Princess Anne, MD. Wal-Mart Distribution Center Held Up By Water Shortage
For the time being, it looks like the Princess will not be awakened by a kiss from Wal-Mart. The small community of Princess Anne, in Somerset County, has been wooed by Wal-Mart for four year as the site of a potential distribution center. But so far, the project has been nothing but a frog. This warehouse became one of the most politicized Wal-Mart projects in the nation.
In May of 2005, when Maryland Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. announced he would veto a bill that would have required companies like Wal-Mart to pay more for its employees’ health care, he traveled to Princess Anne in Somerset County to sign the veto. This symbolic trip by the Governor to Somerset was meant to highlight “the county expected to suffer most largely from the passage of the bill,”
according to a news release sent out by the Governor’s office. State officials were confident that Wal-Mart would not drop its distribution center in Somerset County - even if the legislature overrode the veto - because of the incentives Maryland had provided to make the project happen. “I think we’re too good a market to pass up,” said the Governor’s head of business and economic development. “I think they’ll keep negotiating with us and we’ll keep negotiating with them and we’ll come to some middle ground.”
The law would have required all companies in Maryland with more than 10,000 employees to spend at least 8% of their payroll on workers’ health care or pay a tax to make up the difference. Wal-Mart was reportedly the only company in Maryland that would be affected.
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Posted by Al Norman on Wednesday, October 01 | 0 comments | Permalink
Weekly Update for Elected Officials: Sept. 24, 2008
Check out this week’s issue of the Wal-Mart Watch Weekly Update for Elected Officials – a compilation of Wal-Mart news from across the country and beyond.
This week’s issue begins with reports of price gouging on the part of Wal-Mart. What’s truly abhorrent about these reports, however, is that they are being made by the very people affected most by the recent cavalcade of hurricanes to batter the Gulf coast. The Arkansas News Bureau and The Consumerist have more on these stories.
You’ll also find major news on the legal front. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed its second lawsuit against Wal-Mart in less than three weeks. The first involves the Americans with Disabilities Act in Illinois; the second involves age discrimination against a 67-year-old optician in Missouri. In addition to the EEOC lawsuits, Wal-Mart will now have to face another class action wage/hour lawsuit. Salvas v. Wal-Mart was originally certified as a class action back in 2004. Since then the case has gone back and forth through the Massachusetts court system, eventually being decertified and winding up in front of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on appeal. Well, the SJC released its opinion this week, ruling that the decertification was improper and that the lawsuit should be reinstated as a class action. A trial is possible, which could cost Wal-Mart hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid wages and damages. The Boston Globe and Boston Herald have the story.
Also check out the Product and Food Safety Report, where you’ll find stories on BPA (and a class action lawsuit regarding the chemical that includes Wal-Mart), dangerous soccer goals and baby cribs sold at Wal-Mart, and a pet food recall involving Purina products sold at the retailer.
And finally, check out our “Stateside” and “Wal-Mart International” sections to find out what’s going on with Wal-Mart around the country and across the globe.
Wal-Mart Watch Weekly Update for Elected Officials [September 24, 2008]
Posted by Corey Himrod on Wednesday, September 24 | 2 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart Watch Weekly Update For Elected Officials 9/16/2008
Check out this week’s issue of the Wal-Mart Watch Weekly Update for Elected Officials – a compilation of Wal-Mart news from across the country and beyond.
This week’s issue begins with reports from two states that Wal-Mart is undercutting high school activity and athletic fundraising by selling merchandise bearing the logos of local high schools. In both cases, the schools in question were never contacted by Wal-Mart about whether sales of the items would hurt the school’s efforts to raise funds.
In addition, you’ll find Time and The New York Times delving into the topic of Wal-Mart moms, and the role they’ll play in the November election. Plus, check out our section on Wal-Mart and the environment to find out more about the unethical behavior of Wal-Mart’s sustainable mining supplier, and from California read about how the retail giant fought (unsuccessfully) a port-truck plan that would require tougher environmental and security standards.
And finally, check out our “Stateside” and “Wal-Mart International” sections to find out what’s going on with Wal-Mart around the country and across the globe.
Wal-Mart Watch Weekly Update for Elected Officials
Posted by Corey Himrod on Tuesday, September 16 | 5 comments | Permalink
Relief for diabetic customers: Check. Diabetic employees? Not so much.
In a press release distributed this morning, Wal-Mart has announced that it is “once again driving unnecessary health care costs out of the system and passing the savings along to its customers through the pharmacy aisles.”
How is it doing it this time? By offering exclusive-to-Wal-Mart diabetes management products for $9 each at all Wal-Mart pharmacies nationwide. That, might I say, is quite excellent actually. I myself don’t have - and don’t have immediate family members who have - diabetes. But I’ve known and worked with people who do, and one thing an individual with diabetes shouldn’t have to worry about is the cost of testing and treatment supplies, which I could imagine can get quite expensive.
No, the problem with this story isn’t in what Wal-Mart is announcing. It is, instead, the way in which Wal-Mart has treated its own employees who have diabetes. Helping the masses might seem a little nicer if the company treated its own diabetic employees with slightly more compassion and understanding.
The gold standard of what I’m talking about is the story of Stephen Orr. Orr worked as a pharmacist at a Nebraska Wal-Mart. Orr has Type 1 diabetes, a condition in which the body does not produce insulin, a hormone needed to convert sugar, starches and other food into the energy needed for daily life. As a result, Orr must administer insulin to himself several times each day. For a while, management allowed him to, you know, do the things he needed to do over the course of a day to stay alive...like actually take a lunch break. Eventually though, business and customer traffic forced Wal-Mart - instead of hiring an additional pharmacist - to inform Orr he could no longer take a break to eat and rest. In fact, he was told to eat behind the pharmacy counter if and when store traffic slowed. If you can’t guess what happened, I’ll tell you - Orr’s blood glucose levels dropped severely on multiple occasions, causing him to experience symptoms of hypoglycemia, which can include dizziness or lightheadedness, confusion, difficulty speaking, and feeling anxious or weak. Wal-Mart still refused to accommodate him, and his manager eventually fired him, explicitly telling him it was because of his diabetes.
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Posted by Corey Himrod on Tuesday, September 16 | 0 comments | Permalink
UTAH SITE FIGHT: VOTE TONIGHT IN SUGAR HOUSE
Could plan to build Roanoke County Wal-Mart Supercenter prevail? [WDBJ-TV (Va.)]
Four months after Wal-Mart said it was abandoning plans for a new supercenter in the Clearbrook area of Roanoke County, the project may be moving forward again.
The project had the county’s approval back in May, and it had survived a challenge in court, but the deal apparently broke down in negotiations with some of the property owners. Now, residents of the neighborhood wonder whether or not the project is back on.
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Posted by Luke West on Wednesday, September 10 | 0 comments | Permalink
Clearbrook, VA. Wal-Mart Project Rises From the Dead
A Wal-Mart proposal in Virginia has risen like a vampire from the dead to terrorize an entire neighborhood. On February 3, 2007, Sprawl-Busters reported that a Tennessee developer was trying to build 204,000 s.f. Wal-Mart superstore across from the Clearbrook, Virginia Elementary School. But a group called Citizens for Smart Growth challenged HolRob Investments, the developer, and the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors.
HolRob tried to have the citizen’s lawsuit dismissed, but the developer’s motion was denied by the court, and the project went to a Circuit Court judge. The CSG group charged that the project’s review process was collapsed into just six weeks, ending in a 4-1 vote by the County Board in October, 2006. The citizen’s group wanted the case remanded back to the County’s Planning Commission, with a full traffic study to be done this time. The group retained Richmond, Virginia attorney Phillip Strother, who also served as the victorious lead counsel for citizens in Front Royal, Virginia before the Virginia Supreme Court.
The residents pointed out that the land Wal-Mart wanted was intended for a “village concept” in the county’s Overlay District guidelines. The Clearbrook Overlay District Concept calls for small commercial and retail development similar in feeling to a village street-—the antithesis of a Wal-Mart supercenter.
“The first time the overlay is questioned the county rolls [over],” one CSG member complained. “Some folks have said we’re doing away with the overlay,” the County’s Administrator said “But they’re complying with the overlay” by seeking the special-use permit it allows,” he added. “All of us hoped for more of a type of development” in style and size--- things like doctor’s offices, sit-down restaurants and small office buildings.
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Posted by Al Norman on Wednesday, September 10 | 0 comments | Permalink
VIRGINIA SITE FIGHT: TROUBLE BREWING IN ROANOKE
Roanoke Co. may yet get Wal-Mart [The Roanoke Times (Va.)]
Call it the Wal-Mart that won’t die.
A proposed supercenter for South Roanoke County that had been declared economically unfeasible by the retail giant in May now appears to be back on the drawing board.
But the company apparently is facing a short deadline—just under seven weeks—to reacquire contracts or options on the dozen parcels it needs for the new store.
Oct. 24 will be the county’s deadline for demonstrating that the company intends to “utilize the granted special-use permit in a period of time deemed reasonable” for the development.
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Posted by Luke West on Tuesday, September 09 | 0 comments | Permalink
MARYLAND SITE FIGHT: WAL-MART SLOWLY MOVES FORWARD IN BERLIN
Super Wal-Mart paperwork moves slowly [The Daily Times (Md.)]
After being talked about for more than three years, the Super Wal-Mart proposed in Berlin finally appears to be moving forward.
According to project attorney Mark S. Cropper, the Super Wal-Mart proposed to take the place of the current Berlin-Ocean City Wal-Mart is working its way through Worcester County’s site plan process.
“We’ve recently met with the technical review committee and received the technical comments regarding the site plan,” Cropper said. “The consultants are addressing those comments now.”
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Posted by Luke West on Tuesday, September 09 | 0 comments | Permalink
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