Wal-Mart Starts Using Battle-Mart Tactics
The “New England Customer Action Network” claims to be for the people...that is, for the people who are for Wal-Mart. The astroturf organization (run by Wal-Mart) is using grassroots organizing techniques to further the company’s cause in what has proven to be one of the most contentious areas of the country for the retailer. The company also created the “California Customer Action Network,” targeting activists in California where Wal-Mart faces site fights in several areas. The whole project reveals the fact that site fights have become a major issue for the retailer in its efforts to expand. Not only are more citizens working to fight the retailer, more and more often they’re winning. Visit our Battle-Mart blog to read more about fighting Wal-Mart, or our State and Local page to see what’s happening in your part of the country.
A human face on a big-box store [Boston Globe]
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is turning to customers for help in expanding its business in New England.
Over the last month, the retail giant has set up tables at many of its stores and invited customers to sign up for a New England Customer Action Network. The group is a sort of Wal-Mart defense league that can be tapped if the retailer faces local opposition to its expansion plans.
“If government officials try to limit your shopping choices, or prevent Wal-Mart from opening new stores or improving existing stores, Customer Action Network members can help by standing up for their rights,” said one flier. Company officials say more than 26,000 customers have signed up so far, 7,500 of them in Massachusetts.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, November 05 | 4 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart Buys its Way into the Hearts of Politicians in Key States
Learn more about Wal-Mart’s political influence and other methods the company employs to roll back its taxes.
Wal-Mart Courts State Politicos [BusinessWeek]
Wal-Mart Stores has been sharply increasing political contributions in states where it is trying to cut its corporate tax bill. That’s according to data just released from the National Institute on Money in State Politics, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group based in Helena, Mont.
Over the past four election cycles, the retailing giant has ratcheted up contributions in nine states that are key to its operations: Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Its political contributions in those states rose from $139,822 in the 2000 election cycle to $879,441 in the 2006 election cycle, according to the institute. Wal-Mart’s efforts to reduce its corporate taxes in those states have come to light as a result of a lawsuit that the attorney general of North Carolina filed against the company to challenge its tax-cutting strategies.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Friday, October 26 | 27 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart’s ‘Sustainability 360’ not so green after all
This article is only available in the print edition.
Wal-Mart’s ‘Sustainability 360’ not so green after all [Bozeman Daily Chronicle (Mont.)]
Earlier this year, H. Lee Scott, CEO and President of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., outlined the mega-retailer’s ambitious environmental initiative, “Sustainability 360.” The bottom line is that Wal-Mart’s “Sustainability 360” initiative is all about the most important bottom line: decreasing costs to increase profits.
Back of the napkin calculations reveal that going green would save the world’s largest retailer more than $6 billion annually. Wal-Mart’s sudden and grandiose green proposals have put the $312 billion
Corporation under the environmental microscope revealing the company’s true colors.Wal-Mart intends to sell more than 100 million compact fluorescent light bulbs in 2007. If successful, consumers would save nearly $3 billion in electrical costs, conserve 50 billion tons of coal, and keep
over 1 billion traditional light bulbs out of landfills. Although the sale of CF bulbs ultimately benefits not only the environment but also the consumer, Wal-Mart has been very slow to acknowledge that CF bulbs are a source of the neurotoxin mercury. CF bulbs can be safely recycled, but Wal-Mart has yet to institute a comprehensive recycling program in order to prevent improper disposal of the CF bulbs.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, October 24 | 0 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart: America’s Tax Deadbeat
This article originally appeared on the Huffington Post.
A report released this week by the non-profit group Good Jobs First, concludes that Wal-Mart methodically works to lower its taxes by challenging the assessed value of its stores and distribution centers. Just as the company has become legendary for shaking down its vendors---so the retailer shakes down cities and towns for tax rebates.
The nonpartisan research center in Washington, D.C. documented in an earlier study how Wal-Mart has benefited from billions of dollars in public subsidies to build its stores and site infrastructure. Their new analysis, Rolling Back Property Tax Payments, charges that although the financial take is not as large as its public welfare subsidies---Wal-Mart “drains vitally needed funds from communities by regularly challenging the valuation put on its properties by public officials.” According to Philip Mattera, research director of Good Jobs First, “When the company succeeds in one of these challenges, it diminishes the funds available to pay for education, police and fire protection, and other essential services provided by local governments.”
Good Jobs First reviewed a national sample of Wal-Mart stores and all of its distribution centers open as of the beginning of 2005. Wal-Mart has filed assessment challenges at more than one-third of its facilities around the country. At many facilities there have been appeals in multiple years. Overall, Good Jobs First estimates that Wal-Mart filed more than 2,100 property tax challenges nationwide. “These systematic property tax challenges are part of a larger pattern of state and local tax avoidance by Wal-Mart,” Mattera explained.
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Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, October 16 | 23 comments | Permalink
Lawrence, KS- No Controversy, but Plans Delayed Anyway
Developers delay Wal-Mart plans for procedural issues
Plans for a new Wal-Mart at Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive are delayed again, but this time there’s no controversy surrounding the project.
Instead, developers of the site just need more time to finalize the necessary documents that must be approved by the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission before construction can begin on the new store.
“There’s nothing unusual going on here,” said Bill Newsome, who is an owner of the site at the northwest corner of Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive.
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Posted by Andrew Yonki on Tuesday, October 16 | 0 comments | Permalink
Polson, MT-Opponents Disagree with Ruling, Could Appeal
Group might appeal Polson Wal-Mart decision .
POLSON - Opponents of a Wal-Mart Supercenter here are considering appealing a judge’s ruling that green-lights construction of the store.
District Judge Nels Swandal of Livingston ruled Friday that the Polson City Council crossed its t’s and dotted its i’s before approving a zoning change that would allow the new store to be built.
“There is no basis for this Court to intrude on the Council’s decision,” Swandal wrote in his explanatory comment. “The Court’s function is not to independently determine if the Council made the correct decision on the annexation and rezoning application. The Court must exercise restraint and limit its determination to whether the Council’s decision, which is presumed valid, was random, arbitrary, capricious or an abuse of discretion.”
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Posted by Andrew Yonki on Tuesday, October 16 | 0 comments | Permalink
Just How Big is Wal-Mart?
Bigger than the island of Manhattan.
From Good Magazine.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, October 10 | 21 comments | Permalink
Rolling Back Property Tax Payments
A new report from Good Jobs First exposes one of Wal-Mart’s most deceptive cost-cutting policies: consistent attempts to pay low taxes on its properties. By denying local communities their rightful dues, Wal-Mart sucks money away from public schools, local services and civic development. From GJF’s release:
The first-ever investigation of Wal-Mart’s local property tax records finds that the retail giant systematically seeks to minimize its payment of taxes that support public schools and other vital government services. That is the key finding of Rolling Back Property Tax Payments, a report released today by Good Jobs First, a non-profit, nonpartisan research center in Washington, DC. The full text is at http://www.goodjobsfirst.org.
“Wal-Mart, a company with $350 billion in annual revenues and $11 billion in profits, drains vitally needed funds from communities by regularly challenging the valuation put on its properties by public officials,” said Philip Mattera, research director of Good Jobs First and principal author of the report. “When the company succeeds in one of these challenges, it diminishes the funds available to pay for education, police and fire protection, and other essential services provided by local governments.”
Based on a large national sample of Wal-Mart stores and a review of all of its distribution centers open as of the beginning of 2005, Good Jobs First concludes that Wal-Mart has filed assessment challenges at more than one-third of its facilities around the country. At many facilities there have been appeals in multiple years. Overall, Good Jobs First estimates that the company has filed more than 2,100 property tax challenges nationwide.
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Posted by Media Team on Wednesday, October 10 | 6 comments | Permalink
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