The Wal-Mart Watch Blog

12 comments | Dec 15, 2008

---

It’s a classic battle plan, really.

First you open your coffers to buy a little love from the locals. Then you slowly solidify a ring of fortresses around the city, including a strategic outpost at the Wilderness Battlefield in Fredericksburg, VA. Next you ride up to Fairfax in the night, swift and silent with your new secret weapon, and seize the western flank. Then all that’s left for Lee Scott is the final move, the death blow: sound the war horn and ride in from the Beltway right straight at the heart of the nation’s capitol. When you’re done and the smoke has cleared, it’s checkmate: hang a blue vest on the Washington Monument, you’ve conquered D.C.

That or just driven it into the Chesapeake Bay, but either way you’ve got what you want: no more pesky labor reforms, no more outspoken politicians or nonprofits, and no more union bosses telling you to raise your wages.

And, oh, the stores you can open.

The Washington Business Journal tells us this past weekend that Wal-Mart is planning a new store in Fairfax County, VA. It’s already got a handful of stores in the D.C. metro area (including one already in Fairfax.) The Journal tells us this one doesn’t look like your everyday Wal-Mart - it could be the secret weapon, indeed. In fact, it could be a new store-prototype altogether:

Under the plan, Wal-Mart would occupy 80,000 square feet, Chuck E. Cheese would be relocated to the north end of the property and a 10,000-square-foot space in between would be leased to a future tenant. The Wal-Mart would be a new concept for the company, made up of 50 percent grocery offerings and including sustainable building elements such as skylights and a reflective roof.

Make no doubt about it: Wal-Mart wants D.C. It’s been shut out of Chicago, and doesn’t stand much of a chance in New York any time soon. D.C. offers millions of potential of untapped customers, and Wal-Mart wants them so bad it can taste it.

Be ready, D.C.’ers - we may have a new General in town, but the fight is just beginning…

9 comments | Dec 15, 2008

---

We thought this story was over last week when Wal-Mart fessed up to charging illegal sales tax in Connecticut. We were wrong.

The Hartford Courant is reporting that, despite acknowledging the wrongdoing and vowing to change its ways when it comes to double-charging sales tax, the message has yet to filter down to, you know, the people that matter. Namely, employees. The following is an excerpt from a letter submitted to the Courant:

I find it absolutely incredible that no salesperson knew the “corrected” policy. I hope the assistant manager refunded my sales tax because she really knew it was the right thing to do, or if she just did it to please the customer.  In any case, I’m happy I got my money back. Of course, it’s not the money, it was the principal of the whole thing. I’m still amazed at the whole thing and it has “tainted” my thoughts of their store and my willingness to continue shopping there.

I’d say this was a one-time deal, and we’ll never read about these sales tax shenanigans again. But…

The Courant has forwarded the complaint to the Connecticut Consumer Protection Commission.

Despite promise of reform, Wal-Mart still violating Connecticut tax laws [Hartford Courant]

Read the rest of this story ...

14 comments | Dec 15, 2008

---

We’ve covered Wal-Mart’s wage and hour (and overtime) issues many times over, culminating with last week’s $54 million settlement in Minnesota. We all get that Wal-Mart would prefer its employees work through breaks. And we certainly know that when it comes to paying employees for overtime, well, Wal-Mart would prefer that be optional.

California wage laws are, not surprisingly, fairly strict. And now, with that state facing a financial shortfall, the LA Times is reporting that business groups and GOP lawmakers are using wage and hour law as a bargaining chip in negotiations over how to fix a $14.8-billion hole in the state budget. The argument is that state laws like those in California - the ones mandating breaks for workers working at least 6 hours in succession, and requiring an employer to pay time-and-a-half once a worker has worked more than 8 hours in day - are expensive for employers to follow and force them to flee the state for friendlier confines. Places where breaks are voluntary [for the employer] and overtime exists only in a fantasy dreamland.

Not surprisingly, California Democrats and labor officials in the state disagree.

Employers’ latest efforts to tie both the meal break and overtime issue to contentious budget negotiations are aimed at reversing basic worker rights, said Art Pulaski, executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation.

“It’s about trying to help Wal-Mart and other big corporations get away from the long-established understanding that people should get a meal break at work” or be paid extra for extra hours, Pulasksi said.

“This has nothing to do with the budget or stimulating the economy,” said Barry Broad, a lobbyist for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and other labor unions. “It doesn’t help the economy to lower 20 million people’s wages during a recession.”

It has been suggested that if state lawmakers can’t come to a consensus and close out these budget negotiations, a state government shutdown in the spring is a distinct possibility.

Overtime pay, rest breaks become bargaining chips in state budget crisis [LA Times]

Read the rest of this story ...

14 comments | Dec 15, 2008

---

If you didn’t catch it, Lee Scott came out of hiding Sunday for a “roundtable” on the state of the American economy on Meet the Press, along with Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Fmr. Gov. Mitt Romney, Fmr. Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, and Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

We were holding out hope that David Gregory would (in his first ever show) make a splash by grilling Lee Scott on wages and labor practices, but we weren’t too surprised when it didn’t happen. Gregory did at least point out that Wal-Mart has taken flak on health care and “driving down wages,” but Lee Scott effectively dodged the question - by mentioning that his company had added new jobs and saying how he “reached out” to the Obama administration on America’s economic situation. Unfortunately, no follow up was asked. CQ posted the transcript:

GREGORY: Lee Scott, you know, you’ve been criticized at Wal-Mart on, on health care issues, on driving down wages. As a business leader, and when you think about your successor at Wal-Mart, do you have a responsibility to help Washington with the employment picture?

SCOTT: Well, we’ve been fortunate this year with our business to have added 30,000 jobs here in the U.S. We’ve improved our health care, we’ve improved, I think, the general opportunity of our associates. So, criticisms aside, I think Eric’s exactly right. These are not times to be self-serving, and that’s why we have reached out to the new administration and said, “We want to be a partner on these things.”

We’re glad that the line about health care and wages made it into the show, but other than a testy back-and-forth between Granholm and Romney on the auto bailout, the rest of the conversation was pretty disappointing. There were some interesting points made, but every other question Lee Scott was asked was a big, fat basketball-sized softball that let him run down the talking points about consumers trading down and why they need Wal-Mart more than ever.

No basic questions about the whether Americans’ wages are too low, and if so who is going to be the one who starts raising them. Nothing on whether passing the Employee Free Choice Act could be a stimulus plan for America’s middle class. And nothing on whether Lee Scott’s company - which by all rights is profiting wildly from the recession - actually wants it to end. And if it does, what it’s prepared to do for its workers to make that happen.

Read the rest of this story ...

8 comments | Dec 15, 2008

---

School departments should build schools and manage quality education---but not try to use publicly-owned land to act like real estate moguls. When school officials choose not to use land they own for schools, they should return the land to the public to dispose of---not start negotiating with big box retailers. On June 6, 2004, Sprawl-Busters reported that Wal-Mart plans for a superstore in Jackson, Michigan had been withdrawn. The Citizen Patriot newspaper announced June 4th that Wal-Mart had pulled the plug on its plan to build a second store in East Jackson. “We’ve been notified that they’re not going to proceed,” East Jackson Superintendent Bruce Van Eyck told the paper. Van Eyck said the retail giant notified the district it was terminating its agreement to buy school property because it was not able to purchase all of the properties it needed to build the store. Wal-Mart was unavailable for comment at the time. The company was already building a 206,000 s.f. supercenter at the Westwood Mall on the west side of East Jackson. Wal-Mart had agreed to buy 11.67 acres of East Jackson Community Schools land on N. Dettman Road for $1.29 million. Two of the three home owners on N. Dettman Road had already agreed to sell their houses. Wal-Mart also was trying to negotiate purchase agreements with three businesses, including an auto parts store, a shoe store and a fast-food restaurant. Someone obviously held out, killing the plan. School officials lamented the loss, saying that the deal would have brought the district revenues for long-term projected needs and improved its tax base.

Read the rest of this story ...

26 comments | Dec 12, 2008

---

Looks like Wal-Mart fired James Hirni just in time. Three weeks ago, Wal-Mart terminated its top GOP lobbyist after being indicted in the Jack Abramoff scandal. Today he plead guilty to “honest services fraud” in D.C. - which included some of your classic Abramoff-style illegal-gifts-in-exchange-for-legislative-favors, as well as a more complicated scheme to convince states to rent their construction equipment, not buy, and only from companies with ‘large dollar amounts of liability insurance coverage.’

Hirni faces the possibility of five years in prison and $250,000 in fines.

It’s a fine sort that Wal-Mart keeps as company. Think they’ll keep his office ready for him when he gets out of prison?

Ex-GOP aide with Abramoff ties pleads guilty [Roll Call]:

James Hirni, a former congressional aide-turned-lobbyist with ties to Jack Abramoff, pleaded guilty Friday to one count of honest services fraud in D.C. district court.

The plea came just three weeks after Hirni was fired by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., where he worked as a director of Republican outreach. The charge stems from his time at Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal and is unrelated to Hirni’s work for the chain.

Read the rest of this story ...

47 comments | Dec 12, 2008

---

An employee just wrote in to tell us that her/his Wal-Mart store is now claiming to take employee safety more seriously. ‘Safety Managers’ from Bentonville were touring the store and watching workers all day, and all employees were required to attend a mandatory meeting where safety guidelines were read. Apparently management wasn’t trying to hide the fact that this was all motivated by the company’s exposure over the Damour tragedy in New York.

The best line is at the bottom: the store manager insisted that paying for management to fly all over the country and read aloud the company’s already existing safety guidelines is proof the company cares so much about the workers.

Even thought the he/she clearly doesn’t believe Wal-Mart is making an honest attempt to create a safer workplace, we’d encourage any attempt by Wal-Mart to better protect its workers - even if it unfortunately had to a take tragedy to make it happen.

Read the whole thing:

I just wanted to update you on the steps Walmart is taking to minimize the fallout from Black Friday.  When I went in on Monday, there was a note beside the time-clock about a mandatory “safety meeting.” Mandatory meetings are very rare because if they happen to fall on a person’s day off, then that person will receive overtime when they clock in for this meeting if they have been scheduled for 40 hours.  We were also told that safety managers from the Home Office would be touring the store and observing all day.  They were at our store all day, and management (especially the Loss Prevention Manager), were nearly spastic.  They kept reminding us to work safely, keep all the exits clear and to be sure and speak to every customer that was within 10 feet of us. (Sam Walton had the 10 foot rule.)

I went to the meeting this morning.  All the store manager did was read a several page document that was given to him by the District Manager.  There was nothing new or different about the information.  It was all the same old spiel that we have heard countless times about cleaning up spills promptly, safe use of ladders, safe lifting procedures, etc.  However, he kept stressing over and over that Walmart cared about our well-being and safety and even said that he couldn’t stress this enough…since we are super-busy this time of year, I was sitting there thinking that this whole thing was a colossal waste of time and wondered why in the world Walmart would issue a mandatory meeting, when we were needed to be on the floor with customers and keeping stocked.  Then, at the very end of the meeting when he had stressed for about the 4th or 5th time how much Walmart cared about us, he brought up the incident in New York.  That’s when I did a mental “Ah-ha!” That’s why they are supposedly so worried about us.  He mentioned that the worker was a temporary worker and that the whole situation had been mishandled.  Then, to make a point about Walmart really caring for us, he told us that Walmart had gone to great expense to fly all the District Managers around the country for meetings so the expense alone should tell us that Walmart really cared about our well-being.  He also said that they had come up with the pages he read to us at those meetings.  Walmart really cares about us and can prove it by paying out a ton of money flying upper management all over the U.S.  Really??  I would be more convinced they cared if they offered me a decent health care plan...............but what do I know?

--Anonymous

11 comments | Dec 12, 2008

---

It’s been confirmed: Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott will appear in a roundtable discussion on Meet The Press this Sunday with Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. The roundtable will be, according to MTP’s website, an “in-depth discussion on the troubled economy.” Tune in at 10:30 AM on NBC to check it out.

Also, this is David Gregory’s first show as the new host. (A one-on-one grilling of Lee Scott over his company’s low wages would be a heck of a way to make a first impression, no?)

Anyone have any other good ideas for questions to ask Lee Scott?

26 comments | Dec 11, 2008

---

Today the Civil War Preservation Trust rolled out a letter to Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott, signed by 253 historians, urging the company not to build a supercenter across the street from the Wilderness Civil War Battlefield in Central Virginia. The CWPT brought in some big-timers, too - including David McCullough and Ken Burns - arguably the nation’s most prominent history writer and documentary filmmaker, respectively. 

Wal-Mart finally submitted its application for a special building permit this week, so the site fight has officially begun. And don’t look for it to quiet down anytime soon. DC media has picked up the story, and we know that the CWPT isn’t going to let up any time soon.

This morning, stories on the letter ran in the Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star and in Associated Press.

Read the full letter and full list of signees here.

Dear Mr. Scott:

I urge you in the strongest possible terms to pursue alternate building locations for the Walmart Supercenter proposed in Orange County, Virginia. The site currently under consideration lies within the historic boundary of the Wilderness Battlefield and only one quarter mile from the current boundary of the Wilderness Battlefield unit of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.

The Battle of the Wilderness was among the most significant engagements of the Civil War. It marked the first time legendary generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant faced off against one another on the field of battle. During two days of desperate conflict in a harsh, unforgiving landscape tangled with underbrush, 4,000 Americans lost their lives and nearly 20,000 were wounded.

Read the rest of this story ...

54 comments | Dec 11, 2008

---

Wal-Mart has a long history of opposing unionization. Sam Walton was notorious for trying to keep unions out of his stores. In fact, Walton hired union-busting lawyer John E. Tate to quash some of the earliest efforts to organize stores in Missouri. Despite a successful unionization effort in China, Wal-Mart will not budge from its position in the United States and Canada. However, with the election of Barack Obama and the potential passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, Wal-Mart is clearly afraid that its anti-worker practices of the last half century might be coming to a close. Wal-Mart says its associates do not need a union. Wal-Mart Watch, however, believes that after years of low wages, expensive health care benefits, and poor working conditions, Wal-Mart workers can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Wal-Mart and the retail industry have been spending millions slandering the Free Choice Act, saying that it would destroy the “private ballot” in the unionization process. To find out why this simply isn’t true, see Wal-Mart Watch’s latest fact sheet, The Employee Free Choice Act: Wal-Mart’s Last Stand Against Unionization?

Page 53 of 332 pages « First  <  51 52 53 54 55 >  Last »