Wal-Mart Watch Report: “Work at Your Own Risk”
Wal-Mart Watch today released a new report on the retail giant’s workers’ inadequate workers’ compensation program that exposes serious risks to both its workers and the public. The report, titled “Work At Your Own Risk,” highlights ways Wal-Mart puts the health of their employees as risk while shifting the burden of caring for its on-the-job injured employees onto the taxpayer. It explains how Wal-Mart, the United States’ largest private employer, has a track record of difficulty in complying with state workers’ compensation laws, while putting its employees’ health in jeopardy. The study examines seven state case studies that have ramifications for the company’s operations in all 50 states. Key examples include:
- In 2001, the State of Washington Department of Labor and Industries made the unprecedented move of threatening to seize control of Wal-Mart’s entire injured worker program, after the company showed itself “unwilling or unable to manage its workers’ compensation program as required by law.” A decertification case ultimately was settled, but Wal-Mart is prohibited from self-administering its workers’ compensation program claims in Washington until 2010.
- In 2004, Maine amended the state’s Workers’ Compensation Act and began tracking workers’ compensation payments and claims challenges, finding Wal-Mart’s challenging of workers’ compensation claims was “off the charts.”
- Class action was filed in 2007 in Oklahoma for retaliation against employees who filed workers’ compensation claims. The charges include cutting hours, transferring employees to less desirable positions, and termination. There are over 30,000 people employed by Wal-Mart in Oklahoma.
- Individual stories reflect a policy, whether formal or informal, of fighting claims regardless of validity, and delaying payments as long as possible. The result is an increase in the number of employees forced onto federal and state programs to pay for treatment and subsidize lost wages, effectively shifting the cost of compensation workers away from Wal-Mart and onto taxpayers.
Click here to read the full report.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, June 28 | 19 comments | Permalink
OHIO SITE FIGHT: DEVELOPMENT GROWS
Development grows surrounding Wal-Mart in Brimfield [Akron Beacon Journal]
Don’t be surprised to spot a thin layer of sawdust hovering over Brimfield Township.
Cascades of Brimfield—a 113-acre development that promises to turn the rural Portage County burb into a residential and retail mecca—is unfolding on schedule.
Construction is well under way on a new Lowe’s home improvement center, which is expected to open in time for the Christmas season.
It will join the nine-month-old Wal-Mart Supercenter, Applebee’s and Home Savings Bank of Youngstown, the vanguard of a retail and commercial zone that will eventually swell to 600,000 square feet. The developer is 3D Real Estate Partners Inc. from Independence.
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Posted by Beth Gostanian on Wednesday, June 20 | 0 comments | Permalink
KANSAS SITE FIGHT: TAX BREAK APPROVED
Tax break approval given for revamped Wal-Mart location [Kansas City Star]
“This is a baby step to us getting energy back at U.S. 40 and (Missouri) 7.”
| Councilman Ron Fowler
A plan for redeveloping the old Wal-Mart site in Blue Springs and expansion of a nearby Hy-Vee grocery using tax-increment financing was approved Monday.
Officials said it will boost commerce at the intersection of U.S. 40 and Missouri 7.
The City Council held public hearings on a $4.2 million TIF proposed by R.H. Johnson Company, which owns the two sites totaling 25 acres. The Wal-Mart is near the southeast corner of U.S. 40 and Missouri 7 and the Hy-Vee is near the northeast. A former Kmart and other buildings east of Missouri 7 are not part of the TIF.
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Posted by Beth Gostanian on Wednesday, June 20 | 0 comments | Permalink
KANSAS SITE FIGHT: LOOKING AT NEW PLANS
Planning commissioners to look at new Wal-Mart [Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World]
Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commissioners will have a preliminary discussion about plans for a new Wal-Mart in northwestern Lawrence at their June 25 meeting.
Planning commissioners will consider whether new plans submitted by the retailer for the northwestern corner of Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive are substantially different from previous plans that were rejected by the City Commission. Planning rules dictate that a developer can not resubmit plans that have been rejected unless a substantial amount of time has passed.
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Posted by Beth Gostanian on Monday, June 18 | 0 comments | Permalink
Community Impact Assessment Legislation Nears Passage in Maine
Last week, the Maine House of Representatives passed LD 1810, the Informed Growth Act, by a vote of 82-49. This legislation would highlight the true costs of big box development and provide communities with the tools and information to create and sustain vibrant, just, and sustainable local economies.
The legislation has been championed by the Maine Fair Trade Campaign, with the goal of providing cities and towns better tools with which to evaluate the full range of benefits and costs associated with large-scale retail development. It would allow retail development decisions to be made using objective information on how the development would impact things such as existing small business, employment and the cost of public services.
The Maine Senate is expected to vote on the legislation this week.
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Posted by Corey Himrod on Monday, June 11 | 10 comments | Permalink
KANSAS SITE FIGHT: EXPLAINING DENIAL
City must explain Wal-Mart zoning denial [Wichita Eagle]
The Wichita City Council didn’t clearly explain why it denied a zoning change that would have made way for a Wal-Mart Supercenter, and now it must formally explain its reasoning, a district court judge ordered Wednesday.
After council members clarify their thinking in an open meeting, the case will go back to court, where District Judge Joe Kisner will decide whether the Jan. 9 zoning denial should stand.
The dispute is over whether the council’s decision was based on conflicts with zoning guidelines or driven by backlash against Wal-Mart.
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Posted by Beth Gostanian on Thursday, June 07 | 0 comments | Permalink
Oklahoma & Texas. Wal-Mart Supercenters Create More Traffic Than Projected
If there is a Bible in the world of traffic engineers, it is the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Manual, which is currently in its Seventh edition. This manual is cited in most zoning cases involving big box stores, and developers play games when using this manual, knowing that most Planning & Zoning Board members are not familiar with its contents or methodology. Because traffic is a major issue in most site fights, community groups often have to hire their own traffic engineers to do a “peer review” of whatever numbers the developer produces. One frequent game developers play is to use an inappropriate “land use code” to describe a Wal-Mart superstore. A developer may call their project a “shopping center,” which is land use code 820, or they may use code 813, which is a free-standing discount superstore, land use code 813. But this latter code is based on a supercenter averaging 161,000 s.f. Both the shopping center code and the 813 supercenter code substantially underestimate the actual car trips that the largest superstores now being proposed will produce. To verify this concern, researchers from the ITE studied 5 superstores in Oklahoma and Texas, with an average footprint of 213,210 s.f. The ITE engineers placed staff at the driveways of each facility, and studied traffic counts from 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm, which was considered the peak weekday hour for these stores. These counts were used to establish the car trips per 1,000 s.f. during the evening peak hour.
These traffic counts were actually done in July and October of 2003, but the results were not published in the ITE Journal newsletter until August of 2006. The ITE staff divided the total amount of car trips in and out of the driveways, and then divided them by the size of the store, expressed in 1,000 square feet. For example, one store had 756 car trips in the driveway, and 708 trips out, for a total of 1,467 car trips in an hour. That total was divided by 204, since the store was 204,000 s.f. The result was 7.l9 trips per thousand square feet. That means the store experienced approximately 733 cars going in and out in one evening hour. The average for all 5 superstores studied was 5.5 peak evening car trips per 1,000 s.f. of store. A typical 213,210 s.f. store studied would generate 1,172 car trips in one hour’s time, or roughly 586 cars. Researchers then compared that to the land use code 813 for a free standing discount store averaging 161,000 s.f., which was 3.87 trips per 1,000 s.f. of store. Using the old formula for a ‘smaller’ superstore when analyzing a store larger than 200,000 s.f. would dramatically understate the true traffic count. “Today’s free-standing discount superstore with sizes greater than 200,000 s.f. have significantly higher trip generation rates that the stores used to supply data for the ITE land use code 813,” the ITE Journal concludes. This study suggests that traffic engineers should use the new, higher trip rates produced in this report when presenting data for superstores like Wal-Marts in excess of 200,000 s.f. The researchers also suggested that the ITE should add a new land use code for “large free-standing discount superstores greater than 200,000 s.f.” The rate for a ‘shopping center’ is definitely not correct for these new, larger supercenters. A superstore at 200,000 s.f. measured by the “old” land use code 813 for a discount superstore, would be 774 car trips in the evening peak hour, whereas using the new land use code for superstores over 200,000 s.f. would yield 1,100 car trips in the peak evening hour---or 42% higher traffic volume.
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Posted by Al Norman on Monday, May 21 | 0 comments | Permalink
Kansas Site Fight: Commissioner Not Sorry For Wal-Mart E-mails
Commissioner Not Sorry For Wal-Mart E-mails [Lawrence Journal-World]
Outgoing Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commissioner David Burress is not apologizing for organizing opposition to a proposed Wal-Mart store, even though some elected leaders said his actions damaged the Planning Commission’s reputation.
Burress last week sent out an e-mail providing tips and strategy on how neighborhood leaders could lobby city commissioners to oppose plans for a Wal-Mart store at Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive. The e-mail — which was distributed to the Lawrence Association of Neighborhood’s e-mail list — was sent just before the City Commission’s discussion of Wal-Mart on May 1.
Burress specifically urged people to oppose the project. Mayor Sue Hack said she was disappointed that a planning commissioner would actively organize opposition to a land-use item that ultimately would go before the Planning Commission for a hearing.
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Posted by Corey Himrod on Saturday, May 12 | 0 comments | Permalink
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