The Wal-Mart Watch Blog
southeast

| Feb 03, 2010

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Walmart is certainly shaking things up recently. A week ago, Walmart laid off more than 11,000 of its Sam’s Club workers. Two weeks before that, Walmart closed down 10 Sam’s Club stores putting 1,500 jobs at risk. Since the Sam’s Club layoffs, Walmart has announced other substantial institutional changes like splitting its US operations in to regions and establishing a global online organization.

Then today, Walmart announced it would laying off another 300 employees from its Bentonville, Arkansas headquarters. Just about a year ago, Walmart laid off between 700 and 800 workers from headquarters.

Between the two layoffs, Walmart has let go around 9% of the 12,000 headquarters staff.

The positions being eliminated this time around were in the corporate affairs, finance, human resources, information systems and legal departments.

We’re always concerned to hear about layoffs, especially from a company that is doing so well right now, racking up billions of dollars in sales.

With a 10% cut in Sam’s club staff, and a nearly 10% cut in headquarter staff, are there more layoffs on the way?

You can read more about the layoffs, and the memo from Mike Duke from the Associated Press here.

| Jan 19, 2010

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On January 29, 2009--just about a year ago--Sprawl-Busters reported that Haywood, North Carolina officials had a big hole to fill that once was a Wal-Mart discount store on Route 74 in the Clyde area.

The vacant Wal-Mart has been there since a Wal-Mart supercenter, with 188,494 s.f., opened in Waynesville on October 1, 2008---just eight miles down the road from the original location in Clyde. The Wal-Mart discount store in Clyde that was closed was built in 1990, and is 116,061 s.f. The Smoky Mountain News reported that what was once a bustling retail market and taxpaying property was now slated to go off the tax rolls entirely and become the new home of the Haywood County Department of Health and Social Services. 

One year later, the deal has still not jelled. According to the News, Commissioners are still considering the old Wal-Mart site. The county wants to buy the 20 year old Wal-Mart because its the cheapest option they have, making it a ‘bargain’ for the taxpayers, Commissioner Mark Swanger told the News. The current DSS building was constructed in the 1920s. “It would require millions in renovations, heating, air, roof windows and you still have an inadequate space for doing business,” Swanger explained. The DSS building needs a new roof, windows, and electrical wiring. “We could go on and on about what it would cost us, we would still have an old building,” another Commissioner noted. A new building is also out of the question, the Commissioners say, costing as much as $30 million. So taking over the dead Wal-Mart makes financial sense.

The Wal-Mart property itself will need a lot of work. It was described by the News as a “gaping retail shell.” But at least it has a roof and a parking lot. The County says if they put a DSS office into the building, it will act as an anchor for the shopping center and stimulate adjacent businesses. Over the past ten years, the county has been building a new Justice Center, a new jail, and a remodeled courthouse. So officials don’t have much capital left to spend on the new DSS space. “I suppose it has been just a matter of priorities,” Swanger explained.

Negotiations with Wal-Mart Realty have been going on for at least a year. “If we don’t do something now, it’s going to cost us much more in the future to buy property and start building,” one Commissioner pointed out. If the county does move into the building, the dead Wal-Mart would be subdivided between the DSS offices and the Tractor Supply Company, which is also in negotiations for part of the Wal-Mart building. When Wal-Mart left a gaping hole in the strip mall where it was located to move to the other side of town in 2008, Commissioners began thinking about using the vacant store. They decided not to pursue it at the time given the county’s economic situation with the recession.

At that time Commissioners were seeking a federal loan of up to $11 million to purchase and renovate the Wal-Mart. The area had lost a Goody’s clothing store, which was one of many casualties of the big box retailers. Goody’s left behind a storefront in a strip mall in Waynesville. Home Depot canceled plans at the last minute to open a new store in Waynesville, leaving a hole next to the new big box retail complex where Super Wal-Mart moved to. Last year at this time, the Commissioners’ economic development staff said, “Right now, there’s not a whole lot of retailers that are looking to expand. Everybody’s pretty cautious right now. The county’s interest (in the Wal-Mart property) is very encouraging.” Commissioners said in January of 2009 that money from the federal stimulus package could help finance the purchase of the Wal-Mart building, but it was unclear how long it would take for the money to trickle down to local governments.

What you can do: There are currently 9 Wal-Mart “dark stores” in North Carolina. Wal-Mart has several private real estate brokers trying to sell these properties. The official Wal-Mart line is that its Realty division has no problem disposing of these properties, but in many situations, these large “ghost boxes” are hard to remarket because there are very few businesses looking for such large buildings. Wal-Mart has left hundreds of ‘dark stores’ in its wake as it moves through small town America, causing local officials to worry about being stuck with huge, empty stores that cannot easily be recycled.

One has to wonder what officials in Clyde would have said in 1990 if Wal-Mart had told them that in less than 20 years their proposed discount store would be closed and left for the county to buy. For the town of Clyde, this represents a major loss of revenue. The County will not pay property taxes on the building, and there will be little sales tax from the Tractor Supply Company compared to a Wal-Mart store. The big winner is Wal-Mart, which will sell off its dead store, and make more money at its superstore 8 miles away. This leapfrog development is a perfect example of the sprawl that happens when there is no regional planning. In this case, Waynesville took away Clyde’s store, when the Clyde store could have been reformatted to become a superstore. Wal-Mart today is building superstores that are 99,000 s.f. The Clyde Wal-Mart was 116,061 s.f. No relocation was necessary in the first place, and Clyde’s store was clearly meant for Waynesville and surrounding towns, because Clyde’s tiny population could never support a discount store on its own.

Readers are urged to email Haywood County Commission Chairman Kirk Kirkpatrick at with the following message: “Dear Chairman Kirkpatrick, Please don’t use federal or county tax dollars to buy an empty Wal-Mart that bad planning created. Clyde and Waynesville should never have allowed Wal-Mart to abandon its ‘old’ store in the first place, just to move to bigger quarters 8 miles away. They could have reformatted their existing store in Clyde into a superstore, and today you’d have no dead store to worry about. But the idea of using federal stimulus money to write a check to Wal-Mart—which doesn’t need any more federal subsidies---is irresponsible. Instead, call over to the new Wal-Mart superstore manager, Jerry Presley at (828) 452-5090 and ask him to write to the corporate central office in Bentonville, Arkansas, asking Wal-Mart to donate the land and building to the county. It’s the least they can do to repay the county and the town of Clyde for leaving you with an empty building that could have been avoided in the first place. Don’t subsidize Wal-Mart with tax dollars---ask them for a charitable donation that they can take as a tax write-off.”

| Dec 29, 2009

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Chattanooga, TN. - The closest thing America has to domestic War Zones are the huge parking lots outside of Wal-Marts.

This No Man’s Land is a battlefield where every imaginable crime occurs, from purse-snatching to rape, to murder. Sometimes the victims and assailants are strangers. But sometimes Wal-Mart workers get into the act.

On December 22, 2009, the third person to die this year at the hands of Wal-Mart ‘loss prevention’ workers breathed his last in a Dunwoody, Georgia Wal-Mart parking lot. Marty Bridges was fleeing a Wal-Mart store when security staff wrestled him to the ground. By the time the Dunwoody police arrived on the scene, bystanders were giving Bridges CPR.

Five days later, an off duty police officer in Chattanooga, Tennessee wrestled to the ground an alleged shoplifter ironically named Joe Hill. The suspect, pushing a cart loaded with TVs and a computer, tried to shove his way past a Wal-Mart greeter out into the Wal-Mart parking lot. Wal-Mart security guards tried to physically restrain Hill inside the store, but he struggled his way out into No Man’s Land. One local newspaper described the parking lot incident as a “wild scene.”

The same day as the Chattanooga fracas, police in South Bend, Indiana were searching for suspects in a “shooting spree” that injured one man and damaged several homes. A 19 year old suspect was arrested the next day, and charged with shoplifting ammunition from a Wal-Mart store. The suspect reportedly asked Wal-Mart employees if he could check to make sure the ammunition was the correct caliber. When the clerk handed him the ammunition, the suspect fled the store.

A few days before Christmas, police in West Columbia, South Carolina were searching for a man they say robbed another person at knifepoint in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in that city.

Police in Amarillo, Texas were searching for two men they say tried to rob a man in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Security pictures show the suspects drove up to the man while he was loading his groceries and demanded his wallet.

On December 16th, three people were arrested in Kingsport, Tennessee after police say they dragged a Wal-Mart door greeter around the parking lot when he tried to stop them from stealing a television. The greeter attempted to stop a woman leaving with a large television set. As the woman jumped into the rear seat of the getaway car, the greeter, still holding onto the television, was dragged across the parking lot.

The day before the Kingsport incident, a man was assaulted and robbed outside a Wal-Mart store in Fairfield, California. The victim was getting out of his truck in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart when a woman sprayed him with pepper spray. Two men then hit him in the face and head with a pipe or gun and demanded money.

On December 18th, police in Moraine, Ohio were searching for a man who robbed a 62-year-old woman at gunpoint in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Police said the man pointed a gun at the woman and demanded that she turn over her purse.

On December 19th, police in Idaho Falls, Idaho found two men dead after a shooting at an Idaho Falls Wal-Mart parking lot. A math teacher at Idaho Falls High School shot and killed his wife’s lover in the Wal-Mart battle zone.

And finally, a week before Christmas, a Salvation Army donation kettle at a Wal-Mart store in Sherwood, Arkansas was robbed. A man picked up the entire kettle and fled the scene. A fitting climax to the holiday season at Wal-Mart.

What you can do: These Wal-Mart War Zone stories don’t just occur around the holidays. Wal-Mart parking lots have become the latest frontier for crime--- like the lawless Wild West. On some days, it seems like more people are robbed or injured in the Wal-Mart War Zone than in Karbala or Kandahar.

In the comment section of a newspaper in Chattanooga, Tennessee, one reader summed up the Wal-Mart parking lot incident in his city: “Who needs TV? Just pack up the kids and go to Wal-Mart for entertainment---action, drama, comedy and violence all balled up in one irresistible redneck nugget.”

The business media doesn’t like to write about the Wal-Mart War Zone. Reporters know this “wild scene” is not happening with such predictable frequency at Target, or Macy’s or Nordstrom’s. The crowds are at Wal-Mart---and so is the crime that goes with the crowds.

Everyday parking lot crime has become as much a part of Wal-Mart’s brand as everyday low prices. Wal-Mart will continue to deny that crime in their parking lots is an issue---but what the retailer’s shareholders must fear most is that shoppers will become fearful every time they leave a Wal-Mart alone.

Readers are urged to email Wal-Mart corporate headquarters at http://walmartstores.com/contactus/feedback.aspx with the following message: “Please provide more security protection for your customers and your workers, especially in your parking lots. There is an attitude of lawlessness that pervades your parking lots, and you never know what you’re going to encounter there. A more visible presence by store security would be a start---but you’ve got a major crime problem just outside your front door that is not being dealt with.”

| Dec 22, 2009

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Wal-Mart parking lots could be one of the most dangerous places in America. Not only are people abducted, raped, murdered and robbed in these huge parking areas---but Wal-Mart seems to be uniquely plagued by alleged shoplifters who die while in the hands of Wal-Mart ‘loss prevention’ workers.

Sprawl-Busters has reported on several such deaths—from America to China—in which suspected shoplifters died under provocative circumstances. These headlines do not seem to happen in the parking lot of Nordstrom’s or Macy’s---or even Target---unless the media is just missing them.

The latest death of a suspected Wal-Mart shoplifter happened in Dunwoody, Georgia this week, outside of Wal-Mart superstore # 2360. Police there are investigating the case of Marty Bridges, who has been identified as being 48 years old in one story, and 38 in another. What is known is that Bridges was fleeing a Wal-Mart store when security staff working for Wal-Mart grabbed him, and a fight broke out. By the time the Dunwoody police arrived on the scene, Bridges was on the ground, and bystanders were trying to give him CPR. The suspect was taken to nearby Northside hospital, where he was officially pronounced dead.

The Dunwoody police told the Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper that the unspecified items Bridges was accused of stealing were less than $300 in value, and would have resulted in a misdemeanor charge. The Dunwoody police also told the media that in their opinion it did not appear as if undue force had been used on Bridges. “It was basically a big pile-up,” a police spokesman told the newspaper. “They had him pinned on the ground to keep him from running.”

None of the media reports of this incident indicate what items Bridges was allegedly stealing---but Wal-Mart employees were unable to recover the item, or items, according to the police. Either Bridges had nothing on him, or the merchandise stolen was dropped or not located. Instead of dealing with a charge of a misdemeanor in court, Bridges’ family will now be planning a funeral.

What you can do: An autopsy is being done on Marty Bridges to see how he died in that Wal-Mart parking lot. He apparently lost consciousness while trying to flee the store. According to one report, store officials had contacted the police saying that a man had been seen stuffing his shirt with store items. Yet as he lay dying in the parking lot, no items were found on his person.

Bridges was described as a “heavyset” man. Dunwoody police suggested to the Associated Press that Bridges might have been fleeing because of an outstanding warrant or some undisclosed charges against him. Although Wal-Mart tells its employees not to physically engage alleged shoplifters, the people who have died all had one thing in common: they were wrestling with Wal-Mart security guards when they died. Instead of letting the local police pursue the suspected shoplifters, Wal-Mart loss prevention workers attempt to apprehend the suspect, which raises the odds that a loss of life will occur, not just a loss of a few dollars in merchandise. The giant retailer does not seem to have in place any plan to change its procedures in light of several deaths on its property. The company usually issues a statement expressing its sadness over the loss of life---but the “wrestle-to-the-ground” method seems to still be the unofficial policy at Wal-Mart.

Readers are urged to call Wal-Mart superstore # 2360 at (770) 395-0199 and leave this message for the manager: “I hope that the death of Marty Bridges will result in your employees being instructed not to try to physically apprehend shoplifters. It is up to the Dunwoody police to apprehend people Wal-Mart accuses of shoplifting. Your current store policy has resulted in a death---regardless of where you assign blame---a man has died over a very small amount of Wal-Mart merchandise. Keep your hands off the customer, because when you physically restrain the public, you become judge, jury and executioner in just a matter of minutes.”

| Nov 12, 2009

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Recently we told you about the community that Walmart is trying to displace to build another store. Here is our friend Al Norman’s take on it:

Wal-Mart Walking on Sunshine

As many as 70 elderly and disabled residents of Palm Springs, Florida, may soon be evicted to make way for another Wal-Mart superstore.

The hapless residents of Sunshine Village are watching as the sun goes down on their mobile home park. This homestead of predominately low-income older people has been around for decades on 10th Avenue North. But this week, the Palm Springs Land Development Board voted unanimously to rezone 17 acres of land from residential to commercial, to pave the way for the 11th Wal-Mart within ten miles of Palm Springs.

A developer called Cornerstone Palm Springs LLC, which owns Sunshine Village, warned residents about a year ago that the property was up for sale. The site is reportedly slated for a 175,000 square foot Wal-Mart supercenter. There’s already a Wal-Mart supercenter only 4 miles away in West Palm Beach, and two more supercenters roughly 7 miles from the site.

The developer can’t just toss these old folks out on the street, however. Florida law requires that the residents of Sunshine Village receive at least six months notice of eviction, and be given some relocation costs. Cornerstone Palm Springs told the Palm Beach Post that it’s going to cover all the relocation costs for the families being evicted.

But the Sunshine Village Neighborhood Association is not going to sink slowly in the west. The group has approached the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach for help, and an attorney for the Society told the Post, “We don’t think it will be possible to move them. There’s not a lot of places for these folks to rent.”

Cornerstone apparently has informed the mobile home owners that Wal-Mart wants to move in when they move out. In fact, the developer will have a site plan ready to submit in December. The Village Council voted last winter to amend its comprehensive land use plan to accommodate a shopping center---so the project has been in the works for almost a year. Within months, Wal-Mart could literally be walking on Sunshine.

Wal-Mart targets mobile home parks, because local officials are often anxious to level these ‘eyesores’, and move the residents out of the area. The homeowners, who are stigmatized as “trailer trash,” are marginalized politically, and have no clout in town. One reader of the Palm Beach Post submitted the following comment on Sunshine Village:

We need to get rid of all these low rent trailer parks. They bring in the worst kind of people. A lot of illegals will be living in these rusted out old trailer parks. Palm Beach county should take a vote on closing all trailer parks...Keep the migrants where they belong. Out in the fields picking my tomatoes.
Last August, Wal-Mart displaced 40 families from a mobile home park in Marion, North Carolina. In February of 2009, 15 homeowners lost out to a Wal-Mart supercenter in North Vernon, Indiana. Around Christmas of 2006, 80 residents in a mobile home park in Berlin, Wisconsin saw their homes rezoned from residential to commercial. In January of 2006, 54 families in the Monticello Mobile Home Park in West Asheville, North Carolina, were forced to relocate to make room for a 180,000 square foot Wal-Mart superstore. In 2003, 122 residents in a mobile home park in St. Petersburg, Florida were displaced by Wal-Mart. The world’s largest retailer swallows up trailer parks whole, and spits out the people who live there.

Not all of these attempts by big box stores to push mobile homeowners off the map have been successful. Residents in Santa Rosa, California, and Hood River, Oregon, for example, beat the big boxes and kept their homes. But more often than not, mobile home property owners like Cornerstone sell out the families that have depended on them for decades. It’s hard for landowners to resist the lure of Wal-Mart’s top dollar. The owners of Sunshine Village will surely “live better” when Wal-Mart pays them millions for their little corner of this village.

The village of Palm Springs, population around 14,000, only covers a two and a half square mile area. It won’t be easy for these elderly and disabled residents to move their mobile homes. Many of the homes might not structurally survive any relocation at all.

The Village Council in Palm Springs will take its first vote on rezoning on November 13th. If they vote down the rezoning, the elderly and disabled residents of Sunshine Village won’t have to move.

Ironically, Palm Springs likes to call itself “A Great Place to Call Home.” Readers are urged to email Karl Umberger, the Palm Springs Village Manager at with the following message:

Please let the Village Council know that I am appalled that any community would toss out dozens of elderly and disabled residents from their homes just to make way for another Wal-Mart like the 11 you already have within 10 miles of your Village. How can the Village---which says it’s ‘A Great Place To Call Home’---evict these low-income people to make way for a Wal-Mart? Where are these folks supposed to live? Urge the Council to ‘Save Sunshine Village,’ and tell Wal-Mart to find land that isn’t already somebody else’s home.

| Nov 10, 2009

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Walmart’s appetite for growth is insatiable. With about 4000 stores in the US alone and many more around the world, Walmart is huge and growing fast. Walmart is especially targeting China, India, and Mexico abroad for growth, and large cities domestically for growth. Of course that is not stopping the giant retailer from going after its more traditional locations. Many communities fight back when Walmart tries to steamroll its way in to town, but we haven’t heard of of a case where Walmart would actually displace an entire community. But that is exactly what they are doing in one Florida community.

If Walmart gets its way, it will complete replace a mobile home community, forcing its 60 residents to move. The article is short on details, but we have to imagine that most of these folks aren’t too happy about having to move. Here’s the article from the :

Palm Springs to decide whether Walmart will displace park’s 60 mobile homes and residents

A Walmart might replace Sunshine Village, a decades-old mobile home park on 10th Avenue North.

The village’s Land Development Board tonight is scheduled to make a recommendation to the village council on a zoning change that would clear the way for the store.

About 60 homes with residents — who would have to relocate — are on the community’s 17 acres, estimated James Dower, president of the Sunshine Village homeowners association.

Cornerstone Palm Springs LLC, which owns Sunshine Village, about notified residents a year ago it was seeking buyers, Dower said.

Cornerstone’s application says that the proposed shopping center wouldn’t exceed 175,000 square feet.

The 6:30 p.m. meeting is in the community room of Palm Springs Village Hall, 226 Cypress Lane.

| Oct 21, 2009

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When we saw this story today, we were pretty interested. It seems a Walmart loss prevention officer (read security guard) was fired for chasing a man who he had witnessed steal some merchandise. It is not clear if he was fired for running after the man or because the man had a knife. We were interested because in the past, there have been several incidents where shop lifters have been injured and have even died because of rather brutal tactics by Walmart’s loss prevention. But, as far as we know, no one was fired over these incidents.

Here’s the story from the local paper in Florida:

Josh Rutner said he was just doing his job as a Wal-Mart “asset protection officer” earlier this month when he chased a knife-wielding theft suspect across the store parking lot.

The man, later identified as Marc Ash, was arrested by Ocala police and the merchandise was recovered.

The next day, Wal-Mart fired Rutner.

Rutner said it boiled down to doing what was right or following policy. For him, it was an easy choice.

“I couldn’t let him get away,” Rutner said. “That’s wrong.”

But Michelle Bradford, a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. spokeswoman, said the store’s no-chase policy is clear.

“We take the safety and security of our customers and associates very seriously,” she said. “There are specific instructions as to what an associate can and can’t do during a shoplifting episode.”

According to Ocala police reports and Rutner’s account, the trouble happened at the Wal-Mart on Southwest 19th Avenue Road near the Paddock Mall. Ash picked up a pack of golf balls, valued at $42.98, and put them in his pants.

Ash then took the golf balls to another section, left them, and ate deli chicken without paying, Rutner said.

Rutner said he watched Ash put the golf balls back in his pants and head out the front of the store.

After radioing for assistance, Rutner and two other employees tackled the man outside the food center doors.

Rutner worked for Wal-Mart for nearly four months, he said. He’d done plenty of stops before.

He wasn’t expecting Ash to pull a knife, slash at his face and take off running, Rutner said.

“I felt now that he was a danger to the public and the city,” he said. “If he’d pull a knife on two security guards, he’d pull a knife on anyone.”

Rutner attempted to hit the man with a shopping cart, he said.

Customer Franchesca J. Marie told authorities she followed Ash into the parking lot from inside her car. She told him to stop and to put down the knife, which officials say she then picked up and threw in the middle of the road.

Police arrested Ash, who was charged with robbery with a deadly weapon and aggravated assault.

Rutner returned to work the next day.

“I was doing my normal routine,” he said. “Nobody said anything.”

Around lunch time, he was called into a manager’s office. A corporate representative from Arkansas was waiting.

“They said this is a non-rehirable offense,” he said. “At the age of 65, I can’t even come back and become a greeter.”

Bradford, the Wal-Mart spokeswoman, declined to comment on Rutner’s potential for rehiring.

Rutner said he knew Wal-Mart policy prohibits employees from going after suspects armed with a weapon, but there was no time to think about the consequences.

Rutner turned in his keys, security codes and badge.

“I didn’t get hurt. They got their merchandise,” he said. “And yet I got fired.”

Rutner said he was required to give a deposition Tuesday in Ash’s court case.

Ash remains in the Marion County Jail in lieu of $57,000 bail.

We’re not sure about you, but it seems a pretty odd situation when an employee can literally kill someone on the job and not get fired, but an employee who does his job and gets the merchandise back gets the boot. Perhaps its time Walmart take a look at their loss prevention strategy so that folks aren’t getting brutalized and employees aren’t getting fired.

| Oct 16, 2009

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It seems that police in Chattanooga, TN were fed up with crime at the local Walmart stores and decided to take a proactive approach. Instead of waiting for calls, they ran stings, and it worked. The police arrested 8 people. Now we’ve written about how crime-ridden Walmart parking lots can be in the past, but this is the first we’ve heard of any kind of stings. It’s actually a great idea. Studies in the past have shown that if Walmart would patrol their parking lots sporadically, crime would drop significantly. It is unfortunate, however, that the police force had to step up and do this, because it should really be Walmart’s responsibility. I suppose it’s really no surprise, though. Walmart costs tax payers billions of dollars every year by shirking their responsibilities. The parking lots are Walmart’s property, after all.

Here’s the article from the local a local TV station:

Chattanooga Police have arrested 8 people, charging them with theft under $500 in connection with a sting that was conducted at area Walmart parking lots in Chattanooga.

Property Crimes Investigators set up yesterday on the lots of the Walmart in Brainerd and Gunbarrel Rd. and waited on would-be thieves. Investigators used 2 females who posed as shoppers who would leave their purses on the trunks of their vehicle and walk off into the Walmart.

With the holiday season approaching, Chattanooga Police are taking a pro-active approach in deterring thefts from vehicles, auto thefts and parking lot robberies by conducting these types of stings and getting the message out we are out in the communities and are working to prevent these types of crimes.

Chattanooga Police also report there were more good honest shoppers than thieves, 30 – 35 people who saw the purses that had been left, quickly turned them in to the store. Chattanooga Police want to commend these honest people and thank them for their honesty.

Charge with Theft Under $500 were:

Jermichael Bowling
Kelshia Hicks
Gaynor Espy
Joe Young
Sandra Harris
Marlin Dewayne Gates
Monica Gates
Elvis Carbajal-Osorio

| Jul 02, 2009

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Here are what the voices on the Internet are saying about Wal-Mart’s support of employer-mandated health care...not surprisingly, it hasn’t taken long for most to deduce that Wal-Mart is hardly acting in an altruistic way.

Number one on Wal-Mart’s hit list? Easy. Target. Because small businesses would either be exempt from the mandate or face a less-strenuous requirement, it would be Wal-Mart’s large competitors (and more specifically those who have to this point been better at managing health care costs than Wal-Mart) that would feel the brunt of the hurt.

Jonathan Cohn at The New Republic:

I don’t want to make too much of this: Wal-Mart may chicken out once the specifics of an employer mandate end up on the table. Even if they don’t, they may not lift a finger to help. And, make no mistake, Wal-Mart is acting--as it always does--out of pure self-interest.

My undestanding is that, after all of these years, Wal-Mart has suddenly found itself in the same situation its competitors once did: Dealing with unpredictable health costs and facing new competition from businesses that have found ways to spend even less on employee health benefits. Is there some justice there? You bet.

Reihan Salam with the National Review:

There is another way of looking at this. As a large, powerful, deep-pocketed firm, Wal-Mart can sustain regulatory burdens that mom-and-pops and new entrants can’t. And so burdensome regulations are invariably Wal-Mart’s ally. Jonathan Rauch explained this dynamic brilliantly in his book Government’s End. It makes perfect sense for Wal-Mart to back a regulatory initiative that hurts its bottom line as long as it hurts its competitors more.

Megan McArdle for The Atlantic:

Wal-Mart is always going to have a seat at the table when employer mandates are discussed, because Wal-Mart is the nation’s largest private employer.  Target and Macy’s probably won’t have a seat at the table.  So Wal-Mart can influence the rules in ways that benefit Wal-Mart at the expense of the competition.

Jeffrey Young in The Atlantic:

Based on the axiom that nobody in business or politics acts strictly out of altruism, it’s safe to assume that Duke and Wal-Mart’s board of directors concluded that backing the employer mandate would provide the company with some kind of competitive advantage. When I originally reported the story, it wasn’t immediately clear to me what that might be, though I suspected it must have had something to do with Wal-Mart’s calculation of how much money the mandate would cost them relative to other retailers.

Michael Cannon, for the Cato Institute:

A couple of years ago, I shared a cab to the airport with a Wal-Mart lobbyist, who told me that Wal-Mart supports an “employer mandate.” An employer mandate is a legal requirement that employers provide a government-defined package of health benefits to their workers...But it all became clear when the lobbyist explained the reason for Wal-Mart’s position: “Target’s health-benefits costs are lower.”

I have no idea what Target’s or Wal-Mart’s health-benefits costs are.  Let’s say that Target spends $5,000 per worker on health benefits and Wal-Mart spends $10,000.  An employer mandate that requires both retail giants to spend $9,000 per worker would have no effect on Wal-Mart.  But it would cripple one of Wal-Mart’s chief competitors.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce, quoted nearly everywhere (here courtesy again, of Mr. Jeffrey Young):

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce took a pretty nasty swipe at Wal-Mart when I emailed them for a comment. Here’s the statement the Chamber’s press office sent me, attributed to James Gelfand, its senior manager for health policy: “Some businesses make the decision to use the government as a weapon against their competition. We do not agree with this method.” Ouch.

| Jun 25, 2009

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We hate to say “I told you so,” but....

Marc Gunther on ClimateBiz discussed Wal-Mart on his blog yesterday, and points out something we’ve been trying to get across as well. Even as its greenhouse gas emissions have begun to fall, the company’s overall carbon footprint has continued to rise.

As Gwen Ruta of the Environmental Defense Fund, a Wal-Mart partner, writes in her frank assessment of the company’s 2009 sustainability report, the problem is that all the good things that Wal-Mart is doing—increasing its use of renewable energy, driving efficiency in individual stores, improving its fleet operations and pushing up its recycling rate—are offset by the fact that the company is adding more stores and selling more stuff.

In late 2007 we released our own environmental report, in which we brought up the following:

Wal-Mart’s new stores will use more energy than its energy-saving measures will save. Its fleet of trucks, massive overseas shipping to import its goods, and the increasing vehicle miles traveled by its consumers all contribute heavily to CO2 emissions and the number of ozone-causing particulates released into the air. Its huge stores and even larger parking lots contribute to the degradation of our water supply, affecting our drinking water and the viability of aquatic life.

Wal-Mart’s response has been that by increasing its market share, it can replace less efficient competitors and thereby reduce emissions in the retail sector as a whole, even as it continues to expand. That might ultimately be true in the far, far distant future, especially if one day every store is a Wal-Mart. But in the interim, Wal-Mart’s total carbon emissions continue to outpace its efficiency gains. And as Gunther so eloquently adds:

If the Earth’s atmosphere could speak, it would tell us that it doesn’t care about efficiency or renewables or recyling—or market share.

Wal-Mart’s Big Problem: Climate Change [ClimateBiz]

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