinese cities in the past six
months, convincing Communist Party secretaries and provincial governors
alike that opening more Wal-Marts is a "win-win-win-win-type situation."
The core of his message to Wal-Mart's associates (as all company
employees are called) is simple: respect for the individual--customers
in particular--"is what we're all about." Unlike in most Chinese
companies, the system is transparent--guanxi, or personal connections,
don't matter in the firm's Chinese stores. "The culture of Wal-Mart is
stronger in China than anywhere else in the world," he says.
That shouldn't be surprising. The
giant retailer is the biggest player in the huge and growing U.S.-China
business relationship. Hatfield's stores are simply a sign that the
alluring but elusive China market is opening up to all comers. But as
grueling as Hatfield's job is--when asked what he does for fun in
Shenzhen, he responds, "Nothing''--he has the less controversial half of
his firm's business.
It's the buy side, not the sell side
that gets the headlines back home. Wal-Mart sources everything from T
shirts to toys to lighting fixtures in China--which puts the company
right in the firing line of those who think the U.S. manufacturing
sector is being killed by too-cheap-to-beat Chinese imports. By itself,
Wal-Mart is China's sixth largest export market-- just behind
Germany--buying some $18 billion worth of goods last year.
That makes someone you have never
heard of, Chiqui (pronounced Chick-ee) Cui, one of the most powerful men
in the global economy. The U.S. ran a $162 billion trade deficit with
China last year and, as Wal-Mart's top buyer in the country, he is a big
part of the transmission belt linking China and the U.S. A gentle-spoken
Filipino, Cui, 54, is managing director for Greater China and North Asia
in Wal-Mart's global-procurement department. So, for factory owners
across China, he is, simply put, the man to see. Every day on the fourth
floor at company headquarters in Shenzhen, scores of Chinese factory
salesmen come to vendor rooms with dreams of landing a contract.
They--and the products they make--are a big part of the reason
Wal-Mart's prices in its 3,702 U.S. stores are so low. "If you stop
stuff from [abroad] coming into the U.S.," Hatfield says, "it would mean
$180 blue jeans. Is that what Americans want?''
If Hatfield sounds defensive, it's
understandable. Wal-Mart's passion for buying in China makes it an easy
target back in the U.S. "Wal-Mart is both a beneficiary and a driver of
the race to the bottom in the global economy," says Alejandra Domenzain,
an associate director of Sweatshop Watch, a U.S. advocacy group. "It has
enormous leverage, and how it uses that leverage in the pursuit of ever
cheaper labor has enormous consequences for communities in the United
States." But that may be less true now than it was 20 years ago. The
production of most of the goods Wal-Mart sells in the U.S. left American
shores long ago, mainly for other countries in East Asia--Taiwan, Hong
Kong and South Korea. Only about 10% of the firm's purchases from 2,500
suppliers in China today come from companies owned on the Chinese
mainland. Andrew Tsuei, managing director in charge of Wal-Mart's
global-procurement operations, says the rest come from longtime
suppliers in other parts of the world that have moved their
manufacturing to China in search of lower costs. That means Wal-Mart's
China trade may indeed be eliminating factory jobs--but in South Korea,
not South Carolina.
It is not easy being a supplier to the
barons of Bentonville. "In fact, it's very tough," concedes Tsuei.
Wal-Mart says it's trying to export its American-style standards and
ethics to China's manufacturing sector too. In China, where sweatshops
are alive and well, the company insists those measures make a
difference. Suppliers, including those who sell to Wal-Mart indirectly
through other companies, must limit the work week to 40 hours plus no
more than three hours of overtime a day, meet safety requirements and
provide decent accommodations for workers. Even those critical of
Wal-Mart concede that the standards can make conditions at a Wal-Mart
supplier's factory more bearable than they are at a lot of other
low-wage factories in China. "When the standards are enforced," says
Domenzain, "I think they are a step in the right direction. The question
is, How rigorously are they enforced?"
These days, Wal-Mart is concerned that
suppliers are getting extremely sophisticated at faking records to show
compliance, even coaching workers before inspectors show up. "Most
Chinese manufacturers don't understand why we focus on ethical
standards," says Tsuei. "They ask questions like, Well, if I do this,
then I'll have to increase costs. We say these are things we have to
have."
To enforce the standards, Andy Tang,
Wal-Mart's Far East manager for ethical standards, travels across China,
making unexpected visits to all of the company's suppliers. In 2004,
more than 6,500 representatives of suppliers and factories underwent the
standards training. When Tang visits a factory, he sticks a cardboard
placard on the table announcing the company's policy: no gifts, no
kickbacks. He won't even sit for the traditional Chinese banquet. Some
"officials are pretty moved when they see that because they're used to a
different way," says Hatfield.
Forcing suppliers to stick to ethical
standards isn't the only way Wal-Mart can be tough. The bottom line,
after all, is what really counts. "We drive prices down," says Tsuei,
but not, he insists, "to the point where factories are making losses.
We're helping them become more efficient." Manufacturers have to meet
rock-bottom costs plus quality and design standards in order to keep
selling to Wal-Mart.
At Shenzhen's Catalina
lighting-fixtures factory, whose biggest customer is Wal-Mart, the
managers are constantly struggling to meet the company's pricing demands
and still turn a profit. Girls in pink jackets assemble and inspect
parts for a little more than $100 a month. "Wal-Mart's requirements are
very tight--on quality, ethical standards, production lead times.
They've pushed us to achieve better in all ways," says Sng Lai Kee, who
heads the factory. Catalina, he says, tries to stay ahead of Chiqui
Cui's relentless price demands by coming up with more sophisticated
designs for which it could charge slightly more. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart
allows only a month between its orders and delivery time, so Sng has to
badger suppliers to deliver promptly. It's tough, but Catalina knows
that in today's China, it's not too smart to push back hard against the
retail giant's demands. "This is the real world," Sng says. "If we don't
do this business, someone else will."
That real world is what brings low
prices to Wal-Mart's U.S. customers and, increasingly, to its customers
in China too. Joe Hatfield's new stores are thriving, in part because
Wal-Mart is spreading a management style that many of its young Chinese
employees find liberating. In most Chinese companies, managers typically
share little information with employees, and promotions usually depend
on whom you know. At the Sam's Club outside Beijing, it's different.
Alan Li, 31, the store's deputy manager, encourages workers to
contribute ideas about efficiency, and managers tell employees what's
going on. "It doesn't matter who you know here," says Li, a high school
graduate from a peasant family in rural China. "All that matters is your
work." In a country of 1.3 billion people, the Wal-Mart way may not yet
amount to a great leap forward. But it is progress.
Copyright © 2005 Time Inc. All rights
reserved.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart's
reach/Who pays for fringe benefits?
startribune.com
Published June 19, 2005
[back to top]
In the waning days of the 2005
Legislature, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has declared war on Sen. Becky Lourey
over a bill that would require public disclosure of big companies whose
employees rely on state subsidized health insurance. We hope legislators
find time in the special session to pass Lourey's bill, for Wal-Mart has
taken the wrong position based on faulty premises.
Around the Capitol, Lourey's bill has
been dubbed the "anti-Wal-Mart bill." But that's a misnomer. The DFLer
from Kerrick, Minn., would require the state to compile a list of all
large companies along with the number of their employees who use
MinnesotaCare, the subsidized health plan for the working poor. When
Massachusetts passed a similar law, Wal-Mart wound up on the list, but
so did Dunkin' Donuts, McDonald's, several hospitals and the city of
Boston.
No one wants to stigmatize companies
that create jobs for low-skill, low-wage workers. But Lourey has a
different, and perfectly legitimate, goal in mind. Gov. Tim Pawlenty has
proposed severe cuts to MinnesotaCare this year, and lawmakers ought to
know how those cuts would affect the economy and Minnesota's biggest
employers. More specifically, Lourey wants to sit down with business
lobbyists who press for lower taxes while simultaneously using
tax-funded services.
But there's a larger public interest
as well. The United States has the least regulated labor market in the
industrialized world. (Germany and Japan, by contrast, have achieved
universal health care by essentially mandating that employers and
employees pay for coverage.) The American theory is that the economy
works best when private markets set wages, benefits and working
conditions -- and then the public sector plugs the gaps where necessary.
But that public supplement has become a huge burden on taxpayers;
health-care is now the No. 2 item in Minnesota's state budget. When some
employers externalize one of the costs of doing business -- and their
competitors do not -- voters and taxpayers have a right to know how
their money is being spent. Lourey is herself a small business owner who
provides health insurance for her employees, and she calls her plan the
"we're all in this together bill."
It's no surprise that Wal-Mart is
feeling besieged these days, what with community activists and
class-action litigators storming its ramparts. But mollifying the
nation's biggest employer should come second to transparency for
Minnesota taxpayers.
© Copyright 2005 Star Tribune. All
rights reserved.
[back to top]
AmCan
Wal-Mart lawsuit heads to judge
Superior Court will
decide whether city ignored own laws
By DAN JUDGE
Times-Herald staff writer
[back to top]
AMERICAN CANYON - The battle over a
Wal-Mart Supercenter in American Canyon is headed for a showdown Monday
in a Napa courtroom. A Napa Superior Court judge will be asked to
determine if the city ignored its own laws and the California
Environmental Quality Act by failing to consider how the new store might
affect existing businesses.
"At the end of the day, when our case
has been presented, we think it will clearly demonstrate the city did
not follow the law when it approved the project," said Brett Jolley, the
Stockton-based attorney representing one project opponent.
That statement was disputed by Vincent
"Buzz" Butler of Lake Street Ventures, developer of the Napa Junction
Mixed-Use Project that the 170,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter
would anchor.
"If you read the legal briefs, it is
so clear that we are in the right - fact by fact," he said.
Wal-Mart representatives could not be
reached for comment on Friday.
The debate over the new store ignited
last summer when it was learned the main tenant of the Napa Junction
project would be the supercenter, which includes a grocery store that
would operate around the clock.
A group calling itself American Canyon
Community United for Responsible Growth - founded by small newspaper
publisher Cindy Coffey before being elected to the City Council in
November - sued the city, Wal-Mart and Lake Street Ventures.
The lawsuit charged that the city
violated its own zoning ordinances in approving the project and failed
to comply with state law that requires more detailed information about
the store's impact on other businesses.
Another group calling itself Citizens
Against Poor Planning sued as well, making similar claims. The two suits
were consolidated for Monday's court date.
Last month a Napa Superior Court judge
granted a request by American Canyon United that all construction on the
Wal-Mart store be stopped until the court decision had been rendered. A
condition of the ruling was that the group post a $180,000 bond.
Representatives of the city, Lake
Street and Wal-Mart insisted that all the proper procedures had been
followed over the course of numerous hearings.
They also noted that opposition only
arose after it was learned that Wal-Mart would be the tenant.
They argued that labor unions and
other supermarket chains were using the community groups as a means to
kill competition. Butler noted that the legal firm representing Citizens
Against Poor Planning also represents Nugget Markets, which owns the
nearby Food 4 Less in Vallejo.
"The California Environmental Quality
Act clearly states you can't discriminate against one retailer over
another," Butler said. "It just becomes an abuse of the CEQA process,
which is what I think this group is doing."
American Canyon United spokeswoman
Kathleen Shamet said she has no doubt the lawsuits will prevail and
called for community members to attend Monday's hearing.
"I think people need to see how the
process works, to see how developers like Lake Street Ventures, cities
and their councils cannot fool the people," she said. "We are 100
percent confident the court is going to rule in our favor."
In court:
The case is scheduled to be heard at
9:30 a.m. Monday in the Napa Superior
Courthouse at 825 Brown St., Napa.
[back to top]
Will Labor Take the
Wal-Mart Challenge?
By Liza Featherstone
The Nation
Posted on June 17, 2005
[back to top]
Staying union free is a full-time commitment. Unless union prevention is
a goal equal to other objectives within an organization, the goal will
usually not be attained. The commitment to stay union free must exist at
all levels of management -- from the Chairperson of the "Board" down to
the front-line manager. Therefore, no one in management is immune to
carrying his or her "own weight" in the union prevention effort. The
entire management staff should fully comprehend and appreciate exactly
what is expected of their individual efforts to meet the union free
objective.... Unless each member of management is willing to spend the
necessary time, effort, energy, and money, it will not be accomplished.
The time involved is...365 days per year....
This admonition comes from a handbook
Wal-Mart distributes to managers, and gives an idea of the passion and
vision behind Wal-Mart's unionbusting project. The $259 billion retail
behemoth that has become a defining feature of the American landscape
has also profoundly altered labor politics, deploying ever more creative
and ruthless tactics to suppress the right to organize, while driving
down wages and benefits in the retail industry and beyond.
The company is providing a business
model widely imitated by other corporations, especially its competitors.
To take one recent example, after striking for months, grocery workers
in Southern California were forced to accept a vastly reduced health
plan early this year, as supermarkets, anticipating competition from new
Wal-Mart Supercenters throughout the state, refused to compromise with
the union -- probably the first time in history that a potential
competitor who had not even entered the market yet was such a key player
in a labor dispute. But the California grocers are not alone.
Supermarkets all over the country have been lowering wages and
decimating workers' health plans. Management claims these cutbacks are
necessary to compete with Wal-Mart, but another explanation makes at
least as much sense: "Greed," says Linda Gruen, a former Wal-Mart worker
now organizing supermarket chains for the United Food and Commercial
Workers (UFCW). "Management sees what Wal-Mart gets away with," she
says, and realizes that the way to increase profits is to do the same.
Wal-Mart, which topped the Fortune 500
this year, for the third year in a row, is not just an industry leader:
It is an economy leader, the nation's largest private employer by far,
with over 1.2 million employees. That number is growing all the time, as
Wal-Mart opens new stores just about every week. The average wage is
around $8 an hour -- and the health plan so expensive and so stingy in
its coverage that many workers go without, or depend on the government
to pay their medical bills. Says Susan Phillips, vice president of the
UFCW and head of its working women's department, for any private-sector
union in the United States today, "anytime you go into
negotiations...it's like there's this invisible 800-pound gorilla
sitting in the room at the bargaining table." This is reflected
particularly by employers' ebbing generosity on healthcare, but also on
wages, pensions and other benefits. Journalist Bob Ortega observed in
his 2000 book, "In Sam We Trust," that Wal-Mart's "way of thinking," its
relentless focus on giving the customer the lowest price, "has become
the norm," not just in retail but in all businesses. This can't be done
without crushing labor.
That's why a consensus among labor
leaders is emerging that organizing Wal-Mart workers is an urgent
priority -- perhaps the most urgent facing a labor movement that is
losing density and influence. Asked what it will take to organize
Wal-Mart, Al Zack, outgoing assistant director of strategic programs for
the UFCW, points to Wal-Mart's stated commitment to remaining "union
free." Says Zack, "When the labor movement...matches that commitment,
then it will be successful."
It would be difficult to exaggerate
the magnitude of this challenge. Wal-Mart's rhetoric is supported by
diligent practice. The company screens out potential union supporters
through its hiring process: In addition to excluding those with union
histories, the company also administers personality tests to weed out
those likely to be sympathetic to unions, and offers managers tips on
how to spot such people.
The same handbook, which was given to
management in a Wal-Mart distribution center in Greencastle, Indiana,
urged managers to be wary of certain union-friendly types, including
"the Cause-Oriented Associate," who in high school "led demonstrations
against everything from 'red dye' to 'ban the bomb.' He once took a trip
to India to visit his personal 'guru.'" Managers are also encouraged to
avoid the "Overly-Qualified Associate...a Ph.D operating a grinding
machine or a former accountant sweeping the floor.... This type of
associate includes the associate who has formerly made substantially
more money with other employers."
During the hiring process, many
workers say they have had to sign forms agreeing that they would not
support any effort to unionize the store, a clear violation of federal
law. Lorraine Hill, who worked for Wal-Mart in Rock Springs, Wyoming,
and in Oxford, Maine, says all her co-workers did this. "If you don't
sign that paper you are not employed," she says. "It's not legal. It's
not ethical. But if you are low income and you need the job, you abide
by the rules."
Of course, these preventive measures
do sometimes fail, and workers begin to organize. Wal-Mart is prepared
for that, too. At any sign of union activity in a store, managers call
the company's Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters, which sends a "labor
relations team" by private plane (Air Walton) to the offending store to
crush the organizing effort, often the very day the call comes in.
In the United States, only one group
of Wal-Mart employees has successfully organized. In February 2000 ten
meatcutters in Jacksonville, Texas, voted 7 to 3 to unionize their tiny
bargaining unit. Two weeks later, Wal-Mart abruptly eliminated their
jobs by switching to prepackaged meat and assigning the butchers to
other departments, effectively abolishing the only union shop on its
North American premises. After more than three years, in June 2003, a
federal labor judge ruled this move illegal and ordered Wal-Mart to
restore the department and recognize the butchers' bargaining unit.
Wal-Mart has appealed that decision.
Because the consequences are so
minimal, Wal-Mart does not hesitate to break the law in order to stay
union-free. Indeed, as the Greencastle handbook to managers notes
frankly, during a union drive, "You ... are expected to support the
company's position.... This may mean walking a tightrope between
legitimate campaigning and improper conduct." Wal-Mart has been found
guilty of many violations of workers' right to organize, even firing
union sympathizers. But paying fines -- or in some cases, merely hanging
a sign in the break room that states that the company violated workers'
rights -- is for Wal-Mart simply part of the cost of doing business, a
small price to pay for keeping unions out. Until labor laws are reformed
to make violating workers' rights a criminal offense -- punishable by
sending managers and CEOs to prison -- running Wal-Mart campaigns based
on National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) challenges may be fruitless.
Recently Wal-Mart decided that
remaining union-free is a political issue, becoming 2003's number one
corporate contributor to candidates, 85 percent of them Republicans.
Most corporations, realizing that both Democrats and Republicans respond
to business interests, give almost equally to the two parties. But
Wal-Mart operates on the premise that while Democrats owe something to
labor, Republicans don't -- and therefore, if its donations can purchase
GOP dominance, they are well spent. Wal-Mart, especially as it moves
into urban areas and into union-friendly regions like California, is
strategically trying to buy as many politicians and NLRB appointments as
it can.
Yet despite Wal-Mart's clear focus on
fighting unions, the labor movement has been slow to respond. In the
late 1980s the UFCW began to realize that Wal-Mart's rapid growth and
competitiveness -- and rapid incursion into the grocery industry, which
had been mostly unionized -- posed an urgent threat to members' jobs.
The first Supercenter -- a twenty-four-hour Wal-Mart selling groceries
in addition to the company's traditional range of goods, from ladies'
underwear to lawn mowers -- opened in 1988; by the end of 2003, Wal-Mart
had opened 1,430 of them. Wal-Mart had historically been concentrated in
"right-to-work" states in the South, but as it grew, the company
encroached upon more unionized Western and Northeastern regions. Still,
the union effort was halfhearted until the late 1990s, when supermarkets
began losing market share to Wal-Mart and it became painfully obvious
that the company threatened the UFCW's very survival -- and its members'
hard-won comfortable lives.
As the UFCW's humbling defeat in the
California grocery strike showed, the union, after years of friendly
relations with so many regional grocery stores, does not know how to
conduct an antagonistic national campaign, or how to make use of
nationwide publicity and public sympathy for workers. Many labor
organizers, pointing to such failings, blame the UFCW for its failure to
organize Wal-Mart.
But the mistakes of this particular
union may almost be beside the point. While it is true -- and sobering
-- that the UFCW devotes only 2 percent of its national budget to the
Wal-Mart campaign, it is also true, as many in the labor movement are
beginning to recognize, that there is no way any single union could
tackle an opponent of this size and genius. As Mike Leonard,
just-retired director of strategic programs for the UFCW, observes, if
his union spent all its resources on organizing Wal-Mart workers, it
would have to neglect the pressing needs of current members. As big as
the UFCW is -- at 1.4 million members, it is the nation's largest
private-sector union -- Wal-Mart will soon have more US employees than
the UFCW has members. "It's not a fair fight," says Wade Rathke, founder
and chief organizer of ACORN and Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Local 100, in New Orleans. No union has ever organized an entity the
size of Wal-Mart, let alone one as creative and coordinated in its
anti-unionism. "You have to admire this company," says Rathke. "They are
very disciplined, and they've got a program." Labor doesn't, at least
not yet.
Increasingly, labor leaders recognize
this, and are taking the first step: admitting they have a problem.
"This problem [Wal-Mart] is on the short list of any serious labor
leader in the country," says Rathke. Andy Stern, president of the SEIU,
has opened a dialogue on the subject on his weblog, soliciting ideas
about strategy. (The SEIU is not attempting to organize Wal-Mart, nor is
any union other than the UFCW, at this point.) Stern, who began the blog
conversation with a picture of himself standing in front of one of
Wal-Mart's thirty-nine Chinese stores, said in an interview that he sees
the blog as an opportunity "to do what Howard Dean did," to stimulate
interest, and then as a campaign evolves, mobilize people into action.
As the growing engagement of other
unions in this discussion suggests, the UFCW cannot "stop" or change
Wal-Mart alone. The task will demand the close cooperation and resources
of other labor organizations. Asked what it will take to organize
Wal-Mart, Ginny Coughlin of the textile union UNITE, which has recently
begun organizing retail workers -- but has no immediate plans to take on
Wal-Mart -- says, "I was just talking about this with a colleague the
other day. We figured 3,000 organizers at a minimum. And all the
resources, political will and leadership of probably four or five major
unions." It is not inconceivable that this could happen: Labor leaders'
recent rhetoric about greater cooperation between unions is more than
talk. Several large unions are launching joint campaigns to organize
low-wage workers. UNITE and HERE (the hotel and restaurant workers'
union), for example, which are now in the process of merging, are
working with the SEIU to organize employees at Sodexho, the nation's
largest dining-services provider -- which will involve more serious
cooperation between labor organizations than we've seen in years. On May
12 prominent labor leaders held a meeting at SEIU headquarters to
discuss the Wal-Mart problem, but partly because most people in the
labor movement are preoccupied with defeating Bush, such dialogue is
proceeding slowly.
Leonard, who ran the UFCW's Wal-Mart
campaign for the past four years, thinks the "entire labor movement"
should devote resources to helping Wal-Mart workers build a new,
AFL-CIO-affiliated union "from the ground up." If other unions simply
run a joint campaign against Wal-Mart, he argues, they are just going to
drop out "as soon as they have their next big problem" affecting their
own members' immediate interests.
International cooperation could be key
to any Wal-Mart organizing strategy. As Andy Stern, just back from
China, points out, "Wal-Mart is second only to our current President in
unpopularity around the world" [see Carl Goldstein, "Wal-Mart in China,"
December 8, 2003]. Since Wal-Mart is an increasingly global company,
fighting it invites potential for cross-border solidarity, especially in
Germany, where many Wal-Mart workers are unionized and the company
abides by a sectorwide agreement with a large retail union, and has been
the target of pickets and warning strikes. In Britain some ASDA (British
Wal-Mart) stores have shop stewards, but none of the workers are
recognized as union members, or are covered by a collective-bargaining
agreement. In Brazil Wal-Mart has had to reach agreement with unions on
some workers' rights issues, while in Japan all of the company's workers
are unionized, and Wal-Mart abides by an agreement reached with the
stores' previous owner.
Many in the US labor movement believe
that Wal-Mart requires a new organizing strategy. "There is no existing
organizing model that unions have effectively employed to date that
would organize this company," says Wade Rathke, who believes workers
need a way to build their own institutions that is "not based on the
permission of the employer."
Joel Rogers, a longtime social-justice
activist and University of Wisconsin political scientist, agrees that
the traditional model of organizing -- by industry, with a focus on
getting a majority vote in each shop, which under the law makes all the
workers in that shop part of the union -- cannot work for Wal-Mart.
Rogers advocates an approach he calls "open-source unionism," in which
workers could join unions even if the majority of their co-workers had
not yet chosen to do so [see Richard B. Freeman and Joel Rogers, "A
Proposal to American Labor," June 24, 2002]. Membership would focus on
the individual, not the firm or job; a member could still belong to the
union if and when she changed jobs. "It would be a kind of 'Wal-Mart
Workers Association,'" says Rathke. This feature makes particular sense
at a company like Wal-Mart, where turnover is so high. Under this model,
employers could not insure that by defeating unions in elections, their
workplaces would remain union-free. While these unions would lack
collective-bargaining rights, members would receive advice from the
union on how to protect their rights during disputes, and help in
improving pay and working conditions through collective action. They
would also benefit from alliances with community groups and other unions
in putting pressure on their employer. Open-source unionism certainly
needs re-branding, since only technologically knowledgeable geeks --
most of whom are middle class -- would understand that phrase, which
derives from a term referring to the free exchange of software on the
Internet. But it could provide a structure enabling workers' political
activism, making it much easier for workers at companies like Wal-Mart
to agitate to improve their situation, in cooperation with other
workers.
This model isn't just a wonky
abstraction. Though they may use different language to describe it,
women and immigrants -- including sweatshop workers in the United States
and Latin America, and New York City taxi drivers -- have been at the
forefront of similar new organizational strategies. In her 2001 book
Sweatshop Warriors: Immigrant Women Workers Take On the Global Factory,
Miriam Ching Yoon Louie describes how garment workers have developed
worker centers both to agitate for rights on the job and to develop
political consciousness and become part of a larger social movement.
These are, of course, much smaller-scale than a Wal-Mart Workers
Association would be, but the principles -- organizing without
permission from employer or government, and affiliating with workers who
are not in the same shop -- are the same.
"It is essential that Wal-Mart workers
have something like that," says Jane Collins, a professor of rural
sociology and women's studies at the University of Wisconsin who has
studied women's labor organizations in Latin American free-trade zones.
Most Wal-Mart workers are women, and women -- whether in Latin America
or in immigrant communities in the United States -- have been at the
forefront of these new forms of organizing because, says Collins, they
have been excluded, or poorly served, by the traditional unions.
Similarly, Wal-Mart women find themselves in their current dismal
position both as a result of mainstream labor's failure to recognize,
early on, the importance of organizing low-wage retail workers and
because of working-class women's historic -- and ongoing -- exclusion
from unionized skilled trades.
"This might not work either," admits
Rathke, of the Wal-Mart Workers Association idea. But it should be
tried, he argues, because "we need a new strategy."
Most people agree that any serious
approach to forcing Wal-Mart to the bargaining table must eventually
threaten the company's profits. Labor organizers used to think they
could do this by asking the public not to shop at Wal-Mart, but now most
concede that's impossible, given the retailer's low prices. Their own
members shop at Wal-Mart, making at least 30 percent of union
credit-card purchases at the retail giant. Even activists thinking
seriously about how to oppose the retailer keep finding themselves in
its parking lots. "I love that damn store," says Rathke, who recalls
being a loyal customer when he lived in Arkansas and needed the
discounts. "They had me. I wasn't making 2 cents to put together." Now
he lives in New Orleans, and admits, "Damned if I don't go down to Sam's
for a new tire! They do have something that works. You can't just
convince people they're evil." Indeed, many rural and working-class
women view Wal-Mart as an ally, an oasis of low prices in an unfriendly
world. In her chart-topping paean to country pride, "Redneck Woman,"
Gretchen Wilson sums it up irresistibly: "Victoria's Secret, well their
stuff's real nice/But I can buy the same damn thing on a Wal-Mart shelf
half price/And still look sexy, just as sexy as those models on TV/No, I
don't need no designer tag to make my man want me." The question of how
to threaten profits, given such intense consumer loyalty, is one of many
that the labor movement's current dialogue must engage.
While simply telling people not to
shop at Wal-Mart may be a losing battle, fighting Wal-Mart and companies
like it will require convincing the public that discounts are no
substitute for economic justice. Says Beth Shulman, author of The
Betrayal of Work: How Low-Wage Jobs Fail 30 Million Americans and Their
Families, "We need to talk about cost in a larger way. It is not just
about saving $25, but the cost to the lives of workers and their
families, and to society." That conversation has already begun in
Georgia, Washington State and elsewhere, where studies have shown that
Wal-Mart employees depend on public assistance far more than do workers
employed by other large companies. April Hotchkiss, who makes $8.33 an
hour as a clerk in a Pueblo, Colorado, Supercenter, has had her
healthcare costs paid for by the state's program for the indigent. She
dreams of the day she will no longer have to shop or work at Wal-Mart.
"Whenever I'm able to quit this place, and find something better, I'm
never going to set foot in another [Wal-Mart] again," she says. "I don't
care how low the prices are -- of course the prices are low, because
they don't pay anybody worth crap!"
Ultimately, for this campaign to
succeed, the entire progressive movement -- not just labor -- will have
to make the unionization of Wal-Mart a priority. Pointing to the recent
victory in Inglewood (a Los Angeles suburb where voters rejected a move
by Wal-Mart to exempt itself from local zoning rules and erect a massive
Supercenter) and the momentum of similar battles in Chicago and
elsewhere, Rathke says that when it comes to fighting Wal-Mart, "there
is more traction in the community than on the labor side." Andy Stern
agrees, envisioning his blog conversation as the beginning of a
movement-wide campaign by progressives to bring pressure on Wal-Mart.
"The campaign needs to begin not as a labor campaign," says Stern,
pointing out that community organizations "are more used to sustaining
people around issues for long periods." Similarly, while Stern thinks
there is "clearly an opportunity to create a Wal-Mart Workers
Association," given that so many employees are unhappy with their
working conditions, he thinks it might be a job for ACORN and other
community organizations, since "it is not a traditional union model."
But Stern believes the labor movement
should put resources behind a central organization that could serve as a
resource for -- and help coordinate -- the many constituencies (workers,
environmentalists, feminists, anti-sprawl advocates, churches,
small-business owners) opposing Wal-Mart. At present, these groups work
largely in isolation. Says Rathke, "There's no place to call and ask,
'How do you bring the ghostbusters in?'"
Labor activists talk a lot about
involving the "community," which all agree is an important component in
the struggle to unionize Wal-Mart. Yet one advantage Wal-Mart has in
this regard is that with 70 percent of its stores located outside of
metropolitan areas, and "Main Street" dying everywhere, it's doing
business in many places where there isn't much of a community. In urban
areas like Inglewood, and in some small towns, black churches,
small-business associations and other institutions have been able to
facilitate a discussion about whether Wal-Mart serves or thwarts the
common good. But in many of the rural and exurban counties and townships
where the retailer has traditionally operated, there has been no basis
for such a debate: only isolated families struggling to get by, grateful
to be able to load up their cars with cheap groceries from Wal-Mart. As
is often the case, rhetoric about "community" can blind us to the
crucial problem of its absence. On the other hand, wherever there is a
thriving civic culture, that culture is an essential ally in the fight
against Wal-Mart. In Vermont, for example, controversy over proposed
superstores recently inspired the National Trust for Historic
Preservation to declare the entire state "endangered" by the retailer.
It's encouraging that labor leaders
are talking about this problem and entertaining so many new approaches.
Yet as Mike Leonard cautions, in the labor movement, "it's a pretty rare
day when we go beyond talking about a new idea, and that's part of the
problem." And many workers are not optimistic now. Linda Gruen, who
tried for several years to organize her Wal-Mart co-workers, is "not
sure we will ever unionize Wal-Mart." April Hotchkiss, who still works
at Wal-Mart and is trying to organize her co-workers, shares Gruen's
view at times. "It is like parting the Red Sea," she says. "Sometimes I
think it ain't going to happen. It is one of the hardest things I've
ever tried to accomplish. I'd probably be better off trying to run the
New York City Marathon."
Liza Featherstone is a New York
City-based journalist. In 2002, she co-authored 'Students Against
Sweatshops: The Making of a Movement' (Verso).
© 2005 Independent Media Institute.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart takes aim at
hitting Target
By Emily Kaiser
Reuters
Fri Jun 17, 2005 09:41 AM ET
[back to top]
CHICAGO - Wal-Mart Stores, which has
gained a reputation for leaving opponents limping into bankruptcy court,
is taking on Target Corp in a fight that it just might lose.
Wal-Mart, the No. 1 retailer, is
widening its array of stylish-but-cheap goods in hopes of winning over
middle-income customers, putting it head-to-head with a rival that has
proved it can compete and thrive against a company six times its size.
"Can Wal-Mart make merchandise
improvements that will drive incremental sales? Absolutely," said
Darrell Rigby, head of the global retail practice at consultants Bain &
Co. "Can Wal-Mart beat Target at Target's game? I doubt it."
Target's secret is to match Wal-Mart's
prices on commodity items such as food and cleaning supplies, and then
use sales of trendy-but-affordable designer merchandise to boost
profits.
The strategy seems to be working. For
the first quarter ended on April 30, Target turned in a strong 6.2
percent sales gain at stores open at least a year. That was more than
double the same-store sales increase for Wal-Mart in the United States.
Wall Street has noticed the
discrepancy, rewarding Target's shares with a higher valuation than
Wal-Mart's. Target trades at nearly 21 times earnings forecasts for the
next fiscal year, compared with a multiple of about 18 for Wal-Mart,
according to Reuters Estimates.
The sales gap isn't lost on Wal-Mart
executives. Mike Duke, head of the company's U.S. discount stores, said
visits to Target stores are the No. 3 use of his time, behind meeting
with Wal-Mart employees and customers.
"I'll be straight up -- they are a
great competitor," Duke said in a presentation to analysts this month.
WAL-MART CHEAP CHIC?
Now Wal-Mart wants to bring in its own
"cheap chic" goods, using the British design team behind its George
apparel line to come up with more fashionable offerings.
A Target spokeswoman said the retailer
is confident of its strategy and declined to comment on Wal-Mart's
plans.
Some analysts worry that Wal-Mart will
stray too far from its low-price roots and alienate its core low-income
shoppers.
Emme Kozloff, retail analyst with
Sanford Bernstein, said fashion is fickle, and Wal-Mart could be stuck
slashing prices if its "contemporary" clothing fails to win new
customers.
"It's a hit-and-miss business, with no
company ever able to always get it right," she said, noting Wal-Mart's
scant fashion experience.
The retailer has been relying on
staples like groceries to drive sales as rising energy prices cut into
discretionary spending, particularly among low-income shoppers.
But food is a notoriously low-margin
business, and Wal-Mart's profits have suffered. First-quarter earnings
missed the company's -- and Wall Street's -- expectations.
Wal-Mart was unusually frank in taking
the blame for its disappointing results.
Instead of pointing a finger at high
energy prices or bad weather, the company said it put too much emphasis
on its lowest-priced items, which it calls "opening price points," and
lost some customers who were willing to pay more for style.
"When it comes to buying domestics or
apparel, that customer isn't shopping with us," Chief Executive Lee
Scott said. "They are going somewhere else where they believe the
offering is more suited to their taste."
'JUNKY' STORES
Scott said Wal-Mart prominently
displayed impulse items priced at less than $1 in hopes that
cash-strapped customers might be tempted to pick up one or two. The idea
was that with more than 100 million shoppers visiting stores each week,
sales would grow one dollar at a time.
"But what happened is that the further
we went that way, the less relevant we got to be to the customer who was
not really being impacted by these negative economic issues," Scott
said, adding that stores began to look "junky" because of all the
displays of low-priced goods.
This isn't the first time Wal-Mart has
taken on a strong rival. Two years ago, its Sam's Club warehouse
division was losing ground to Costco Wholesale Corp., and executives set
out an aggressive plan to undercut the competitor's prices and go after
coveted small-business customers.
While Costco eventually recovered and
remained the No. 1 player in the U.S. warehouse club sector, Sam's Club
sales grew too, suggesting that when the two giants wrestled, consumers
welcomed the lower prices and both sides gained ground.
Wal-Mart is hoping that will happen
again.
Scott says consumers fall into three
categories -- loyal Wal-Mart customers, those who shop there for food
but not general merchandise, and those who don't shop there at all.
"Quite honestly, I believe that
Wal-Mart has the opportunity to have all three of those customers," he
said.
Winning over fashion-conscious
shoppers will be hard. Target has a 10-year head start and has built
strong relationships with well-known designers, including Michael Graves
and Isaac Mizrahi.
Still, Bain's Rigby said Target knows
better than to bet against Wal-Mart.
"I'm sure everyone at Target is taking
this new threat very seriously," he said.
© Copyright Reuters 2005. All rights
reserved.
[back to top]
STOP Wal-Mart
from Coming to Your Community!
Author Solidarity Sister
Created 16 Jun 2005
[back to top]
So far, Santa Cruz County has managed
to keep out ultra-evil Wal-Mart from its communities. Wal-Mart is now
trying to come into Santa Cruz County... by locating themselves just
outside of county lines in the small, unicorporated area of Pajaro.
Please help fight the corporate monster! Sometimes a moment comes when
what we do, individually and together, MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE in what
happens, for better or for worse, in our communities here on the Central
Coast. If we respond, we win. If we fail to respond, we lose. A moment
like that has arrived NOW.
At 9:30 AM on Monday morning June 20
the Monterey County Board of Supervisors will hear public comment on
whether the county should regulate the development of big box
superstores-- combining huge discount grocery sales with cheap consumer
goods-- like the WalMart superstore proposed for the unincorporated
rural area of Pajaro.
NOT ONLY THAT: at the same time, in
the same hearing, the Board will take testimony on whether to show
preference for good jobs, whether to discourage bad jobs (with low ages,
no benefits and systematic violation of workers rights) and whether to
adopt a policy promoting a LIVING WAGE for all working people in the
Monterey County. THESE ARE URGENT ISSUE IN A LOCAL ECONOMY ADDICTED TO
LOW-WAGE LABOR WITH NO HEALTH CARE AND NO RIGHTS AT WORK.
We all know what WalMart represents.
We all know that a WalMart superstore would cause an explosion of
traffic, steal needed sales tax from towns like Salinas and Watsonville,
erode public services, damage the environment, destroy decent unionized
grocery jobs, and suck the life out of local communities up and down the
central coast. If we stand up NOW, we can stop this catastrophe.
What can we do?
1. SPREAD THE WORD: send this message
to your friends with a note asking THEM to take action. Send it too to
larger email lists-- in your union, your church, your community.
2. COME TO THE MEETING at 240 Church
St in downtown Salinas at 9:30 AM Monday-- SHARP!--if you can't come,
send your husband or brother or friend. Call up your union rep and say
"go and speak for us!!!"
3. RIGHT NOW click on this link:
http://www.californianonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=NEWS01...
to register your views through the Salinas Californian's online poll
asking "Should Monterey County supervisors use the general plan to
prevent construction of big-box stores outside of cities?"
4. Join the Alliance for Good Jobs and
Healthy Communities-- the new coalition born in resistance to this
latest WalMart assault our communties-- by replying to this email with
your name and contact info. We'll keep you informed and give you more
opportunities to fight for good jobs and defend our communities.
Si se puede!
[back to top]
Court Rules
Against Parts of Wal-Mart Code
German Labor Court
Rules Against Parts of Wal-Mart Ethics Code, Spokesman Says
The Associated Press
Jun. 16, 2005
[back to top]
A labor court has ruled that parts of
Wal-Mart's ethics code, including a ban on relationships between
employees, violate German law, a court spokesman said Thursday.
Wal-Mart's German arm, based in the
western city of Wuppertal, declined to comment on the ruling, saying it
had not yet received written confirmation.
A spokesman for the labor court in
Wuppertal, who asked that his name not be used, said the tribunal ruled
against the ban on relationships and against a proposed hot line for
employees to report on colleagues' violations of the code.
Labor representatives from Wal-Mart
Stores Inc.'s 91 German stores sued the U.S. retail giant over the code
after it was introduced without their prior approval in March.
Under German law, employee-management
councils must sign off on a wide range of workplace conditions, from
hiring and firing to the position of desks in an office.
Wal-Mart has said its guidelines are
intended to maintain a safe environment in the workplace.
The court said the company would be
able to challenge its ruling, which does not prevent Wal-Mart from
applying the rest of its code.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.
All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast,
rewritten, or redistributed.
Copyright © 2005 ABC News Internet
Ventures
[back to top]
German
Labor Court Rules Against Wal-Mart Ethics
NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, June 16, 2005
[back to top]
FRANKFURT, Germany - A labor court has
ruled that parts of Wal-Mart's ethics code, including a ban on
relationships between employees, violate German law, a court spokesman
said Thursday.
Wal-Mart's German arm, based in the
western city of Wuppertal, declined to comment on the ruling, saying it
had not yet received written confirmation. A spokesman for the labor
court in Wuppertal, who asked that his name not be used, said the
tribunal ruled against the ban on relationships and against a proposed
hot line for employees to report on colleagues' violations of the code.
Labor representatives from Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s 91 German stores sued
the U.S. retail giant over the code after it was introduced without
their prior approval in March.
Under German law, employee-management
councils must sign off on a wide range of workplace conditions, from
hiring and firing to the position of desks in an office.
Wal-Mart has said its guidelines are
intended to maintain a safe environment in the workplace.
The court said the company would be
able to challenge its ruling, which does not prevent Wal-Mart from
applying the rest of its code.
Shares of Wal-Mart fell 7 cents to
$49.78 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange, where they
have traded in a 52-week range of $46.20 to $57.89.
© 2005 Associated Press. All Rights
Reserved.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart names new
head of online site
By Elinor Mills
CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News
June 16, 2005, 1:09 PM PT
[back to top]
Forward in EMAIL Format for PRINT
E-commerce Executive recruiting Ebay Inc Carter Cast, who formerly held
positions as vice president of Walmart.com and chief marketing officer
at eBay, will be the new president of Walmart.com, Wal-Mart Stores
confirmed on Thursday.
As previously reported by CNET
News.com, Cast, 41, succeeds John Fleming, who was promoted to chief
marketing officer for parent company Wal-Mart in April.
Effective July 5, Cast will be
responsible for the day-to-day operations at the retailer's Web site and
will report directly to Fleming, the company said.
Cast joined Walmart.com in 2000 as
vice president of marketing and later left to join eBay. He worked at
the online auction company for four months before resigning earlier this
week.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart prods Bush for the
CBC
By Elana Schor
[back to top]
Continuing its courtship of the
Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), Wal-Mart is urging President Bush to
extend the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In recent months, Wal-Mart has moved
toward a lasting alliance with the CBC, deepening the ties by stressing
its legislative influence as the nation’s largest private employer of
African-Americans. Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott’s letter, delivered to the
White House on Tuesday, is his first follow-up on a productive winter
meeting with the CBC.
“I hope that you will stand with me,
members of the Congressional Black Caucus, other political and civil
rights leaders and countless Americans in supporting an extension of the
expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act,” Scott wrote to Bush,
whose reelection campaign received the maximum contribution from
Wal-Mart’s political action committee.
The act is universally beloved by the
civil-rights community and a point of pride for black lawmakers. It
ensures that no disenfranchisement method can be used to prohibit blacks
from exercising their right to vote, and its renewal before the 2007
expiration is a crucial priority for the CBC.
The CBC met with Bush to discuss its
legislative agenda two weeks before its Feb. 10 meeting with Wal-Mart.
While at the White House, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) asked Bush
whether he would support extending the act and Bush expressed
unfamiliarity with the law, according to an op-ed Jackson’s father, the
Rev. Jesse Jackson, wrote on the meeting.
“[The CBC] formally presented Lee
[Scott] with their legislative agenda and asked Wal-Mart to consider
endorsing all or part of the agenda,” said Kimberly Woodard, a Wal-Mart
lobbyist. “This was one of the things we noted right away that we would
publicly support.”
Wal-Mart has not been a historic
financial supporter of Democrats, but the retail behemoth is working to
change its ways. While only 22 percent of its PAC giving in the 2004
election cycle went to Democratic candidates, that number has jumped to
47 percent for the 2006 cycle, according to the Center for Responsive
Politics.
Of Wal-Mart PAC’s $40,000 given to
Democratic candidates for 2006, $12,000 has gone to CBC members.
“We applaud Wal-Mart for supporting
the part of the Congressional Black Caucus’s legislative agenda that
calls for the reauthorization of the expiring parts of the Voting Rights
Act,” CBC Chairman Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) said in a statement.
“Hopefully, Wal-Mart and others will endorse the entire agenda.”
Last month’s rebuke of the CBC by an
official at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) who
criticized the caucus for its recent meetings with Wal-Mart remains a
sore point between the union and the CBC. But lobbyists and lawmakers
alike said the relationship would remain healthy.
“We really hope that both Wal-Mart’s
friends and foes, particularly organized labor, join with Wal-Mart to
support Voting Rights Act extension,” Woodard said.
SEIU kept its rhetoric courteous,
declining to comment on the record about what some have complained is
“Wal-Mart pandering to the African-American community,” as one lobbyist
present at the Feb. 10 meeting put it.
“We’re certainly pleased that they’re
working in support of reauthorization” of the Voting Rights Act, said
SEIU spokesman Avril Smith. “We are in the process of collecting 500,000
signatures in favor of reauthorization through Rainbow/PUSH,” the Rev.
Jackson’s organization, by the end of the summer.
Jonathan E. Kaplan contributed to this
report
[back to top]
Wal-Mart store tells workers to be ready to work any shift
The Charleston Gazette
Posted 6/15/2005 11:27 AM
[back to top]
Workers at a West Virginia Wal-Mart (WMT)
store have been ordered to be available to work any shift at any time or
face dismissal. The new "open-availability" policy at the Wal-Mart store
in Nitro is needed to ensure there is adequate staff during peak hours,
said John Knuckles, a manager at the store.
"We have many people with set
schedules who aren't here when we need them for our customers," Knuckles
said.
"It is to take care of the customers,
that's the only reason."
Workers who cannot commit to being
available for any shift between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., seven days a week,
will be fired by the end of this week. The store employs more than 400
workers.
"It shouldn't cause any problem, if
they are concerned about their customers," Knuckles said.
Wal-Mart corporate spokesman Dan
Fogelman said other stores have such rules.
"This is something that is done
throughout Wal-Mart stores," Fogelman said. "The reality of retail is
that our busiest times are evenings and weekends, so it only makes sense
that we have higher staffing levels at those times."
Workers who are fired because they
cannot meet the new requirement likely will qualify for unemployment
benefits, said David McMahon with Legal Aid of West Virginia.
"If these people lose their jobs
through no fault of their own, as a general rule they will be eligible
for unemployment benefits," McMahon said Wednesday.
A union spokesman criticized the
policy at the non-union retailer's store.
"This is a chilling new direction for
Wal-Mart," said Chris Kofinis, communications adviser for Wake Up
Wal-Mart, a promotional campaign financed by the United Food and
Commercial Workers union. "It shows that when you work at Wal-Mart, you
can neither afford a decent standard of life or even have a life."
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.
All rights reserved.
[back to top]
Scrutinizing Wal-Mart ...
Always.
By Kate Ackley
Roll Call
June 15, 2005
[back to top]
As Wal-Mart Stores Inc. staffs up its
Washington, D.C., outpost, the worldwide retail giant continues to fend
off missives at the state and local level. The D.C.-based group Wal-Mart
Watch is sending out three-page letters this week to local politicians
and officials, yet again denouncing the retailer for low wages and
substandard benefits, according to a copy of the correspondence.
[back to top]
Former Wal-Mart exec
joins Safeway
East Bay Business Times
June 14, 2005
[back to top]
John Lewis is the new senior vice
president, internal audit at Safeway Inc., the company said Tuesday.
Lewis joins the Pleasanton grocery
chain (NYSE: SWY) from Arkansas-based discount retailer Wal-Mart Stores
Inc. (NYSE: WMT) where he was senior vice president and chief financial
officer of Wal-Mart International since 2003. He had served as vice
president and chief audit executive at Wal-Mart since 1996.
In his new position he will have
overall responsibility for the company's internal audit function.
© 2005 American City Business Journals
Inc.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart
Open To More International Acquisitions
06.14.05, 9:43 AM ET
[back to top]
Credit Suisse First Boston reiterated
an "outperform" rating and $55 target price on Wal-Mart Stores (nyse:
WMT - news - people ) after a presentation by Chief Executive John
Menzer. CSFB noted that the company was still focused on international
growth, despite an unsavory European environment: "China has surprised
management with comparable-store sales growth after a difficult 2004,
Japan has lapped last year's value-added tax inclusion in retail pricing
resulting in easier comparisons, Brazil comps are growing double digit,
Argentina is recovering, and Wal-Mart is laying the groundwork for an
aggressive move into India, should the government change its policies on
direct foreign ownership." While the U.K. and Germany continue to
struggle, CSFB said that trends were more optimistic in the U.S.
"Comparable-store sales have improved concurrent with better weather but
traffic has not. While weekly comp sales remain in the 2% to 4% range,
we believe trends have improved relative to the 2.5% May result."
Wal-Mart also stressed that it was open to further acquisitions--as poor
performance hinders competitors in the UK, acquisition opportunities
could surface. "Forty percent of international growth has come through
acquisitions and management remains open to further acquisitions," CSFB
said.
[back to top]
California
Controller Requests Wal-Mart Audit
June 14, 2005
California State Controller Steve
Westly requested an audit of the Wal-Mart on Monday, asking the retail
giant to address charges that accuse it of exploiting workers, violating
child labor laws and ignoring charges of sexual harassment. The request
comes on the heels of an $188,000 fine issued by the California Fair
Employment and Housing Commission for "willfully and consciously
disregarding its obligations as a California employer."
[back to top]
Readers
Write: Turning Up the Heat on Wal-Mart
By Laura Barcella
AlterNet
Posted on June 13, 2005
[back to top]
We received scores of reader responses to Don Hazen’s article of June 1,
Turning Up the Heat on Wal-Mart, about filmmaker Robert Greenwald's
upcoming expose of the maligned mega-chain.
Greenwald's documentary, Wal-Mart: the
High Cost of Low Price, is scheduled for release in November, and
national associations of many stripes -- from the United Church of
Christ to the Petroleum Marketers Association of America -- are
organizing to promote the film's agenda.
What is the film's agenda? To expose
the injustices behind Wal-Mart's famously low prices. "This is the
largest corporation in the world, and it is running roughshod over
family business and workers throughout the country," Greenwald explains
in the article.
Wal-Mart relies on cost-cutting to
keep customers coming back, but in so doing, local businesses across the
country have been run into the ground, unable to compete with Wal-Mart's
predatory pricing.
How else is Wal-Mart wicked? Our
readers enumerate the ways -- the ridiculously rich institution doesn't
share its wealth, instead depending on low-wage workers (its 1.2 million
American workers make an average of $9.99/hour); it outsources virtually
all of its product manufacturing; gets big-box tax breaks to introduce
more and more stores -- and more and more sprawl -- to American
communities... And the list goes on.
After receiving so many comments in
reponse to Hazen's story, we've decided to showcase some below.
Reader Paul-D expressed regret that
his rural relatives were forced to shop at Wal-Mart for lack of
alternatives. "My beloved in-laws live in a painfully rural community in
Eastern Kentucky," he wrote. "Virtually the ONLY store they can shop at
is the local Wal-Mart. I'd like to try to convince them to drive a
little further and shop elsewhere, but they won't do it.
“I'm going to make sure they see this
movie. Hopefully we can engage in a dialog about this afterward, and
maybe I can pursuade them to get involved in their community and make
sure Wal-Mart doesn't gain any more ground than it already has."
Reader Phatkat, also rurally located,
acknowledged a personal mistrust for the chain but reminded us (again),
"when you are rural, and retired on a fixed income, it is hard NOT to
shop there. I buy as little as possible, but there are some things that
are either unavailable elsewhere, or are twice the price elsewhere. A
sorry impasse."
Kirk, a pastor, agreed: "Wal-Mart has
moved into rural communities in a way that makes one either drive so far
[that] everything costs more, due to time and gas; or go without."
But he addressed some small ways
shoppers can help thwart the big W: "I do find that many local retailers
will order items especially for me, and sometimes put in price breaks,
since I do other shopping there too. It doesn't hurt that I'm a pastor,
but maybe you can obtain similar services for at least some of your
shopping. No one should be expected to make unreasonable sacrifices; if
we all do what we can, local businesses will be stable, and Wal-Mart
will shrink."
Pjbretz, from a "small town of around
25,000" residents, recalled commiserating with a Wal-Mart employee
during a recent visit. "I was in line for 30 minutes at one of the
express lanes...talking to...an employee of the store. She said that a
couple of weeks ago, the manager had to come in on a Saturday to help
check people out, because some of the checkers had not come in. And for
$6.25 an hour, I don't think I would show up either."
Phatcat also weighed in on Wal-Mart's
skimpy hourly wages. "When Wal-Mart's wages are posted as being around
$10/hr, it is deceptive. The people who work in the stores get much
less, but their fleet truck drivers make wages similar to Costco's
workers, or $16/hr. The drivers' wages skew the average upward! It's
WORSE than it looks!"
Though all of our readers/commenters
agreed on the monolithic bully's evils, opinions were mixed about
Greenwald's upcoming documentary. Most were excited, but some doubted
that the film could achieve its intended impact on mass culture.
"It makes me feel pretty good to know
that someone has taken the time to expose the policies and deceptions of
Wal-Mart on the big screen," wrote Ratmonster Spook. "I don't expect any
changes to take place as a result, though.
"No, I'm not one of the depressed
liberals who decided to give up hope after the election. I just know how
the greed cycle works. People want stuff. Wal-Mart has cheap stuff, and
lots of it. It's made in China, and I can pretty much guarantee you that
the people who shop there don't care. They don't care even if it's
pointed out to them that Wal-Mart is causing the destruction of many
small businesses. Even if they're shown how much money Wal-Mart sends
outside of the U.S...people still won't care."
Another reader, Helenwheels, expressed
a similarly critical sentiment about the movie's ability -- or lack
thereof -- to change Wal-Mart's monopoly on the market. "Wal-Mart isn't
going to disappear because of this movie any more than Bush [was going
to lose] power after Michael Moore's movie, Fahrenheit 9-11," she noted.
"We always get so hopeful when the
truth comes out on the big screen, and these exposes do affect change to
a degree, but shockingly enough, they don't seem to change things as
much as one would surmise."
But Helenwheels closed on a hopeful
note, acknowledging the value of films like Greenwald's. "I am thankful
for Greenwald's work, and I truly hope it doesn't merely piss off a
bunch of higher-ups for awhile and then disappear, like Farenheit 9-11.
My hope upon hope is that if it doesn't manage to set off a chain of
events that topples Wal-Mart, it may at least inspire new activists
against big business and greedy corporations."
Laura Barcella is an associate editor
at AlterNet.
© 2005 Independent Media Institute.
All rights reserved.
[back to top]
Anthony Weiner's Wal-Mart
problem
by Dominic Basulto
Corante New York
June 13, 2005
[back to top]
There's egg on the face of mayoral
hopeful Anthony Weiner, who has been front and center in the fight to
keep Wal-Mart out of the city. (The New York Post has dubbed him "Mr.
Anti-Wal-Mart") It turns out that Weiner has pocketed more than $30,000
from two families with close ties to the big box retailer. That's not
good news, considering that he's one of the sponsors of "Wal-Mart
bashing" legislation that will be voted on in the House of
Representatives this week.
Is the timing of the Wal-Mart
revelations a coincidence? Probably. As the summer heats up, look for
the candidates vying for Bloomberg's mayoral post to ratchet up their
campaign vitriol. Try to stay clear of any drive-by mudslingings.
[back to top]
Vancouver Wal-Mart plan is opened up to public scrutiny
John Colebourn
The Province
June 12, 2005
[back to top]
Vancouver residents will get a chance
this week to tell the city's politicians what they think of a proposal
for a new Wal-Mart near Main Street and Marine Drive.
Plans for the 16,000-square-metre "big
box" store have alrealdy raised concerns from merchants and residents of
the South Vancouver area worried about the increased traffic and threat
to their businesses.
Coun. Anne Roberts, who led a
pre-election campaign against Wal-Mart's plan, has said the location is
the problem, arguing that it would eat up valuable industrial land and
damage neighbourhood shopping areas.
On Friday, Roberts said "once it's
been referred over to a public hearing process, we can't comment on it."
Deming Smith, speaking for a group
called Building Better Neighourhoods, told The Province the store would
attact an extra 18,000 vehicles along Marine Drive daily, and that the
traffic would "make it a pedestrian nightmare."
The land that Wal-Mart has optioned is
currently industrial land. A company spokesman said that Wal-Mart will
have to pay retail-level rates of about $30 a square foot if rezoning is
allowed.
A public hearing on the plan will be
held Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at Vancouver City Hall, 453 West 12th Ave.
jbermingham@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Province 2005
[back to top]
Wal-Mart advances as
rivals regroup
Lawsuits may slow
new store on Rte. 138
By David Connolly
Globe Correspondent
June 12, 2005
[back to top]
This town of fewer than 12,000
residents soon may be home to not one but two Wal-Mart supercenters.
The world's biggest retailer is
planning its second 200,000-plus-square-foot combination general
merchandise and grocery store, on Route 138 in the north side of town.
As Raynham's fifth supermarket, it would be joining the existing
Wal-Mart supercenter on Route 44, and Shaw's, Stop & Shop, and Market
Basket stores.
The competition for grocery shoppers
is heating up in neighboring communities as well. Maine-based Hannaford
Brothers is opening stores in Easton and Taunton in January, even though
Shaw's has stores in each of those communities. Taunton also has two
Trucchi's stores, and Easton is home to a Roche Brothers store that is
less than 2 years old.
''Supermarkets love suburbia, and
especially areas with growth like Southeastern Massachusetts," said
Jeffrey W. Metzger, publisher of Food World, a Maryland-based industry
publication. ''And Wal-Mart is building their stores closer together
than ever before."
Indeed, no one doubts Wal-Mart
spokesman Philip Serghini when he says, ''We're aggressively looking in
the Northeast."
The growth in supermarkets not only
means that consumers will have more choices about where to spend their
grocery dollars, they can also expect to see prices drop, according to
Mike Berger, editor of the Griffin Report of Food Marketing, a
Pembroke-based publication.
''The ultimate benefit will go to the
consumer," he said.
But the path for Wal-Mart's expansion
is not without obstacles, which may well delay the projected fall 2006
opening of its newest Raynham store.
The town's Planning Board approved the
site plan April 20, and the Zoning Board of Appeals approved a special
permit a week later, but within a month or so two lawsuits were filed to
challenge the boards' actions.
Two weeks ago, neighboring Taunton
filed a lawsuit in Superior Court contending that the new Wal-Mart would
place an undue burden on the city.
''According to their own study,
traffic on Taunton's side of Route 138 will increase by 24 percent with
this store," said City Solicitor Steve Torres. Wal-Mart has pledged
$200,000 to Taunton for Route 138 traffic improvements, but that won't
cover the costs, he said.
''Raynham is getting all the benefits
and we're getting all the traffic," Torres said, referring not only to
the tax revenue but the $100,000 for a new fire truck and $400,000 for a
drinking water well that the host town is slated to get from Wal-Mart in
mitigation for its project.
Taunton's lawsuit, filed on May 23,
also says that Wal-Mart's proposal, as approved by the Raynham boards,
does not adequately protect an underground aquifer that the city is
counting on for a future well, and raises concerns about capacity for
additional flow to its wastewater treatment plant.
Officials from Taunton and Wal-Mart
are expected to work toward a settlement outside of court. Wal-Mart's
Serghini declined to comment on Taunton's lawsuit.
The second lawsuit, filed in Superior
Court last month by DeMoulas Super Markets, owner of the Market Basket
store about 300 yards from the proposed Wal-Mart, is seeking to have
Raynham's approvals overturned.
Like Taunton, the DeMoulas company
points to traffic concerns. ''The effect of traffic delay is gridlock in
front of the Market Basket site, particularly during the evening peak
hours," that will keep customers from its store, DeMoulas asserts in its
suit.
Raynham Town Planner Richard McCarthy
said he is confident the town's April approvals will stand up against
the appeals, in part because Market Basket owners did not raise traffic
concerns during the public hearings held from February to April.
The lawsuits, he said, ''may stall the
project a bit, but not too much."
Wal-Mart must still file its final
environmental impact report with the state's Executive Office of
Environmental Affairs, and gain approvals from the state Highway
Department for curb cuts and plans for Route 138, and the Department of
Environmental Protection for a sewer extension permit, McCarthy said.
But nothing in that process is expected to stop the project, he said.
Wal-Mart first opened a
125,000-square-foot general merchandise store on Route 44 in 1992. After
winning a protracted legal battle over traffic issues, the store added
85,000 square feet of grocery retail space and opened its supercenter in
2003.
Similarly, the Arkansas-based company
hopes to open its second general merchandise store in Raynham in fall
2006, and then add its grocery store, using the adjacent 26-acre site of
the former Par Three Golf Course.
If that happens -- and once the two
new Hannaford stores open -- the area's existing supermarkets will lose
customers, predicts Phil Lempert, founder of SupermarketGuru.com, food
trend editor on NBC's ''Today Show," and editor of Progressive Grocer
magazine.
The stores are already bracing for the
increase in competition.
''It seems to me our demographics
could be a little over-saturated. That's almost common sense," said
James Trucchi, president of his family's Taunton-based chain of five
grocery stores.
Officials from Roche Brothers, Stop &
Shop, Shaw's and Hannaford said their stores would pay attention to
Wal-Mart, but not change any operational procedures.
''The supermarket business," said Paul
McGillivray, Roche Brothers vice president of sales, ''is very
competitive."
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times
Company
[back to top]
Wal-Mart loses back-pay case
BAROMETER
Posted on Sat, Jun. 11, 2005
[back to top]
Wal-Mart must pay $188,000 after
refusing to reinstate a manager at its Antioch store who returned from
maternity leave. The Fair Employment and Housing Commission, in a ruling
released Thursday, said the retail giant "willfully and consciously
disregarded its obligations as a California employer."
The company's claim that a supervising
manager simply misunderstood the state law was not credible, the
commission said, because Wal-Mart had been found liable for violating
the same law in a 1998 case.
The commission fined the company
$25,000, payable to the state. The rest of the damages will go to Krista
Jane Carver for lost wages and emotional distress. She's also entitled
to be reinstated to her former job.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart going to Cobblewood
Retailer will tear
down two-thirds of Forest Park site for supercenter
Lisa Biank Fasig
Courier
June 10, 2005
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Inc. is preparing to tear
down two-thirds of Cobblewood Plaza in Forest Park as part of a plan to
build a 200,000-square-foot supercenter within a mile of Kroger, Bigg's
and Meijer stores.
The supercenter is expected to open at
Cobblewood in midsummer 2006, said Chris Anderson, community development
director for Forest Park.
"They've already got the demolition
permit and should begin demolition anytime soon," he said. "We've been
actually reviewing this for over a year now."
The new store is part of a
long-standing plan by Cobblewood's owner, Dallas-based Cobblewood
Investors LP, to update the facade of the Winton Road center. In 2001,
Cobblewood helped pay for road improvements and traffic signals in
anticipation of the redevelopment.
Wal-Mart has acquired the store site
and the remaining 135,000 square feet belonging to Cobblewood Investors,
said Charles Cooper, a representative for the owner. When the renovation
is complete, around the same time Wal-Mart opens, the center will be
renamed Parkwood Plaza.
"When it's complete we'll have the
same footage as we did before," he said.
The supercenter, which will employ
about 400, is among roughly a dozen the retailer has confirmed or built
in Greater Cincinnati. On average, each Wal-Mart supercenter generates
annual sales of $88 million.
Until last year, Wal-Mart operated two
local supercenters.
Forest Park has approved a 10-year tax
increment financing plan for the project, which earmarks taxes generated
from the improvements at the center to pay for the cost of its
redevelopment. Forest Park has yet to determine whether it will need to
issue bonds to pay for the redevelopment, city officials said.
Money raised through the TIF also
would pay for the city police and fire departments.
The area of Cobblewood Plaza being
demolished is largely vacant; tenants will remain open through the
redevelopment. Other retailers at the center include Old Time Pottery
and Jo-Ann Fabrics.
© 2005 American City Business Journals
Inc.
[back to top]
Walmart Ordered To Pay!
Bob Egelko
sfchronicle.com.
Friday, June 10, 2005
[back to top]
A state civil rights agency says
Wal-Mart must pay at least $188,000 for refusing to reinstate a manager
at its Antioch store after pregnancy leave.
In a ruling made public Thursday, the
Fair Employment and Housing Commission said the retail giant "willfully
and consciously disregarded its obligations as a California employer.''
The company's claim that a supervising manager simply misunderstood the
state law was not credible, the commission said, because Wal-Mart had
been found liable for violating the same law in a 1998 case.
Based on its finding of a knowing
violation of the law, the commission fined the company $25,000, payable
to the state. The rest of the damages will go to Krista Jane Carver for
lost wages and emotional distress. She is also entitled to be reinstated
to her former job.
A lawyer for Wal-Mart declined to
comment and referred inquiries to company headquarters in Arkansas,
which were closed for the day by then. The company could appeal the
ruling in Contra Costa County Superior Court.
Carver started working for Wal-Mart in
August 1996, had a good record, and was promoted in April 2002 to
manager of the tire and lube department in Antioch, making about $41,000
a year, the commission said. She took leave before and after the birth
of her first child in April 2001, and became pregnant again in early
2002.
She applied for a month's disability
leave in May 2002 after coming down with pregnancy-related diabetes. But
when she tried to return the next month, she was told by George Allen, a
regional manager, that she had used up all her leave time, had no right
to reinstatement and had already been replaced.
Allen would have been right if Carver
were protected only by federal law, which entitles an employee to 12
weeks of family medical leave per year. But California law is more
protective and allows four months of leave for any disability related to
a pregnancy, the commission said.
Later that month, Wal-Mart offered
Carver a nonmanagement job in Turlock (Stanislaus County), with lower
pay, a shorter workweek and staggered hours. She turned it down, saying
she could not make child-care arrangements, and then began an
unsuccessful search for a management job with another company, the
commission said.
The commission also said Allen,
testifying at Carver's hearing last year, falsely denied that Carver's
pregnancy played any role in the loss of her job.
Carver's award includes nearly $88,000
for lost wages between June 2002 and August 2004, and $75,000 for
emotional distress, plus interest. She is also entitled to additional
damages, yet to be determined, for wages she lost since the hearing in
her case in August.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Ends Former Officer's Benefits on Misconduct
June 10
Bloomberg
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. stripped former Vice Chairman Thomas Coughlin of
his retirement benefits after concluding he engaged in misconduct for
using company funds for his own benefit.
Coughlin, who retired
in January and resigned from the board in March, won't receive 186,407
shares of restricted stock and 302,503 stock options, according to an
earlier filing. Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, took this action
after suspending the benefits in April while conducting its
investigation.
``For a period of
several years and continuing until at least December 2004, Mr. Coughlin
had been involved in a scheme to misappropriate corporate funds and
property for his own personal benefit,'' Bentonville, Arkansas-based
Wal-Mart said in a filing today.
Wal-Mart's stock has
fallen 16 percent in the past year as the company faces a major
sex-discrimination class action lawsuit, growing protests from community
and labor groups against its expansion and greater competition from
rivals including Target Corp. The retailer earlier reported the results
of its Coughlin probe to the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of
Arkansas and said a government investigation is underway.
Telephone messages to
the home of a Thomas Coughlin in Bentonville weren't immediately
returned.
The former executive
told Wal-Mart investigators that he was using the money for ``union
activity,'' the filing said. The United Food and Commercial Workers
union has unsuccessfully tried to organize stores in the past. Wal-Mart
said its investigation found no evidence of such activity on Coughlin's
part.
Coughlin's resignation
came after an internal probe into his alleged unauthorized use of
corporate gift cards and personal reimbursements that appeared to have
been obtained through reporting false information on third-party
invoices.
Shares Wal-Mart rose
16 cents to $47.98 at 4:18 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite
trading.
To contact the
reporter on this story: Lauren Coleman-Lochner at llochner@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: June 10,
2005 18:08 EDT
[back to top]
Wal-Mart
official leaves after Nazi book-burning ad
By MICHAEL BARBARO
Washington Post
June 9, 2005, 7:01AM
[back to top]
WASHINGTON - The Wal-Mart community
affairs director for Arizona and Southern California, whose office
approved an advertisement that appeared to equate a local zoning
proposal with Nazi book-burning, has resigned, the giant retailer said.
Peter Kanelos, who oversees the
chain's public relations effort in both states, will leave the company
Friday, said Daphne Moore, who runs the community affairs program for
Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart Stores.
Wal-Mart has not publicly announced
Kanelos' resignation, but Moore acknowledged it in an interview
Wednesday. Asked if Wal-Mart requested that Kanelos leave the company,
Moore said, "I can tell you he resigned."
Kanelos, in an e-mail, said he is
leaving the company "on mutually agreeable terms" but would not
elaborate.
The firm Wal-Mart hired to design the
ad said it had severed its six-year relationship with the company as
well.
Wal-Mart has said it reviewed and
cleared for publication a full-page advertisement in the May 8 edition
of the Arizona Daily Sun featuring a 1933 photo of Germans throwing
books on a pyre at Berlin's Opernplatz. The ad was part of a campaign,
funded by Wal-Mart, to defeat a Flagstaff, Ariz., ballot initiative that
would have restricted the chain's growth. Voters later narrowly rejected
the measure.
The ad drew criticism from the
Anti-Defamation League, members of Congress and Wake-Up Wal-Mart, a
union-funded organization. Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer,
responded by apologizing in a second newspaper ad and by setting up a
hot line for local residents to call.
The controversy became high-profile
enough for S. Robson Walton, Wal-Mart's chairman, to address it last
week during the retailer's annual shareholder meeting.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart
scouts for Indian retail business CEO
Pummy Kaul
[back to top]
New Delhi, June 8 Wal-Mart Stores Inc,
the world’s largest retailer, is not waiting for government clearance to
start preparing for its retail foray in the country. The global major is
believed to have initiated the recruitment process for its proposed
retail operations in India. This follows the recent recruitment exercise
it undertook for its sourcing operations, managed by the Bangalore based
Indian affiliate of its subsidiary WMGS Singapore Pte.
According to sources, Wal-Mart is in
the process of appointing an HR consultant for India with a clear
mandate to identify a CEO to spearhead its retail operations in India.
Discussions, are, however, at a preliminary stage, sources said.
Worldwide, its recruitment is done by
the leading senior exective search firm Heidrick & Struggles, which
works closely with the global giant in most markets including Europe and
the US. However, H&S, which has operations in India as well, may or may
not necessarily bag the Wal-Mart retail account in India. The final
decision is expected to be taken soon by Wal-Mart as it is believed to
have called for a pitch from global HR firms including Heidrick &
Struggles.
Industry sources maintain that it is
more likely that Wal-Mart will bring an expat to head its proposed
retail operations as only ‘an expat can bring the required value-add’.
“There’s very limited talent in the retail industry here.”
Wal-Mart spokesperson when contacted
maintained that the issue was a bit premature and the company would be
in a better position to prepare and make plans once the policy is clear.
“In fact, our situtation has not changed since we were in India. First,
the policy must change and that is in the hands of the Indian government
officials. Then once we know the policy we will be in a better position
to prepare and make plans,” Wal-Mart International director,
international corporate affairs, Beth Keck said.
Things can, however, change as the
global retailer is believed to be currently negotiating with Indian
business houses for a joint venture partnership for its proposed retail
foray in the country.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart CEO
says 5-year plan simple: Grow more
Becky Yerak
June 7, 2005
[back to top]
Even in front of an audience of 800
people, Lee Scott isn't afraid to think big.
During a recent speech in Chicago, the
chief executive officer of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. painted a mind-boggling
picture of the long-term growth potential of his $285 billion company.
Wal-Mart, Scott noted, has U.S. market
share of only about 10 percent; in contrast, European retailer Tesco, he
said, has 30 percent of the United Kingdom's food market alone.
"We're a $200 billion U.S. company. If
we were a $600 billion U.S. company, we'd only be as good as Tesco,"
Scott said at an Executives' Club of Chicago luncheon last month. "So
there's an extraordinary amount of growth ahead of us because there
aren't many people who can say, `I see a clear path to adding $400
billion to my sales.' But we can."
In an interview afterwards, Scott said
he wasn't necessarily claiming that Wal-Mart would become a $600 billion
business, although some retail analysts have predicted that Wal-Mart
could reach the $500 billion mark by 2010. Rather, Scott said he was
trying to convey the importance of daring to dream when you're already
the world's biggest retailer.
"When you get as large as we are, you
have to paint a picture in people's minds that you can still grow.
Otherwise they think of $285 billion and think `That's the end of that.'
Well it isn't," Scott said.
"It's not even the start of it. We
have a five-year plan, and have a pretty good idea in five years where
we'll be."
He declined to elaborate except to say
getting there would involve opening new stores in the U.S. and overseas,
expanding existing stores and making acquisitions.
While rival Target Corp. lately has
done a better job of increasing sales in its existing stores than
Wal-Mart, the latter does have a recent edge on square footage growth.
Wal-Mart's U.S. store group, excluding
its Sam's Club unit, boosted its retail square footage by 8.6 percent in
the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2005, according to its annual report.
Target, which has annual revenues of
$46.84 billion, expanded square-footage growth by 8.2 percent, according
to its annual report for the year ended Jan. 29, 2005.
This year, Wal-Mart plans to open as
many as 530 new stores, the company said in its annual report. That
includes 165 international locations. Already, Wal-Mart's foreign sales
are on par with those generated by Sears Holdings Corp., the retailer
formed by Kmart Holding Corp.'s March acquisition of Sears, Roebuck and
Co.
Meanwhile, Target expects to add more
than 600 stores over the next five years, the company told shareholders
at its recent annual meeting.
During a May 12 conference call about
its first-quarter earnings, one analyst asked Target about rumors that
it might link up with Tesco to grow overseas. But Target said there is
still growth to exploit stateside.
"We know we can double the number of
stores in the continental United States," and factoring in existing
stores' sales growth will "lead us to be able to triple in size in this
country," Target CEO Bob Ulrich said.
"It's sexy to be overseas, but there's
a strong return for our strategy here, so I think overseas is still a
ways off."
byerak@tribune.com
Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune
[back to top]
WalMart Tries to be the Photograph Copyright Police - Ignoring Customers
Rights
Posted by James Fee
[back to top]
"Amateur photographer Zee Helmick
encountered that problem when she went to pick up photos she had ordered
at a Wal-Mart near her home in Henderson, Nev. She had taken the photos
of her son that morning to use as head shots for an audition for a TV
commercial. She had used her photo-editing software to add his name,
information about him and even her own copyright to make the image look
more polished, Helmick said. She uploaded the 8-by-10-inch photos to
Walmart.com, which prints photos sent to the site at a nearby store for
customers to pick up. At the store, Helmick said a clerk told her, "We
can't release the pictures to you." "What's wrong?" Helmick asked. "We
can't release the pictures to you without a copyright release form
signed by the photographer," the clerk replied, according to Helmick.
The clerk said the photos looked like a professional had taken them,
Helmick said. And no matter how much Helmick protested that she, an
amateur, had snapped the shots of her son, she said the clerk wouldn't
budge."
Has this ever happened to you? It has
with me at Walgreen's with some pictures of my wife and I on our
honeymoon. There was nothing I could do to convince them that I took
them as I didn't have the negatives, just the jpegs from my digital
camera. What I have to wonder is why WalMart would be doing this. If
they just print the photos they can say it is not their duty to enforce
the copyright, but now that they are being "vigilant", they'll be liable
for the times when they don't catch a "professional" photo.
What is the best way to handle
something like this when you have no clear proof?
[back to top]
Wal-Mart closer to
entering India
Big News Network
Monday 6th June, 2005
(UPI)
[back to top]
Wal-Mart, the world's largest
retailer, seems closer to entering India after the prime minister
announced a possible end to prohibitory restrictions.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
announced India might lift its restrictions on foreign direct investment
in the retail sector after a meeting last week with John Menzer,
president of Wal-Mart's international division, who was on a
fact-finding trip to India, the Press Trust of India reported Sunday.
Wal-Mart has been lobbying for years
to get into India, a potential market estimated at $280 billion. The
disposable income of India's emerging middle class -- estimated at 300
million people -- grew by 20 percent between 1999 and 2003.
We think India's great. It's a
fantastic market, said Beth Keck, Wal-Mart's director of international
corporate affairs, who also was visiting New Delhi.
Wal-Mart, French supermarket chain
Carrefour and British retailer Tesco, all of which are already active in
China, are attracted to India and its population of 1 billion.
But the Communists, the Hindu
Nationalist Party BJP and small business owners are opposed to
Wal-Mart's opening stores in India and say they will attempt to block
any such move.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart testing
company gas stations
By Emily Kaiser
Reuters
Mon Jun 6, 2005 12:37 PM ET
[back to top]
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores
Inc. <WMT.N> is quietly testing company-owned gas stations at a handful
of its U.S. stores, a move that could stall its partner Murphy Oil
Corp.'s <MUR.N> fast-growing gas station business.
Wal-Mart currently has more than 800
Murphy gas stations in the parking lots of its stores, and the oil
company expects to open 100 more this year. The stations account for
more than one-third of Murphy's revenue, but analysts said they generate
very little of the company's profit.
The world's biggest retailer opened
its fifth company-owned gas station last month at a new supercenter in
northwest Arkansas, just minutes from its Bentonville headquarters.
Wal-Mart opened one in Missouri
earlier this year, about 15 minutes from Bentonville. The retailer has
three others that it opened in Virginia about two years ago, but
spokeswoman Sharon Weber said Wal-Mart wanted more locations closer to
home "so that we can really keep a close eye and test them well."
"It's something that Sam's Club has
been doing quite successfully for some time," Weber said, referring to
Wal-Mart's warehouse club division, which has company-owned gas stations
at many of its locations. "We're looking at it and we'll move forward as
we can."
Weber declined to comment on expansion
plans, and said the retailer continues to have a "good partnership" with
Murphy. She said Murphy was aware of the Wal-Mart-owned stations.
A Murphy spokesman did not immediately
return a call seeking comment.
Murphy signed on to build gas stations
at Wal-Mart stores in 1996. The oil company has agreements with Wal-Mart
ranging from 10 to 15 years, with options for two five-year extensions,
according to its annual report.
The Wal-Mart gas stations accounted
for 38.6 percent of Murphy's 2004 total revenue, according to the
company's most recent annual report filed with the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission. Murphy said it expected revenues to rise as it
opens more Wal-Mart gas stations.
In 2002, the Wal-Mart stations
accounted for 30.3 percent of Murphy's annual revenue.
Analysts said despite the hefty
revenue contribution, Murphy makes the bulk of its profit from
exploration and refining, not retailing, which is a low-margin business.
Murphy reported first-quarter profit
of $124.9 million from continuing exploration and production operations.
Its refining and marketing division -- which includes the gas stations
-- recorded a quarterly loss of $5.5 million.
"When you go to bed with Wal-Mart,
they wake up with the profits," said Fadel Gheit, who follows Murphy for
Oppenheimer & Co. The retail gas stations are "a very, very small part
of their refining and marketing business, which in turn is a very small
of the company," he said.
Gheit said if Wal-Mart were to
significantly expand its company-owned gas stations at the expense of
Murphy, it would be a near-term "hiccup" for the oil company, but would
not change Murphy's prospects. He rates Murphy's stock a "buy."
Wal-Mart has a long history of testing
out new ventures and usually takes its time evaluating whether the
projects will generate sufficient profit. But analysts said if Wal-Mart
finds that it can run gas stations cheaper than Murphy can, the retailer
will not hesitate to go it alone.
Wal-Mart's gas stations are
concentrated in the U.S South and Southeast.
[back to top]
The
'Wal-Mart cheer' fails to quell those troubles in store
By David Litterick in New York
(Filed: 04/06/2005)
[back to top]
Jessica Simpson sang the national
anthem, Jon Bon Jovi performed live on stage, thousands of people
gathered in the auditorium cheered and screamed their approval, but this
was no rock concert.
Instead, the high profile names drawn
to a university basketball arena in Fayetteville, Arkansas, were part of
a highly orchestrated attempt to pump up Wal-Mart shareholders drawn to
this Deep South city for the retailer's annual meeting. "Gimme a W,
gimme an A, gimme an L..." shouted executive after executive in numerous
different languages as the shareholders, most of whom were company
employees, responded to the "Wal-Mart cheer" with power salutes. The
company pays for one worker from each of its 5,350 stores around the
globe to attend the pep rally.
As a distraction tactic, it didn't
really work - the loudest cheer came when chairman Rob Walton asked the
crow "We all want to see the share price higher, right?" The stock has
lost around 20pc over the past 12 months. Investors also appreciated Mr
Walton's moment of humility when he acknowledged that executives were
"human", adding "sometimes we make mistakes."
This touchy-feely sentiment is part of
the Wal-Mart's strategy to regain its reputation, which has been dragged
through the mud in recent months as allegations of financial impropriety
and regulatory breaches have dogged the company.
In previous years the world's largest
retailer would have shrugged off such attacks but this year it has
embarked on a massive marketing scheme to defend itself against its
critics, which include a number of UK asset managers. Several
shareholder proposals called on the retailer to do more to support human
rights, protect the environment and promote and reward women and
minorities.
Others berated Wal-Mart for paying
executives millions of dollars in salary and stock options while it
faces a litany of accusations about discrimination against women, poor
treatment of factory workers, and environmental damage from its stores.
[back to top]
Lowe's, Wal-Mart come to
Concord
David Goll
[back to top]
Contra Costa County's largest city
finally has attracted the attention of the world's largest retailer.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to be one
of two major anchors in the proposed Jones Ranch shopping center in
North Concord, joining Lowe's at the 28-acre retail center northwest of
the Highway 4 interchange with Highway 242.
If the development is approved by city
officials, the locations would be the first in Concord for both retail
giants.
At the same time, the world's largest
home improvement retailer, The Home Depot Inc., plans to close its
93,703-square-foot EXPO Design Center at 1461 Concord Ave. When it
opened in the fall of 2000, it was the first EXPO store in the Bay Area.
John Montagh, business development
manager for the city of Concord, said the store will be converted into a
Home Depot store, although he isn't sure of the specific format for the
outlet. There is already a Home Depot store a short distance away at
2090 Meridian Park Blvd.
Jean Osta, a spokeswoman for
Atlanta-based EXPO, said in an e-mail message that the Concord store was
being closed because "it wasn't meeting our strategic objectives. At
this point, there is no exact closing date. At this time we are working
to close any open projects."
Osta could not be reached for further
comment to elaborate on what "open projects" would be affected,
including perhaps EXPO stores in Oakland and Dublin.
The Home Depot operates more than 50
of the upscale EXPO home design stores nationwide, along with 1,900 of
its hugely successful home improvement warehouse stores throughout North
America.
Concord also is attracting the East
Bay's first outlet of Panera Bread, a nationwide chain of 773
bakery/cafes specializing in artisan and other specialty breads. It's
part of an expansion by the Richmond Heights, Mo.-based Panera Bread Co.
into the Bay Area, where it has announced the opening of 14 other cafes
in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties over the next five
years.
Julie Somers, a Panera Bread
spokeswoman, said the Concord cafe will open by late fall in the Willows
Shopping Center at 1975 Diamond Blvd. She did not comment on plans for
other East Bay locations.
On a far grander scale will be the
city's Wal-Mart, although Concord officials may be relieved to hear the
Bentonville, Ark.-based retail behemoth plans only to build a
conventional general merchandise store of about 151,000 square feet in
size - not one of its supercenters. Those combination grocery/general
merchandise stores are usually at least 200,000 square feet in size and
have sparked controversy in communities throughout California and other
states because of their mammoth scale, traffic congestion, non-union
labor policies and impact on neighboring businesses.
Wal-Mart's proposed Jones Ranch
neighbor, the Lowe's home improvement store, is planned for about
134,000 square feet. Parent Lowe's Cos. Inc. of Mooresville, N.C., is
nipping at The Home Depot's heels, having grown to encompass 1,100
stores in 48 states.
Craig Lazzareschi, a principal with
Greater Bay Real Estate Group LLC of Walnut Creek, is assisting the
family-owned development company that plans to develop and then manage
and retain ownership of the Jones Ranch property. He said the project
will also include three outer "pads" that will most likely house
restaurants.
"This will not be your average looking
big-box center, as it will be heavily designed, making use of many
arches and stone," he said. "Since this is the first retail development
in the North Concord area, the city is insisting on a high-quality
appearance."
He said the family, Winton and Nathlie
Jones and their children, Olin and Janell, are "big Wal-Mart supporters
and are really thrilled to have these two anchor tenants" for their
development. At present, Lazzareschi said, many Concord residents have
to travel to Martinez, Pittsburg, Antioch or Vallejo to find outlets of
those stores. For the past 50 years, family members have lived on the
property that will be developed, Lazzareschi said.
Montagh said the proposed retail
center must first go before the city's design review board, then pass
muster with the Concord Planning Commission and City Council. He said
the city would welcome the additional sales tax revenue generated by
Lowe's and Wal-Mart, adding to the $28 million generated during fiscal
2004.
Amid the state's chronic budget
problems, cities have encouraged retail development as a way to increase
their tax revenue to help pay for public services. They also decry
"leakage" of sales tax dollars to nearby cities when their residents
travel out of town to shop.
dgoll@bizjournals.com | 925-598-1436
© 2005 American City Business Journals
Inc.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart's New Realm:
Reality TV
By STUART ELLIOTT
[back to top]
June 3, 2005
Wal-Mart, seeking additional ways to
burnish its tarnished image, is turning to a new realm: reality TV.
For the first time, Wal-Mart Stores is
becoming a major sponsor of a reality television show, by signing a
branded-entertainment agreement with ABC for "The Scholar," a summer
series that begins a six-week run on Monday night. Wal-Mart will be
woven into the plots of episodes of the show, which is centered on a
competition among 10 high school seniors from across the country for a
grand prize of a full college scholarship, valued at $250,000, covering
tuition and expenses.
The students will compete in a variety
of academic, creative and social tasks, including team challenges, oral
exams and defending themselves before a scholarship committee. In one
challenge, the five members of the winning team each receive a $2,000
Wal-Mart gift card to outfit their dormitory rooms. And Wal-Mart is
underwriting the cost of the scholarships for the nine runners-up,
totaling $300,000. (The Broad Foundation in Los Angeles is donating the
grand prize.)
There will also be commercials during
the show promoting the Wal-Mart and Sam's Club Foundation's long-running
program offering scholarships to students in towns where it operates
stores and distribution centers. The foundation said yesterday that it
would provide more than $6.9 million in scholarships this year to more
than 6,700 students through the Sam M. Walton Community Scholarship
Program, named after the company's founder.
"We don't usually do sponsorships of
any show, no matter what the format is," said Betsy Reithemeyer,
executive director of the foundation and vice president for corporate
affairs at Wal-Mart in Bentonville, Ark.
But "The Scholar" was "different from
anything brought to us before," she added, because it is "a unique way
to get out the message on national television that we're supporting
education."
Wal-Mart has been under intensifying
attack on a variety of issues, ranging from how much it pays its workers
to how much merchandise it buys abroad to how much its big stores affect
small businesses. The company has been increasing its efforts to counter
those critics by taking steps like running issue-oriented advertising
campaigns, providing more access to reporters who cover the retail
industry and assigning a spokeswoman to be responsible for what is
called reputation management.
"In the battleground Wal-Mart is now
part of, they're recognizing it's time they speak up for themselves,"
said Wendy Liebmann, president of WSL Strategic Retail, a consulting
company in New York. "They have to tell their own story, or otherwise
people will tell it for them."
Ms. Liebmann praised Wal-Mart's
strategy of getting out the word about its scholarship program through
"The Scholar" sponsorship rather than "the more typical 'Aren't we good
citizens?' speech."
"That way, you're not hitting people
over the head," she said. "You let the program speak for you and you get
the good rub off. I call it 'the company we keep' approach."
Wal-Mart and ABC declined to discuss
the financial details of the deal, but Wal-Mart said it was paying "well
above six figures" for its participation in "The Scholar." Payments by
marketers for branded-entertainment deals in reality TV series can range
from less than $100,000 to as much as $4 million.
The deal between Wal-Mart and ABC,
part of the Walt Disney Company, is indicative of the growing appetite
among blue-chip marketers to become intrinsically involved in the
content of entertainment programming. Their goal is to counter the
growing appetite among television viewers to zip, zap and otherwise
avoid traditional commercials that interrupt the shows they want to
watch.
"The Scholar" is also an example of a
trend among the producers of reality TV shows to play down their
previous emphasis on hard-edge competition shows, in arenas like
athletics, romance and relationships, in favor of so-called feel-good
topics that viewers deem more inspiring - or, at least, less
time-wasting.
For example, a kinder, gentler version
of a relationship reality series, "Beauty and the Geek," which WB
introduced Wednesday, received positive advance reviews and garnered the
best ratings in its time period for the network since February among a
core audience, women ages 18 to 34.
The feel-good trend was spurred in
large part by the success of another ABC reality series, "Extreme
Makeover: Home Edition," which has had a branded-entertainment deal with
a primary Wal-Mart competitor, Sears, owned by the Sears Holdings
Corporation, since it began as a special in December 2003.
"What we like about 'The Scholar' is
how it showcases individuals and their efforts to lift themselves up,"
Ms. Reithemeyer said. "There are 10 kids who overcame difficulties and
reached the academic level where they're able to go to college."
She acknowledged that Sears's
sponsorship role on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" had "given them
enormous visibility in that particular show," adding, "I can see where
you would see that" the accolades Sears has enjoyed from its sponsorship
led Wal-Mart to pursue a branded-entertainment deal of its own.
But, Ms. Reithemeyer said, "this
outreach is because of this unique show being brought to us."
Wal-Mart learned about ABC's efforts
to find a sponsor for "The Scholar" from one of its two primary
agencies, Bernstein-Rein Advertising in Kansas City, Mo., which shares
general-marketing assignments for the retailer with GSD&M in Austin,
Tex., part of the Omnicom Group. Bernstein-Rein's duties include
national broadcast media buying and creating ads promoting Wal-Mart's
prices and convenience, its electronics merchandise and the foundation.
"Over the last six months, we
evaluated a lot of proposals," said Joe Myers, vice president and group
account director at Bernstein-Rein, "but we didn't want to miss out on
this one."
"We felt this one really seemed to do
the best job," he added, because "it resonated perfectly with what the
foundation wanted to tell the public" and "the 10 students are from
every walk of life."
As for Wal-Mart delving more deeply
into branded entertainment, "We're going to see how this goes," Mr.
Myers said, "and see where we go from here."
The ABC executives responsible for
"The Scholar" have high hopes for the series.
"We're not going down the
mean-spirited path of reality," said Meredith Momoda, vice president for
integrated marketing and promotion at the ABC Television Network unit of
ABC in Burbank, Calif., "which is why advertisers are so drawn" to such
series.
ABC retained creative control of "The
Scholar" as it does with all its reality series, she added, and
advertisers are generally kept abreast during production. Ms. Momoda
said that the popularity of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" "woke up a
lot of people to the possibilities of what integrated marketing can do
for you," and "not just for products but to showcase corporate image."
"Sears gets letters from viewers
saying, 'We're going to shop at Sears because you do so much good for
people,' " Ms. Momoda said.
Imagine how happy Wal-Mart would be to
get even a postcard to that effect.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times
Company
[back to top]
A Force Too Strong,
Even for Wal-Mart
By DANIEL AKST
May 29, 2005
[back to top]
WHEN Wal-Mart announced recently that
it was giving up on the mail-order movie rental business and directing
its subscribers to Netflix, the implication seemed clear: Wal-Mart had
stumbled.
But the company's apparent
capitulation came at roughly the same time as another interesting piece
of movie-related news: a copy of the new "Star Wars" movie surfaced on
the Internet more or less simultaneously with its theatrical release.
Dan Glickman, president of the Motion Picture Association of America,
put that development in this perspective: "The unfortunate fact is this
type of theft happens on a regular basis on peer-to-peer networks all
over the world."
Hollywood movies, in other words, are
being passed around the Internet regularly. But the salient point here
is not piracy; it's the means of distribution. As Mr. Glickman also
said, several companies are already giving customers legal access to
some movies via the Internet. This is how most films are likely to be
distributed in the reasonably near future.
That's why Wal-Mart's move was no
stumble. Rather than a misstep, the retailer's decision to stop mailing
DVD's all over creation was smart. It's also a clear signal to the rest
of us - just like that quick online appearance of "Star Wars: Episode
III - Revenge of the Sith."
The Internet has a funny way of
colonizing other forms of communication. Already, VoIP, or voice over
Internet protocol, may be on its way to destroying the traditional
long-distance phone business by routing calls from regular telephones
over the Internet. Similarly, letters and faxes are being replaced by
e-mail. Bills increasingly arrive electronically and are paid the same
way. Net-friendly digital photographs are pushing aside film. Music
downloading, legal and otherwise, is already big and will only spread.
Now look at Netflix, which says on its
Web site that it "ships about 11,000 tons of DVD's each year."
"If placed side by side," it says,
"the discs would form a line about 20,500 miles long, which is the
circumference of the world at 34.1 degrees north - the latitude of
Hollywood." The company adds that if you start piling up the DVD's it
ships daily, the stack would be "taller than Mount Everest within 10
days." Does this mountain of discs look like the business of the future?
Netflix seems to know that it doesn't.
In its most recent 10-Q quarterly filing, it says that "we continue to
invest resources to develop solutions for downloading movies to
consumers." Its apparent strategy is to develop the DVD subscription
business, accumulate millions of customers and, if and when the market
changes, port them over to electronic delivery.
But the mail-order DVD rental business
is competitive. Wal-Mart's departure looks sensible when you consider
not only the future of movie delivery but also the market-share battle
between Netflix and Blockbuster, which still has actual stores. Then
bear in mind that Amazon.com offers a DVD rental service in Britain, and
some people think that it may do the same in this country, where DVD
rentals could help Amazon leverage its infrastructure and bring in more
customers for its merchandise. And when downloading movies becomes an
everyday activity, will it be of much use to have a large mail-order DVD
rental business like that of Netflix? I am skeptical, and apparently, so
are the people who run Wal-Mart.
The big retailer's decision to abandon
the field to Netflix says something about many other businesses that
depend on the delivery of information in some physical format.
Newspapers, books and magazines, for instance, are still delivered on
paper, but eventually many publishers are likely to dispense entirely
with paper and ink to deliver materials electronically, to readers who
are freed from their desks by wireless networks and portable
magazine-sized tablets with vivid screens. There have been several false
starts, but the long-term trend is nonetheless clear.
THAT doesn't mean that paper and discs
have no future, but it's not a very bright one when it comes to
transmitting news, information or entertainment. The day may come when
not only DVD's by mail but traditional mail itself becomes obsolete. If
some of us can make do with mobile phones, dispensing with land lines
altogether, is it so far-fetched that some day people won't even bother
to have mailboxes? Paper junk mail, ghettoized to a postal system that
carries little else, may go the way of telegrams, leaving delivery
services to focus on packages that require physical delivery. You can't
download a shirt, after all.
That day hasn't yet arrived, but maybe
the folks at Wal-Mart know something that the rest of us only pretend to
know: if it's data, it will move over the Internet. And maybe, just
maybe, it's time to stop pretending otherwise.
Daniel Akst is a journalist and
novelist who writes often about business.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times
Company
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Wiggles
Around Worker Health
By Liza Featherstone,
The Nation
Posted on May 26, 2005
[back to top]
Wal-Mart is famous for trying to
circumvent local zoning regulations, but in Dunkirk, Maryland, the
retailer got particularly creative. The small hamlet had a rule against
stores larger than 75,000 feet--so the company proposed to build two
Wal-Mart stores side by side. Fortunately, this bit of Amelia Bedelia
literalism was emphatically rejected by a community outcry, and Wal-Mart
backed down last week.
Meanwhile, also in Maryland,
small-time whore Governor Ehrlich has, as expected, vetoed a bill to
force Wal-Mart to provide decent health insurance to workers. Wake Up
Wal-Mart has a letter you can send him, politely letting him know you
think he is a putz (sorry, tell him you're disappointed). More
importantly, since Democrats are threatening to override the veto, if
you live in Maryland: call, write or visit your state representatives
and make sure they do the right thing!
More and more states are considering
similar legislation, thanks to a growing and coordinated national
movement. A pending Pennsylvania bill would require firms with 50 or
more workers to provide data on how many workers depend on public
assistance for health care. Other states and localities debating Wal-Mart-inspired
measures similar to Maryland's--requiring large companies to insure
workers or contribute to Medicaid-- include New Jersey, Georgia, New
York City, California, Montana and Connecticut. (To keep abreast of
these developments and take action, sign up for updates at
americansforhealthcare.org.)
If Wal-Mart find these bills irksome,
and still doesn't want to provide decent health insurance for its
workers, the company should lobby for national health insurance. That's
unlikely, of course, but let's hope the political battle over Wal-Mart's
benefits at least convinces Americans that our health is too important
to be left to the whim of greedy employers.
Liza Featherstone is a New York
City-based journalist. In 2002, she co-authored 'Students Against
Sweatshops: The Making of a Movement' (Verso).
© 2005 Independent Media Institute.
All rights reserved.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Avarice
by Katrina vanden Heuvel
The Nation
Published on Tuesday, May 24, 2005
[back to top]
Kudos to veteran 60 Minutes
correspondent Morley Safer for lambasting the New York Times for its
"paean" to Wal-Mart heir Alice Walton, and taking aim at Wal-Mart's
"systematic obliteration of thousands of family businesses and of course
the creation of hundreds of thousands of sweatshop jobs." Safer's letter
(posted below) succintly captures the grand irony of Walton's recent $35
million purchase of a famous landscape painting. ("All that Wal-Mart
money was gleaned from the systematic destruction of the very American
landscape Ms. Walton so expensively celebrates.")
Here's hoping that Safer's hardhitting
letter is the basis of a forthcoming 60 Minutes segment.
New York, May 14, 2005
To the Editor:
Your paean to Alice L. Walton, the
Wal-Mart heir who recently purchased Asher B. Durand's landscape
painting "Kindred Spirits" for $35 million ("A Determined Heiress Plots
an Art Collection," Arts pages, May 14), ignored a grand inherent irony.
All that Wal-Mart money was gleaned
from the systematic destruction of the very American landscape Ms.
Walton so expensively celebrates. Not to mention the equally systematic
obliteration of thousands of family businesses and of course the
creation of hundreds of thousands of sweatshop jobs.
The robber barons of yore, through
contrition or vanity, also established enduring cultural institutions,
but surely in this age of alleged transparency, it behooves the
newspaper of record to make at least passing reference to the human and
environmental price we all pay to satisfy Ms. Walton's ambition.
Morley Safe
© 2005 The Nation
[back to top]
Former Wal-Mart exec files complaint Whistleblower was fired after
reporting colleague's fraudulent scheme, newspaper report says.
CNN/Money
May 24, 2005: 8:59 AM EDT
[back to top]
NEW YORK - One of
Wal-Mart's former executives filed a complaint with the Labor
Department, accusing the retail giant of violating federal whistleblower
rules when it fired him, according to a newspaper report.
Jared Bowen, a former vice president
for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (up $0.67 to $47.85, Research), provided
information about a scheme allegedly hatched by one of the company's
executives, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. Wal-Mart asked
Chairman Thomas Coughlin to step down after investigating him for
defrauding the company of as much as $500,000 through expense-account
abuses and false invoices, said the Journal.
Coughlin resigned before his board
term was set to expire in June.
Bowen, 31, was terminated about a week
after Coughlin resigned in March, said the Journal, and a copy of his
exit interview said he was fired for a "loss of confidence" in him as a
company officer. Wal-Mart has previously said Bowen was terminated
because he took part in Coughlin's scheme, but the company recently
declined to comment, according to the Journal.
Bowen's complaint claims that
Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Ark., violated a provision of the
federal Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which protects whistleblowers, the Journal
reports.
Bowen has asked for his
$250,000-a-year job back, as well as back pay with interest and damages.
Wal-Mart referred the case to the U.S. Attorney for the Western District
of Arkansas.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart
Tops Planet Retail's Global Grocers List
MAY 24, 2005
[back to top]
LONDON -- Wal-Mart has once again
nabbed the top position in the annual list of the top 30 grocers
worldwide, published by Planet Retail (www.planetretail.net) here.
According to the international
research group, Wal-Mart has expanded its global reach to nearly 6,000
stores across 13 countries, and achieved $309 billion in sales last
year. The retailer beefed up its supermarket portfolio by acquiring
Bompreco hypermarkets in Brazil, which were formerly operated by Ahold.
France-based retailer Carrefour
retained its No. 2 position on the list, with a marginal 3 percent sales
increase to $113 billion. Ahold and Metro followed at No. 3 and No. 4,
respectively.
The biggest shakeup in the list was at
No. 5, where London-based Tesco toppled Kroger Co. Tesco's sales grew 10
percent vs. 2003, to $68 billion. "Tesco's success can be attributed to
a wide range of factors, including a dynamic and flexible range of
formats ranging from hypermarkets to convenience stores in developed and
developing markets, sharp pricing, a strong own-label offer, and an
extensive nonfoods range," noted Planet Retail in its report.
Additionally, Tesco has shown it can ably compete with Wal-Mart, both in
the food and nonfoods sectors.
Planet Retail's "2005 Watch List" of
retailers to keep an eye on in includes Japan's AEON, Albertsons and CVS
from the United States, Coles Meyer and Woolworths from Australia, and
Canada's Loblaw.
[back to top]
Religious investors ask Wal-Mart to review social, economic policies
By Tracy Early
Catholic News Service
May-23-2005
[back to top]
NEW YORK (CNS) -- A group of religious
orders and other investors is asking the retail giant Wal-Mart to assess
the company's policies and practices in light of their "social,
environmental and economic sustainability."
A resolution filed for shareholder
action said Wal-Mart, which will hold its annual stockholder meeting
June 3 in Fayetteville, Ark., is facing widespread "negative public
perceptions" about its operations.
"Wal-Mart's business success is
dependent on its domestic and global workers receiving a sustainable
living wage to meet their basic needs, and the environmental viability
of the communities in which the company operates," the resolution added.
The Shareholder Association for
Research and Education, an agency based in Vancouver, British Columbia,
said in a report earlier this month that Wal-Mart activity had drawn
concern in Canada as well as the United States. The agency helps pension
funds build sound investment practices that protect beneficiaries but
also contribute to a "just and healthy society."
In reaction to union organizing
efforts, Wal-Mart closed a store in Quebec after "a short round of
negotiations" with "the chain's first North American unionized
bargaining unit," the report said.
"The danger for shareholders is that
some cost controls could undermine key relationships with employees,
customers, suppliers and communities," according to the agency's
director, Peter Chapman.
For the Wal-Mart resolution, the lead
filer is the United Methodist Board of Pension & Health Benefits, and
co-filers include the Dominican Sisters of Adrian, Mich., the School
Sisters of Notre Dame, Sisters of Charity, Benedictine Sisters,
Congregation of the Holy Cross, Presbyterian Church, Unitarian
Universalist Service Committee and a Vancouver agency, Ethical Funds.
According to the Shareholder agency,
Wal-Mart has asked shareholders to vote against the resolution. The
company said it plans to prepare a report like the one requested but
wants to do it "only in the form and at the time that is in the best
interests of the company and its associates and the communities and
customers we serve."
Religious investors also filed
resolutions with Wal-Mart this year on equal employment and on the sale
of violent video games to children.
Wal-Mart is not alone in drawing the
attention of the church-related investors, but is only one of dozens of
companies that are being challenged in stockholder resolutions.
For example, as ExxonMobil moved
toward its annual meeting in Dallas May 25, it was facing resolutions
filed by church-related groups on global warming and on the
qualifications of its directors.
Most of this activity is coordinated
by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a New York agency
headed by Mercy Sister Patricia Wolf.
In a press release May 19, the center
reported that it "has had a very successful shareholder meeting season
so far."
The center says it represents groups
with investments of more than $100 billion of pension, endowment and
reserve funds.
Although substantial, their members'
stock holdings do not enable them to win votes at stockholder meetings.
But they believe their efforts in forcing attention to issues and
entering into dialogue with management have a positive effect over time.
As an example of success this year,
the center reported that the Ford Motor Company had agreed to "analyze
climate change and report on its economic impact."
Christian Brothers Investment
Services, a New York agency that provides investment advice to a number
of religious orders and other Catholic investors, reported May 19 that
successful negotiations with Best Buy Company had led it to withdraw a
resolution it had filed on the sale of violent video games to children.
"The company has agreed to publicly
outline what may be the toughest policy introduced by a major American
retailer to restrict the sale of mature-rated video games to children
and teens," the report said.
Co-filers of the Christian Brothers'
resolution included the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, the Adrian
Dominican Sisters and Trinity Health, an agency formed by a merger of
health care facilities of Holy Cross and Mercy nuns and based in Novi,
Mich.
Christian Brothers also announced May
20 that the New York League of Conservation Voters had honored it the
previous evening for its efforts to encourage companies to follow
environmentally responsible policies.
"As a leading proponent of the 'green
dollar,' Christian Brothers Investment Services is positively achieving
environmental change through socially responsible investing," said the
league's director, Marcia Bystryn.
Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News
Service/USCCB.
[back to top]
Limbaugh branded Maryland's proposed Wal-Mart bill as "a vestige of
fascism"
http://mediamatters.org/
Monday May 23, 2005 at 1:05 PM EST
[back to top]
Nationally syndicated radio host Rush
Limbaugh declared that proposed legislation in Maryland, which would
have required discount retailer Wal-Mart to choose between increasing
health benefits for employees or paying more into the state's Medicaid
program, is "a vestige of fascism." The bill, which passed the Maryland
Senate and House of Delegates but was vetoed by Republican Gov. Robert
Ehrlich on May 19, was designed to address the concerns reinforced by a
number of studies and analyses showing that Wal-Mart's low wages and
meager health care benefits cost taxpayers millions of dollars through
increased enrollment in taxpayer-funded social programs.
From the May 20 edition of The Rush
Limbaugh Show:
LIMBAUGH: They [the Maryland General
Assembly] are legislating socialism. This is the government -- in this
case the state government -- telling a private business how it must run
its affairs. Now, some might even call that a vestige of fascism. Some
might say you're getting very close to fascism here when the government
starts telling everybody in business -- at an increasing rate -- how
they have to run their business, allocate funds, and so forth. And it's
almost extortion to boot, because if Wal-Mart doesn't do what the
legislature says -- then the legislature must -- then Wal-Mart must pay
the legislature. So it's -- they're legislating socialism at the
Maryland legislature.
Copyright © 2004-2005 Media Matters
for America.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart's
Chinese suppliers shift base to India
Monday, May 23, 2005
[back to top]
NEW DELHI: When the going gets tough,
the Chinese simply cross the Wall. Faced with a higher tax on exports
following pressure from the U.S. and the European Union, large Chinese
textile suppliers to Wal-Mart are relocating their manufacturing base to
India.
And the world?s largest company seems
to love it. The company says it ?welcomes? the shift and plans to double
sourcing from India, business daily the Economic Times reported.
Incidentally, Wal-Mart buys goods from
India worth $1bn ? close to Coke?s total investments here in the past 13
years.
The Chinese are not the only ones
packing their bags. Wal-Mart suppliers in Singapore and the Middle East
have also shown interest to shift production to India. The removal of
quotas seems to be helping India?s case.
China is already under pressure from
the U.S. to revalue its currency, which has been artificially kept low
against the dollar. It also faces demands from the EU and the U.S. to
curb its surging textile exports. Beijing has reacted to it by hiking
the tax on exports. If the Yuan is revalued, the combined effect of the
changes will make Chinese goods costlier, the paper said.
Vice-president and managing director
of Global Procurement, Wal-Mart Stores, Andrew Tsuei said that the
removal of textile quotas has made India more competitive in apparel and
textile production.
Commenting on the expected shift by
suppliers in favor of India, he said cheaper raw material and
availability of trims allow Indian companies to reduce production
lead-time, which is important to the retail industry.
Suppliers and buyers also evaluate
infrastructure development, port security, political stability, labor
and technology ? areas where India is strong compared to other exporting
nations. Retailers also like to source from a number of different
countries to reduce risk.
?As India is becoming more
competitive, our suppliers are relocating to India and other countries
in the Indian sub-continent. Wal-Mart welcomes this shift as we hope to
see our Indian suppliers improve their efficiency as they increase the
scale of their operations. We hope to see gains in improved delivery
times and cost, which in turn, improves the in-stock levels in our
stores and the prices we can offer our customers,? said Andrew.
On the debate over revaluation of
Yuan, he said, ?This is a hard question to answer as the impact, if
there is any at all, will depend on the level of appreciation of the
Yuan, how fast it takes place, and how the Chinese government manages
any change. We don?t have a clear answer because of all the various
factors involved with exchange rates,? he said.
?What we do know is that higher prices
will tend to make Chinese goods less competitive in the global
marketplace, and this could encourage manufacturers to move production
to other markets. In the past 30 years, we have seen this happen as
manufacturing costs increased in countries like Japan, Korea, Taiwan and
Hong Kong. Global trade is a highly-competitive and mobile business, and
India is in a good position to compete,? said the Wal-Mart official.
Wal-Mart buys goods worth $12 billion (Rs 54,000 crore) from China and
any impact on the Chinese currency will have significant implications
for the retail giant, the paper added.
[back to top]
Forum highlights the misdeeds of Wal-Mart, treatment of employees
BY MICHAEL LYCKLAMA
May 20, 2005
[back to top]
The crusade against Wal-Mart made its
way to Western's campus Wednesday.
Craig Cole, president and CEO of Brown
& Cole Stores, which owns the local Food Pavilion and Cost Cutter
stores, informed students and community members about the misdeeds of
Wal-Mart.
He spoke at the Fairhaven Auditorium
for the "Is Wal-Mart Good for America" weekly World Issues Forum that
Fairhaven College sponsors.
"The species most endangered by
Wal-Mart is the American worker," Cole said in the lecture.
Cole said Brown & Cole Stores, the
oldest retail grocery firm in Washington, will close eight stores
because of competition from Wal-Mart. Food Pavilion stores in Yakima,
Pasco, Kennewick, Arlington and Smokey Point will close, as well as a
Food Depot store in Okanogan and Thrifty Foods stores in Burlington and
Stanwood.
"Their plan is not to compete, but to
oversaturate and dominate," Cole said.
Wal-Mart puts as many stores as
possible in an area to drive out competition. It then reduces the number
of its stores in that market after defeating the competition. Last year
Wal-Mart closed 350 of its stores nationwide, Cole said.
Wal-Mart plans to open a store at
Smokey Point, seven miles north of its Marysville store, Cole said.
Brown & Cole Stores provides health
care to 95 percent of its workers while Wal-Mart only insures one-third
of its workers, Cole said.
"Wal-Mart is the richest corporation
in the world, yet two-thirds of its employees don't have health care,"
said Shirley Osterhaus, Fairhaven College lecturer and World Issues
Forum coordinator. "You, as a taxpayer, are paying health care for those
workers."
Wal-Mart encourages workers who do not
receive health benefits to apply for state benefits, Cole said.
"If we are going to have an
employer-based health care system, which is the majority in this
country, we can't have the largest employer in the world not play the
game," Cole said.
Brown & Cole Stores pays 50 percent
more per hour than Wal-Mart's average of $10 per hour, Cole said.
"What I really hate about Wal-Mart is
that they don't pay for their social costs," Bellingham resident
Ingeborg Paulus said.
Cole said Wal-Mart plans to build a
store every 20 to 30 miles along the Interstate-5 corridor, including
five more in Whatcom and Skagit counties.
"I think it's terrible that they are
going to put five Wal-Marts in a row," Western freshman Hailey Habenicht
said. "It's just going to drive more people to Bellingham."
Cole points to Costco as an example of
an international corporation that competes fairly.
"Costco made a choice to pay its
employees well and serve its community," Cole said. "Wal-Mart made
another choice."
Citizens can stop Wal-Mart from
harming their community with a concerted effort, Cole said.
"One place where Wal-Mart is not
dominant is in your mind," Cole said. "Olympia, Gig Harbor and Tumwater
have all said no. Citizens have to be thinking about the kind of
community they want before Wal-Mart comes."
© 2005 The Western Front
[back to top]
Scott's Wal-Mart
Opens Store Targeting Amish
Greg Levine,
05.20.05, 2:03 PM ET
[back to top]
Raising the roof. The Wal-Mart Stores
(nyse: WMT - news - people ) deal this week to shift its online DVD
business to Netflix (nasdaq: NFLX - news - people ) drew a lot of
attention from industry observers and customers alike. But in
Middlefield, Ohio, the deal is not likely to cause much of a stir. The
Mahoning Valley town is the site of one of the newest Wal-Mart
locations, and probably the most unique so far: It's a unit geared to
the region's large Amish community. With stores ranging all the way to
China, the firm, led by Chief Executive H. Lee Scott Jr., is used to
adapting to local colors and ways. But the Middlefield store goes a step
further by taking a step back, all the way to the 18th century customs
of its clientele. According to the online edition of the Tribune
Chronicle, the retailer's parking lot will feature 84 spots to hitch
horse-and-buggy transportation. The store's usual dizzying abundance of
merchandise will naturally also be geared to the self-styled "plain
people": Store manager Paul Franz says the unit will feature such
low-tech goods as 25-pound blocks of ice for ice boxes, canning
supplies, denim and other sturdy solid-colored textiles that the Amish
use to make their clothes. So after the "English"--as the ancient sect
calls non-Amish Americans--are done stuffing their SUVs with purchases
like South Beach Diet meals from Kraft Foods (nyse: KFT - news - people
) and Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) Xbox 360s, it is hoped
they'll brake at the exit...and yield to slow-moving carts.
[back to top]
Maryland Governor
Vetoes Wal-Mart Bill
By GRETCHEN PARKER
The Associated Press
Friday, May 20, 2005; 11:16 AM
[back to top]
PRINCESS ANNE, Md. -- Gov. Robert
Ehrlich vetoed a bill aimed at making Wal-Mart pay higher health care
benefits or contribute more to Medicaid and said the measure threatened
the economic health of the community.
The retail giant plans a distribution
center in this lower Eastern Shore town. Ehrlich was joined at the veto
ceremony by a Wal-Mart executive and 200 people, including a handful of
protesters. A high school band played "God Bless America."
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The Fair Share Health Care Act, passed
by lawmakers in April, would require a company with more than 10,000
employees to spend at least 8 percent of its payroll on health care
benefits or pay more into the state Medicaid fund. Currently, only
Wal-Mart fits that criterion.
Eduardo Castro-Wright, chief operating
officer of Wal-Mart stores USA division, said the company already spends
7 percent to 8 percent of its payroll on health benefits.
He said the Bentonville, Ark.-based
retailer still opposed such a bill, saying it could be dangerous if
broadly applied.
"Next time around ... it might not be
10,000 employees, it might be 200. Then you are talking about a very
different scenario that involves everyone in the business community, not
just Wal-Mart," Castro-Wright said.
The planned distribution center, which
could start construction in 2007, would employ 350 workers initially and
up to a thousand eventually.
Wal-Mart could reconsider the plan if
the General Assembly overrides the veto when it reconvenes in January,
said Castro-Wright. The Senate passed the bill with enough votes to
override a veto, while the House margin was just short of the number
needed for an override.
Unions criticized the veto.
"Gov. Ehrlich should be ashamed for
literally standing with big corporate interests rather than Maryland's
working families," John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, said in a
statement.
[back to top]
Ehrlich
Vetoes Health Care Bill Aimed at Wal-Mart
By John Wagner and Michael Barbaro
[back to top]
PRINCESS ANNE, Md., May 19 -- Gov.
Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. vetoed legislation Thursday that would have
effectively forced Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to spend more on employee health
benefits in Maryland, a measure that has unnerved the retailing giant
and prompted other states to consider similar approaches.
Ehrlich's action came during a tightly
choreographed ceremony in which he was joined by a top executive from
the Arkansas-based company, which has been on the defensive on several
fronts nationwide.
"We are here to enthusiastically veto
a bad piece of public policy," Ehrlich (R) said, arguing that the
measure would have a chilling effect on businesses considering locating
or expanding in Maryland. He was greeted by a high school band playing
on a blocked-off downtown street lined with American flags. About two
dozen protesters turned out, but were forbidden from displaying signs.
The bill would have required
for-profit companies with more than 10,000 employees to spend 8 percent
of their payroll on health care benefits or to the state's health
program for the poor.
As written, Wal-Mart is the only known
company operating in Maryland that would be affected. Officially called
the Fair Share Health Care Bill, the legislation was commonly referred
to in Annapolis as the "Wal-Mart bill" and drew national attention.
Ehrlich's position, which he made
clear weeks ago, drew heavy criticism Thursday from leading Democrats,
union representatives and health care advocates.
"Governor Ehrlich should be ashamed
for literally standing with big corporate interests rather than
Maryland's working families," said AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney.
Ehrlich chose Somerset County to
announce his veto because it has one of the state's highest unemployment
rates, and the fate of a planned Wal-Mart distribution center here has
become entangled in the controversy over the bill.
The company is moving ahead with the
facility, which could employ more than 800 people. But Eduardo
Castro-Wright, the second-ranking executive at Wal-Mart's U.S. division,
said before the ceremony that Wal-Mart might reconsider its plans if
lawmakers overturn Ehrlich's veto when they convene again in January.
"It singles a company out in a way
that is discriminatory," he said of the legislation, which passed with
wide margins in the heavily Democratic legislature.
The presence of Castro-Wright
underscored how seriously the chain is taking the bill and the precedent
it might set. Lawmakers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey are moving in a
similar direction, and Wal-Mart's opponents have rallied around the
health care issue as they try to slow the chain's growth.
Wal-Mart's business model, which
produced a $10 billion profit last year, is designed to hold down labor
costs. The company offers a wide range of health care plans, but the
cost to employees is far higher than in plans provided by unionized
grocery chains such as Giant Food LLC.
Wal-Mart has questioned the motivation
behind the legislation, which is supported by Giant, a Wal-Mart
competitor, and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400, the
grocery workers union trying to slow Wal-Mart's growth in the Washington
region.
"It's clear Wal-Mart is worried," said
Chris Kofinis, a senior adviser at the UFCW who attended yesterday's
ceremony. "They realize public opinion is against them."
Terry Lierman, chairman of the
Maryland Democratic Party, said the legislature's passage of the bill
had been "the right thing to do," given that some Wal-Mart employees now
must rely on Medicaid, the state-run insurance program for the poor, for
health care.
P. Franklin White, president of the
Princess Anne Town Commission, said he hopes the General Assembly does
not revive the bill in January.
"It's a bad bill for business, and
it's a bad bill for Somerset County," White said. He praised Ehrlich for
taking "a very courageous step."
The legislation is certain to factor
into next year's governor's race. Wal-Mart hosted a fundraiser for
Ehrlich last year, and the two leading Democrats seeking to replace him
both issued statements condemning his veto.
Barbaro reported from Washington.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
[back to top]
Clothing Company
Bans Wal-Mart Kansas City
Posted on: Thursday, May 19, 2005
03:05 AM
[back to top]
SHAWNEE -- Ace Kicker Tees has
announced that it will not allow Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. to carry Ace
Kicker's line of poker t-shirts in any of Wal-Mart's more than 5,000
retail outlets.
Wal-Mart's past history of music and
book censorship contributed heavily to Ace Kicker Tees' decision. "It
really worries me when big business starts dictating ethics to artists
and other creative voices," says Ace Kicker Tees sole proprietor John
Carlton. "One of our poker shirts has an obscenity on it. And we're
simply not willing to sacrifice our first amendment rights, regardless
of what sum of money we stand to make in return."
In addition, Carlton believes that the
business values of Ace Kicker Tees and Wal-Mart are not in line with
each other. "I have a great respect for Wal- Mart's tremendous success
and economic influence. But I believe that to get our products' pricing
in line with the low-price leader would require us to decrease quality
and significantly devalue the creative contributions of all the people
involved in making Ace Kicker Tees. Even though that means our prices
will never compete with Wal-Mart, we believe our customers are willing
to pay more for a premium quality product."
The popularity of poker -- especially
No Limit Texas Hold 'Em -- has skyrocketed in recent months. Retailers
have experienced increased sales in poker chip sets, electronic poker
games, tabletops and other poker supplies. But despite the added demand,
Carlton says Ace Kicker Tees must remain true to the company's core
values. "We might not ever sell at the highest volume, but we will
always sell with the highest integrity."
Ace Kicker Tees offers poker t-shirt
designs online at http://www.acekickertees.com/ . For more information,
contact owner John Carlton at 913-441-6770 or john@acekickertees.com .
[back to top]
Wal-Mart to Add
150 Jobs at German Center
Associated Press
05.18.2005, 07:13 AM
[back to top]
The German arm of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
announced Wednesday it will create 150 jobs at a new fresh-foods packing
center to cement the company's position in the local market.
The new center will be build in the
western city of Bingen and cost about euro25 million (US$31.5 million),
Wal-Mart's head in Germany, Kay Hafner said.
"With this investment, Wal-Mart is
setting an example that the company plans to be in Germany over the long
term and aims to grow through better quality products and lower prices,"
Hafner said.
The Bingen center will allow the
company to buy the bulk of its fresh produce, meat and dairy products
directly from German and other European farmers for delivery to stores
in western and southern Germany. It is to begin production by summer
2006.
Wal-Mart has 91 stores in Germany and
roughly 13,000 employees.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart to open 15 stores in China and export 18 bln usd of goods
AFX News Limited
05.17.2005, 01:27 AM
[back to top]
BEIJING (AFX) - US retailer Wal-Mart
Stores Inc said it will grow both its retail and export business in
China this year, opening up to 15 stores and exporting 18 bln usd of
goods from the country in 2005.
Wal-Mart chief executive John Menzer
said in Beijing that: 'right now China, percentage-wise, is our fastest
growing market.'
The US retail giant buys toys,
footwear and seasonal goods from China, making it 'our largest export
country,' he said.
Menzer forecast that its importance
would continue to grow, with direct and indirect China exports rising to
18 bln usd this year, without giving a figure for Wal-Mart's exports
last year.
'That's growing at a 20 pct clip right
now,' he said.
The chief executive, who is to meet
with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, declined to comment on the impact of
rising protectionism in the US on Wal-Mart's manufacturing in China.
He also said the much-anticipated
revaluation of China's currency, the yuan, is only a 'small factor' in
the company's considerations.
'We think things will move very
slowly... we only see slight changes,' he said.
Wal-Mart will open its 46th China
store in Beijing tomorrow.
Now with permission to expand
westward, Wal-Mart expects to open 12 to 15 stores across China this
year, with Chongqing its next target, he said.
'We started in Shenzhen and we've been
working our way as far north as Harbin, Beijing and out west to Kunming.'
He noted, however, that, 'China wasn't
really developed for chain stores and for brands.
'Going across provincial lines takes
time to get provincial approvals, central government approvals, it
creates a lot of backroom paperwork, but it's moving along at a quick
pace.'
[back to top]
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Walmart: A Victim
of its Own Success?
By swapusa
Fool.com
May 16, 2005
[back to top]
Posts selected for this feature rarely
stand alone. They are usually a part of an ongoing thread, and are out
of context when presented here. The material should be read in that
light.
Walmart's slogan, "Always Low Prices,
Always," is finally catching up with them. With their stock trading only
a few points above their 5-year lows, it makes one wonder about what is
happening at Walmart. Their executives and the analyst community would
like and do blame things like slow economic growth and rising oil for
Walmart's woes. But, IMHO, that is just an excuse. Walmart's problems
are deeper than that. It is not that obvious but Walmart is falling
victim to its own success and its own low cost suppliers, namely the
Chinese factories, are now helping undo the great power that is, or was,
Walmart. Here is the way I see it:
For years Walmart has been able to put
pressure on its suppliers and cut prices on a regular basis and pass
along the cost savings to consumers. That is fine, but as long as price
drop on an item means you can sell considerably more of that item to
make more absolute dollars. As manufacturing costs in China have dropped
translating into lower Walmart retail prices, items have become too
cheap and there is only so much people can buy. How much room does one's
closet or house have for stuff? If the price of a notebook drops in
half, are you going to buy twice as much for your kids? The problem is
that prices of Chinese made products have dropped so much that Walmart
can no longer increase its existing store revenues as fast is it used
to. Their stores are selling considerably more volume of products than
before, but the increased volume is not enough to offset the falling
prices due to the Chinese invasion of retail store shelves. Just look at
the fast growing Dollar Store industry and you see what I mean.
But that's not the main problem,
although it is a big factor. Years ago, when Walmart was growing fast
and squeezing other small and large retailers out, doing business abroad
and finding low cost suppliers in remote corners of the world was a tall
order. It took gigantic investments in infrastructure and personnel and
required face to face meetings with suppliers overseas. You actually had
to travel all over the world to find the low cost factories and buy from
them. Importing container and shipload of products was not something an
everyday small businessman could do. It was reserved for the big boys
with money and the know-how. But that's not the case today.
The incredible economic growth of
China and the growth of the Internet in the same time has disrupted the
balance of power that companies like Walmart once enjoyed. Chinese
products that Walmart imported into the USA used to be made by only a
handful of factories that only catered to large retailers and master
importers. A few years ago, a small entrepreneur could not even dream of
approaching the factories in China, Taiwan, Korea, and others to
purchase products in small quantities. But the Chinese incredible growth
has created thousands of small and large factories that make the same
products. If an item has a market in the USA, hundreds of factories are
set up to make it overnight. And all these factories are looking for
buyers to sell their wares. They no longer have to just sell to large
retailers and master importers. They can sell to smaller retailers and
small time rookie importers at almost the same prices that they sell to
the likes of Wal-Mart. Their only problem was to find these smaller
importers. Internet to the rescue!!!
Small importers and savvy small
distributors and even single store retailers can now use the power of
the internet to find factories and suppliers in China who are willing to
sell direct to them even if the order amount is under $1,000. Order a
palette load and they sell it to you. I have even seen factories in
China who are willing to sell a case of product, if you can afford the
shipping costs. Numerous Asian supplier specific web sites have been set
up in the past few years that allow thousands upon thousands of Chinese,
Indian, and other Asian factories and suppliers to advertise their
products to the world. Alibaba.com and GlobalSources.com are just 2 such
sources of products and there are countless others. Finding factories in
China has become as easy as looking something up on eBay or Google.
One might think that, due to their
size, Walmart and other large retailers can still get products much
cheaper than the small time importers. That was true a few years ago but
it is no longer the case. So many factories copy and make the same
products in China, that they end up selling them in small quantities at
almost the same prices they sell to the likes of Wal-Mart. Large
retailers still get better deals, but their own internal costs are so
huge compared to the nimble small importers and retailers that the cost
differentials are going away. For years Wal-Mart kept squeezing its
suppliers and factories for every penny of profit and made them
efficient. But there is only so much that you can squeeze out of them
and now the same efficient suppliers and thousands of others who have
learned from them are catering to everyone and anyone who is willing to
give them a buck.
But the problem for large retailers is
getting worse. As if the Internet and ease of travel to China was not
enough for their factories to find buyers, they are now showing up in
international trade shows and setting up booths in U.S. gift fairs and
other trade exhibitions. I have been attending trade shows in the U.S.
both as buyer and seller for well over 12 years. In the past year, I
have noticed a sudden large surge in the number of booths set up by
Chinese factories and trading companies. The last Toy Fair in New York
was in February and the Chinese and Honk Kong based companies and
factories had 3 isles dedicated to them. We exhibited at the BCA
(Billiards show) in Las Vegas a month ago and the second largest
exhibition space was a Chinese factory with a large white banner reading
"We proudly say: We Made These in China." The poor American pool table
factories were trying to sell their pool tables for upwards of $3000 to
$4000 at wholesale, while the Chinese factory was asking $600 for
similar items with no minimum order. And here is where it gets even more
interesting: The Chinese factory has set up a huge warehouse in Los
Angeles and the $600 price was FOB L.A.
And that's the next phase of problem
for large retailers like Wal-Mart. Large numbers of Chinese factories
are setting up warehouses inside U.S., ship their products to the
mainland USA, and sell direct to small retailers at low profit margins.
Believe me when I say this: When it comes to entrepreneurship, the
Chinese entrepreneurs are second to none. With thousands upon thousands
of factories in China making products for export, some smarter ones have
figured out that it is to their advantage to set up warehouses in the
USA so that they can sell in ever-smaller quantities to their U.S.
customers. Believe it or not, the Chinese factories are now selling
their products directly on eBay from within U.S. borders. We are an
importer of products from China and I now see Chinese suppliers in the
U.S. who are selling the same products I am importing, at or slightly
above my direct container quantity cost with no minimums. How can the
likes of Wal-Mart compete with that?
The way I see it, the Chinese invasion
and the efficient marketplace that they are creating will continue and
it will make it harder and harder for large retailers to make money. The
trade barriers have fallen and direct importing is no longer the big
boys exclusive game. Their profit margins are under attack by smaller
more nimble entrepreneurs who can move quickly and get in and out of hot
products in a flash. The only large retailers who will survive are the
ones who protect their turf by offering branded products and continue
getting a premium for the brand names. But Wal-Mart is definitely now
known for brand name products. It sells cheap Chinese products that are
now available to other retailers at similar costs.
Honestly, I can't say that I am
unhappy with the way things are going. Behemoths like Walmart are not
good for this country and it is time the small entrepreneur has its day
in the sun once again!!!
Cheers,
Mehran,
SwapUSA
Legal Information. ©1995-2005 The
Motley Fool. All rights reserved.
[back to top]
As American as apple pie, but now Wal-Mart is eating humble pie
The retail giant
with homely values but a huge appetite for growth is having to take
stock as sales stagnate, its employment practices are savaged and local
communities resist its advance.
Katherine Griffiths
[back to top]
writes from New York
15 May 2005
At Wal-Mart, America's un-disputed
king of low-cost retailing, some surprising things are turning up on the
shelves. There are cotton sheets with a 400-thread count, and
extra-thick towels in fashionable hot orange. In its fridges, "key lime
pie", a speciality of Florida, is stocked alongside nine-layer lasagne.
These luxury goods are the result of months of testing behind closed
doors by Wal-Mart's cooks and designers, who have been trying to come up
with products to tempt a new group of middle-class customers.
Critics say the changes are overdue:
the world's largest retailer has hit a block with the large slice of
Americans on very limited budgets who have traditionally poured through
its doors.
Wal-Mart said on Thursday that it was
"disappointed" with performance in the first quarter of the year, when
sales at its US stores that have been open for more than a year grew by
just under 3 per cent. The results went down badly with investors, who
dumped shares, pushing down the entire Dow Jones index.
Wal-Mart, which is several times as
large as its next-biggest competitors put together, posting $285bn
(£153bn) in sales last year, has recently made other changes to improve
its image.
The retailer has been trying to show
it is listening to the army of environmentalists, community groups,
unions and politicians in the US, who claim it is bad news for towns
when Wal-Mart moves in. The company recently announced a partnership
with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to conserve one acre of
natural habitat for every acre it develops. The agreement to save
important areas of land and water is the largest-ever by a company, and
will cost it $35m over 10 years.
Lee Scott, Wal-Mart's chief executive,
said: "We've changed as a company. We're trying to get past the idea
that everyone who criticises you has an ulterior motive and wants you to
fail."
If Wal-Mart feels sensitive, it is
perhaps understandable. The company faces a multitude of lawsuits over
its employment practices, while some states are campaigning to keep it
out on the grounds that it kills off local businesses.
Last month, it also became the subject
of a federal grand jury investigation in Arkansas into whether its
former vice-chairman was orchestrating a covert, illegal campaign
against union organisers within Wal-Mart's workforce.
On Wall Street, as a result, the
company is out of fashion. Its shares have been trading at a five-year
low, with investors fearful that a groundswell of opposition to the
retailing juggernaut may stop it in its tracks.
Perhaps in a less contrite mood than
when he professed he was listening to the criticism, Mr Scott said on a
separate occasion recently that it mattered "diddly squat" if Wal-Mart
had come under attack - as long as customers kept coming through the
doors.
With its distinctive corporate culture
and lack of sympathy with those who do not share the values of the
American heartland, Wal-Mart has had a bunker attitude in the past.
Until this year, few journalists have been allowed inside its HQ in
Bentonville, Arkansas, and financial analysts have had to make do with
few of the briefings normally given by executives at big companies.
Having gone from not existing 50 years
ago to revolutionising retailing around the world, Wal-Mart has
historically chosen to concentrate on churning out goods at rock-bottom
prices and expanding its empire of cavernous supercentres.
The cash tills are certainly still
ringing - it reported more than $10bn in profits last year - and
Wal-Mart is the number one seller in America of products ranging from
dog food to diamonds. It owns 3,719 stores in the US and another 1,596
around the world, including Asda in the UK.
Yet even though pockets of the
Wal-Mart empire are still growing, especially in Latin America and
China, there are clear signs that the growth engine overall is slowing
down.
Asda, in particular, has become a drag
on the business, with Wal-Mart also revealing on Thursday that the
once-rising star had endured a "challenging" first quarter. The UK chain
failed to meet its operational income target, while underlying sales
rose only in the low single digits - something Wal-Mart blamed on
increasingly stiff competition in the UK.
Compared to its modest 3 per cent rise
in US same-store sales in the first quarter, one of its largest rivals,
Target, managed to squeeze out a 6 per cent increase during the same
period.
In recent times, one of Wal-Mart's big
problems has been that its low-income customers have been hit
particularly hard by the rising price of oil, which has translated into
historic highs at the gas station.
But there also concerns that the
company has been tardy in picking up new trends, such as offering more
fashionable lines at low prices, and targeting those on higher incomes
who want value for money but also more quality and choice than has
traditionally been found at Wal-Mart.
The big fear among investors is that
Wal-Mart, once a pioneer followed by other retailers religiously, has
lost its focus. One analyst who follows the company said: "Its attempts
to improve its public image and the changes to its range recently will
go some way to eliminating some of its problems, but they do not
significantly offset the headline risk."
Paradoxically, one of the biggest
issues unsettling Wall Street is Wal-Mart's stridently negative view on
unions. Despite employing almost 1.7 million people globally, it has
managed to keep its workforce almost entirely union-free. The exceptions
are in China, where workers are allowed to join an official union not
known for encouraging members to agitate, and in Canada. A store in
Jonquiere, a small town in northern Quebec, last year became the first
unionised Wal-Mart in all of North America.
That store was closed by Wal-Mart two
weeks ago, after a bitter fight between the company and workers, and
amid allegations by union organisers of intimidation and threats of
violence.
Speaking to The Independent on Sunday,
Johanne Desbiens, a cashier at the Jonquiere store where she has just
lost her job, said: "There was always a bunch who were against the union
and who were intimidating. There have been third parties saying we were
going to be beaten up."
Wal-Mart emphasises that it has a
zero-tolerance attitude to threats against workers, whether or not they
are in a union. "We would never, ever support the intimidation of
anybody. It would be grounds for dismissal," said a Wal-Mart
spokesperson in Canada.
Yet that is exactly what Thomas
Coughlin, Wal-Mart's former chairman and a hunting buddy of its founder,
Sam Walton, is being investigated for in Arkansas. Mr Coughlin was
sacked in March, but if he is found guilty then there could be serious
implications for the company, which could face government penalties and
yet another raft of lawsuits.
Wal-Mart says it is co-operating fully
with the investigation and insists it has found no evidence of
anti-union skulduggery among its senior people.
But it is not just the union issue
with which Wal-Mart must contend. Politicians, consumer groups and
communities who want to keep the company out of their area are becoming
increasingly hard for Mr Scott to ignore.
Five members of Congress lent their
support to a campaign urging consumers to boycott Wal-Mart for America's
Mother's Day on 8 May - in support of 1.6 million current and former
female employees who are suing the company for allegedly routinely
under-paying women and refusing to promote them to management positions
It has also had to pay $11m to bring a
government investigation to an end into charges it used illegal
immigrants to clean its stores. Recently, it handed over a symbolic
$135,540 to settle allegations that it allowed workers aged under 18 to
use dangerous equipment including chainsaws.
In February, the company was ordered
to pay $7.5m to Patrick Brady, a former employee with cerebral palsy who
was hired to work in one of its pharmacies but was rapidly reassigned to
collecting rubbish and rounding up shopping trolleys in the parking lot.
Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer in New York
who is representing Mr Brady, said: "Wal-Mart has a brazen attitude and
believes it is above the law. Rather than accepting the jury's verdict
and saying they are going to make changes and make sure people with
disabilities are treated fairly, they are still saying that they have
done nothing wrong."
It is no secret that Wal-Mart is not
like other companies. Founded by Mr Walton in 1962, it has mushroomed by
driving down prices for consumers across the US.
Opening his first Wal-Mart in Rogers,
a town in the heart of America's Bible belt, Mr Walton called his
employees "associates" and built a rural dime store with old-fashioned
values into a shopping behemoth.
Yet the sheer size of the company has
caused mounting opposition. It was identified in Thomas Friedman's
recent book, The World is Flat, as a key driver of the negative aspects
of globalisation.
According to the New York-based
research house Sanford Bernstein, Wal-Mart's prospects for further
growth are now "under siege in several regions of the country from
growing opposition by local communities".
This is particularly the case in New
York and parts of California, two of the most lucrative areas for
retailers in the US, where some communities have waged successful
campaigns to stop Wal-Mart in its tracks.
A spokesperson for the borough of
Queens in New York, where a property company abandoned a deal with the
retailer earlier this year, said local legislators "had concerns about
Wal-Mart's history with labour and with its national record".
It doesn't help that the company,
whose pharmacists are not allowed to sell the morning-after pill, and
where magazines such as Cosmopolitan are covered up on the shelves for
being too risqué, may be out of tune with liberals. It also doesn't help
that it is one of the largest donors to the Republican party.
Yet Texas, the home state of President
George Bush, has put up one of the biggest fights to keep Wal-Mart out.
And its trailing sales figures show it has its work cut out to win back
loyal customers even in the states where the retailer was once a
national hero.
Also in Analysis & Features Business
Analysis: Sir Ken may have met nemesis with acquisition of Safeway The
Investment Column: Wait and see how Levin deals with challenges facing
UBM Market Report: Man Group suffers as hedge fund gloom grows The Week
Ahead: Retailers to paint mixed picture of high street Small Talk:
Easier rebels take action in battle to remove the board
© 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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Wal-Mart of Worry
By Mike Marino
[back to top]
TheStreet.com
5/14/2005 12:00 PM EDT
Investors will be checking out the
consumer again this week as retailers -- big and small, upscale and
downscale -- take their turn in the earnings parade.
Along with the busy earnings slate,
expect some important economic data. Topping the list will be April's
housing starts number, due Tuesday morning, and the consumer and
producer price index reports later in the week. Those figures should
help Wall Street get a better read on the strength of the economy and
the Fed's rate-hike plans.
But for now, in the wake of last
week's latest disappointment at Wal-Mart (WMT:NYSE) , the health of the
U.S. consumer is front and center.
"All eyes will be watching the retail
sector very closely next week," said Paul Mendelsohn, chief investment
strategist at Windham Financial Services. "The March sales data were
good, but the stocks have not been performing well, especially after
Wal-Mart reported disappointing earnings."
Indeed, the Bentonville, Ark.-based
titan took some starch out of May's brief retail rally Thursday by
posting soft quarterly numbers and guiding toward more of the same.
Solid results at rival Target (TGT:NYSE) suggested the problem could lie
more with Wal-Mart than with the retail sector at large, but this week's
earnings should firm up the evidence one way or another.
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Unlike in China Walmart finds India a much harder nut to crack –
promises billions of dollars but stubborn India plans to restrict
venture!
Sonal Joshi
May 14, 2005
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Walmart Corporation slowly understands
that India is much different country than China. Unlike China Indian
businesses are matured and is really free to operate like a free
enterprise.
The world's largest retailer,
yesterday said it would commit "serious money" to India if the
government allowed foreign companies to invest directly in the country's
$180bn retailing sector.
It was an interesting approach since
the whole world knows Indians in India are ready to anything for earning
dollars. But “anything” may not include everything.
In recent weeks Mr Kamal Nath, the
commerce and industry minister, has been talking up reform, possibly
allowing foreign investment of 24 per cent to 49 per cent in Indian
retail ventures.
But Walmart is looking for a close to
100% ownership like in China. Experts say they will not get it and may
be offered at best a 48% ownership. Walmart according to sources may
back out from India. They are showing signs of threatening outsourcing
from India to some extent.
John Menzer, president and chief
executive of the retailer's international arm, said after talks with
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that India was a market "to which we will
just keep coming back because of its unbelievable potential. There's
talk [that FDI in retail] could be limited to brands or even certain
regions. We think that is unproductive - we can''t utilise our global
leverage if that happens ".
Mr Kishore Biyani, whose Mumbai-based
group Pantaloon, India biggest retailer, is expanding rapidly ahead of
possible entry by global rivals such as Wal-Mart and Carrefour of
France, said "foreign retailers'' large investment is a bait to the
government" for reform. This Government would do anything for foreign
exchange.
According to media reports, Wal-Mart's
proposed stores in India would be aimed at "middle class appetite for
life-style and convenience shopping", as well as serve as a base to
build exports, notably of fresh and packaged foods.
Wal-Mart believes its food exports
could quickly exceed the value of its textiles procurement from India,
which account for 65 per cent of the $1.2bn worth of goods sourced from
the country last year.
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Wal-Mart Apologizes
for Book-Burning Ad
Associated Press
05.13.2005, 08:20 PM
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Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is apologizing
for a newspaper ad featuring a photo of a book-burning in Nazi-era
Germany. The ad was published in a northern Arizona newspaper by a
political action committee the company helped fund.
The company was writing an apology
letter Friday to the Anti-Defamation League in Arizona and will run an
apology ad this weekend in Flagstaff's Arizona Daily Sun, which carried
the original ad, said Daphne Moore, director of community affairs for
Wal-Mart.
"It was a terrible mistake and one
that we sincerely regret," Moore said.
The ad ran as part of a campaign
opposing an ordinance that would effectively prevent Wal-Mart from
opening a supercenter in Flagstaff. The ordinance was passed by the
Flagstaff City Council but voters are being asked to ratify it.
The ad showed a historic photo of
people throwing books into a large fire. A swastika is clearly visible
near the center of the photo.
The text below it reads: "Should we
let government tell us what we can read?"
It says it was paid for by Protect
Flagstaff's Future, the political action committee, with "major funding"
by Wal-Mart.
Moore said the ad was prepared by an
outside agency but reviewed and approved by Wal-Mart. "Whoever the
individual who approved it was, was not aware of the historical context
of the picture," she said.
The company apologized after receiving
complaints from members of the public and the ADL.
HighGround Inc., the Phoenix company
that prepared the ad, and the political action committee are also
apologizing for the use of the photo, said HighGround President Charles
Coughlin.
Bill Straus, Arizona regional director
for the Anti-Defamation League, said the use of the image was clearly a
mistake.
"I think all parties involved
understand that a mistake was made," Straus said. "They understand the
impact of it and they understand the importance of doing everything they
can to follow up, and that includes an apology for any offense, although
unintended, that was taken."
[back to top]
Lawmakers ask
Wal-Mart for worker data
Part of effort to see if retailer
pays female employees less than men; company denies charges.
May 13, 2005: 4:09 PM EDT
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WASHINGTON (CNN) - Congressional
Democrats are asking Wal-Mart for employee data in order to determine if
claims of wage discrimination against female workers are true.
In a letter drafted by Rep. Rosa
DeLauro, D-Conn., and signed by 50 of her colleagues, the company was
asked to provide its wage statistics, along with any related information
that Wal-Mart has already given to the Equal Opportunity Employment
Commission.
"It is of great concern to us that
Wal-Mart (Research), America's largest employer, does not pay its women
the same wage as men for the same work," said the letter, addressed to
Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott.
It cited research done by Richard
Drogin, a professor emeritus at California State University at Hayward,
saying it shows Wal-Mart paid its female hourly workers 40 cents less
per hour than their male counterparts, and paid its female managers
nearly $5,000 per year less than male managers.
The letter also claimed that while
women make up 72 percent of Wal-Mart's workforce -- almost 700,000
employees overall -- they account for only 15 percent of its store
managers.
Wal-Mart said Friday the data cited in
the letter is "false and incorrect."
Ray Bracy, a Wal-Mart vice president
of public affairs, told CNN that Drogin's report, first published in
2003, is not reflective of current data concerning pay statistics at
Wal-Mart.
Drogin is currently being retained by
the legal team representing a class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart,
Duke vs. Wal-Mart Stores, filed in April 2003. He would not comment on
how much he is being paid for his work on the case, but did say that he
has updated his research, which is available on the Web site
www.walmartclass.com.
Bracy would not cite current pay
statistics at Wal-Mart.
He said 60 percent of Wal-Mart
employees and 40 percent of its managers are female.
"We have a very active program to
promote women at Wal-Mart and we do not tolerate discrimination of any
kind at the company," he said.
The request for data, which does not
have the force of law, is the latest in a series of public actions and
campaigns painting Wal-Mart as not treating its employees fairly.
Recently, the company has been fighting charges that it does not offer
adequate health insurance.
-- from CNN Business News Senior
Producer Scott Spoerry
[back to top]
Sowell defends Wal-Mart, ignores workers' dependence on Medicaid, food
stamps
[back to top]
In his May 12 syndicated column,
Thomas Sowell criticized those urging higher wages for employees of the
discount retailer Wal-Mart. Sowell referenced a May 4 New York Times
article that contained a quote from a Wal-Mart employee who said he was
not earning a living wage. Sowell asked: "How is he living, if he is not
making a living wage?" Several studies show that he might in fact be
getting help through government assistance programs.
Sowell argued that Wal-Mart
stockholders should not have to subsidize higher wages for Wal-Mart
workers "through lower earnings," but he apparently failed to recognize
that taxpayers are subsidizing Wal-Mart stockholders and executives
through the high levels of public assistance that are used by its
employees compared with other retail workers. A number of studies and
analyses have shown that taxpayer-funded government programs are picking
up the tab resulting from Wal-Mart's low wages and insufficient health
insurance coverage.
An August 2004 University of
California, Berkeley Labor Center study found that many Wal-Mart workers
in California rely on government safety net programs such as food
stamps, Medi-Cal (California's version of Medicaid) and subsidized
housing at an estimated cost to taxpayers of $86 million annually-- $32
million for health-related expenses and $54 million for other
assistance. Further, families of Wal-Mart employees utilize these
services considerably more than the average for families with employees
of all large retail companies. In fact, if other large retailers in
California were to provide wages and benefits at Wal-Mart's level it
would cost California taxpayers an additional $410 million in increased
public assistance costs. According to the study:
The families of Wal-Mart employees in
California utilize an estimated 40 percent more in taxpayer-funded
health care than the average for families of all large retail employees.
The families of Wal-Mart employees use an estimated 38 percent more in
other (non-health care) public assistance programs (such as food stamps,
Earned Income Tax Credit, subsidized school lunches, and subsidized
housing) than the average for families of all large retail employees. A
2002 internal memo from the Georgia Department of Community Health that
focused on the state's Children's Health Insurance program PeachCare
showed that the children of Wal-Mart employees accounted for 10,261 of
the 166,000 children enrolled, about 14 times that of the second-highest
employer, the supermarket chain Publix, which had 734. Wal-Mart, with
42,000 workers in the state in 2002, had about one child in the health
care program for every four employees; the ratio for Publix was one
child in PeachCare for every 22 employees [The Atlanta Journal
Constitution, 2/27/04 (registration required)].
The state of Connecticut discovered in
January 2005 that it pays an estimated $43 million annually to cover
health costs for workers at the state's 25 largest employers; Wal-Mart
was at the top of the list with 824 employees or employees' adult
dependents on state public assistance programs. Beyond Connecticut,
Wal-Mart had the most employees on Medicaid in a total of 11 states:
Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Tennessee,
Texas, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin, according to
examinations in those states [Employee Benefit News, 5/01/05].
A 2004 study conducted by the
Democratic staff of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce
looked at Wal-Mart employees' eligibility for a wide range of public
assistance programs and estimated that one 200-employee Wal-Mart store
may cost federal taxpayers $420,750 annually, or about $2,103 per
employee. This includes $36,000 for free and reduced-price school
lunches, $42,000 for Section 8 housing assistance, $125,000 for federal
tax credits and deductions for low-income families, and $108,000 for
federal costs relating to health care assistance.
Copyright © 2004-2005 Media Matters for America. All
rights reserved.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart
seeks entry into India's retail business
IANS
[back to top]
New Delhi
May 12, 2005 7:40:04 PM IST
New Delhi, May 12 : Wal-Mart Stores,
the $288 billion global retail chain, has urged India to open up its
retail trade sector to foreign direct investment and said it is keen on
setting up a chain of such stores in the country.
The wish list of the Arkansas-based
retail chain giant was conveyed at a meeting here Thursday between the
group's international president John B. Menzer and Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh.
"We had a very good meeting," Menzer,
who carries a leather wallet sourced from India, told reporters after
his 20-minute meeting with the prime minister.
"Hope there will be a change in the
foreign investment policy and we are allowed in."
The Wal-Mart international president
also sought to allay fears that the entry of global retail chains such
as Wal-Mart would push out of business the small "mom and pop" shops
that dominate the retail trade business in India.
"There is room for everyone in here,"
he said, adding that India was not only among the fastest growing
economies in the world but also for Wal-Mart's international operations.
Only two percent of India's retail
trade is in the organised sector. Moreover, almost half of all retail
stores are "mom and pop" shops that engage in subsistence trading.
The Wal-Mart official said the company
sources merchandise worth $1.5 billion from the Indian market and
expects such outsourcing to grow at a rate of 30 percent a year.
"We also want to invest significantly
in retail stores."
Menzer's remarks on seeking foreign
investment in retail trade business comes in the backdrop of a proposal
from Commerce Minister Kamal Nath to the cabinet to allow limited entry
for overseas retail companies.
The government, according to official
sources, is examining what could be the possible cap on foreign
investment, if and when it will open the sector - 26 percent, 49 percent
or 51 percent.
"Foreign direct investment in retail,
first mooted by the commerce ministry, is still being discussed,"
Finance Minister P. Chidambaram had told reporters here Wednesday on the
sidelines of an event on an e-commerce initiative.
The finance minister's comments were
sought in the wake of strong opposition by the Left parties, which
support the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government from outside.
Menzer, who arrived here after a
daylong visit to Bangalore, did not wish to dwell on the company's
position should the government impose a low foreign investment cap on
retail trade.
"We have to look at the market and
what the government offers," said Menzer, 54, who earlier held
discussions with the company's Indian employees in Bangalore.
©2002 - 2003 Netindia123.com. All
rights reserved.
[back to top]
Wal-Mart profit misses target
Retailers' sales also lower than Wall Street forecasts
The Associated Press
[back to top]
May 12, 2005
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Wal-Mart Stores
Inc. reported a 14 percent increase in first-quarter earnings Thursday,
but the results missed Wall Street estimates. The world’s largest
retailer also warned that second-quarter results could be much lower
than analysts expected as unseasonably cool weather and higher gasoline
prices continue to hurt business.
Wal-Mart also said that while it could
still meet its profit goal for the year, as business should start to
improve in the second half, it will be difficult to achieve. The news
sent shares down $1.30, or 2.7 percent to $47.40 in morning trading on
the New York Stock Exchange.
Wal-Mart said quarterly net income
grew to $2.5 billion, or 58 cents per share, in the three months ended
April 30 from $2.2 billion, or 50 cents per share, a year earlier. The
company said first-quarter earnings were boosted by $145 million, or 3
cents per share, from tax and legal resolutions. Excluding the items,
earnings per share totaled 55 cents per share, a penny below Wall Street
expectations.
Sales rose 10 percent to $70.9 billion
from $64.76 billion a year ago, while total revenue including sales and
other income grew to $71.7 billion from $65.4 billion a year ago.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial
expected the company to earn 56 cents per share on sales of $72 billion.
“We achieved record results in the
quarter,” said Lee Scott, president and CEO in a statement. “Yet with
higher gasoline prices and a cooler and wetter spring than normal we
missed our plan. We are making the necessary adjustments and I
anticipate better results in the second half of the year.”
Sales at stores open at least a year,
known as same-store sales, were up 2.9 percent.
At Wal-Mart’s namesake discount
stores, total sales rose 9.3 percent to $47.64 billion, while Sam’s Club
division had a 5.9 percent increase, reaching $9.16 billion in sales.
The international business enjoyed a 12.4 percent gain, reaching $14.11
billion in sales.
In a pre-recorded call, Tom Schoewe,
Wal-Mart’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, said
the company is continuing to feel the effect of gasoline prices and
other pressures, including payroll, insurance and maintenance.
Schoewe said the company expects
“below plan sales” for the second quarter, and projected per-share
earnings for the period of between 63 cents and 67 cents.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial
expect 70 cents in the second quarter.
Schoewe said the company could still
meet its target of annual profit of between $2.70 and $2.74 cents per
share but doing so will be difficult considering the way the first half
of the year is shaping up.
The quarter had its bright spots;
Sam’s Club warehouse stores proved the exception with its operating
income growing faster than sales. Also, food sales at Supercenters were
up 17 percent. But the company also saw its Supercenter gross margins
pressured by fuel prices and freight surcharges. And rising interest
rates will hurt Wal-Mart’s bottom line. Schoewe said about half of the
company’s debt is tied to floating rates.
Schoewe said Wal-Mart is making
changes to its stores to increase efficiency and production and is
looking at ways it can adjust its staffing.
Wal-Mart, as of April 30, had 3,719
U.S. stores and 1,596 international units, not counting Seiyu Ltd. in
Japan, in which Wal-Mart has a stake.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.
All rights reserved.
[back to top]
Union bargaining, Wal-Mart
style
12.05.05
By Katherine Griffiths
New Zealand Herald
[back to top]
Wal-Mart has reinforced its anti-union
reputation by closing down a store in Canada after it became the first
in North America to become unionised.
The confrontation became a cause
celebre in Canada amid accusations by union organisers that they were
threatened with violence.
Sylvie Lavoie started recruiting staff
to the union in Jonquiere, northern Quebec, because "there was injustice
at the company and it did not respect its workforce".
The US retailing giant acted quickly,
calling a meeting of its 190 employees and publicly naming union
organisers.
Activists claim they were later
subjected to intimidation, although Wal-Mart strongly denies
involvement.
Despite the threats, the union
continued to organise and demanded a minimum 37-hour week for full-time
employees.
Then the directors announced the
Jonquiere store would be closing, because, they said, it was not making
money
A Wal-Mart spokesman, Andrew
Pelletier, said: "The store was struggling. When you factored in the
union demands, which were completely unreasonable ... the store would
not be viable."
But the United Food and Trade Workers’
Union believes the closure of the only store that dared to unionise "is
a Wal-Mart message addressed to the United States and elsewhere to say,
‘If you want to unionise, we’ll close you down’."
Wal-Mart has a long history of
antagonism towards unions. A federal grand jury in Arkansas is still
investigating whether Thomas Coughlin, Wal-Mart’s former vice-chairman,
has been orchestrating an illegal campaign against union organisers.
Copyright © 2005, APN Holdings NZ Ltd
Privacy Policy
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Wal-Mart scene of protest
May 11 2005 04:36 PM
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