Wal-Mart Lobbyists Hide Port Security Agenda Behind Trade Association

The current issue of Congressional Quarterly Weekly examines Wal-Mart’s efforts to hide their legislative agenda behind the Retail Leaders Industry Association (RILA).

Wal-Mart Gets Protective Cover in Retail Trade Group

By Shawn Zeller, CQ Staff

Why would Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, with its recently expanded in-house lobbying team, need to join a trade association? As it turns out, for largely the opposite reasons that other companies cite. The retail giant doesn’t want to draw attention to its legislative agenda; it wants to use its membership in the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) as a buffer.

Take an episode last month, when the AFL-CIO attacked Wal-Mart for standing in the way of tighter port security rules — even though, the union acknowledged, RILA had done the bulk of the industry lobbying on the issue. Wal-Mart spokesman Bill Wertz says the company fully supports rigorous port security measures and that big labor’s charge was unfair. The union “was representing RILA’s position as Wal-Mart’s position alone,” Wertz says, “and it’s no more Wal-Mart’s position than it is Target’s or Sears’.”

Or take the time in January, when the Maryland General Assembly enacted a law requiring companies with more than 10,000 workers to spend at least 8 percent of their payrolls on medical care or else make a contribution to the state’s health care fund for the poor. Wal-Mart appeared to be the sole employer in the state that would fall under the statute. But the company didn’t mount a challenge to the constitutionality of the law; that work fell to RILA, which has sued in federal court in Baltimore.

And these are but the defensive entries in RILA’s Wal-Mart agenda. In February, Congress repealed a law that had allowed domestic companies that were hurt by unfair trade practices to collect punitive duties directly from the offending foreign businesses. That was a big victory for RILA — and for Wal-Mart, the largest company crying foul among RILA’s members.

“When RILA is lobbying, Wal-Mart is the elephant in the room,” says Jason Judd, who directs the AFL-CIO’s Wal-Mart campaign. “No one splits that hair.”

But RILA lobbyist Jonathan Gold, like Wertz, stresses that the group has 100 big retailers as members. “We represent the industry as a whole,” he says. “Wal-Mart has its own representation in town. They are just one of our members.”

Click here to read about Wal-Mart how is using its lobbying clout to block new security measures at our nation’s ports.

Posted by Nu Wexler on Sunday, April 30, 2006

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