Wal-Mart Watch Weekly Update For Elected Officials
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 focuses on the shortfalls facing state budgets across the country, and how Wal-Mart’s schemes to avoid state taxes have exacerbated those budget problems. You’ll be able to download our most recent tax report entitled: One Company’s Plan to – Save Money, Live Better: Wal-Mart’s Tax Avoidance Schemes. In addition, you’ll be able to download our most recent edition of the Wal-Mart Watch: In Depth newsletter, entitled Wal-Mart’s Great Tax Dodge.
Beyond the tax reports, you’ll: learn how one likely New York mayoral candidate plans to keep Wal-Mart out of New York City; read more about Wal-Mart’s lawsuit involving Adidas plus the lawsuit concerning the company’s 401(k) plan; and, find out how Wal-Mart’s seaports in Los Angeles and Long Beach are in fact the largest polluters in Southern California.
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 Monday, July 28 | 3 comments | Permalink
States Face Massive Budget Shortfalls, Wal-Mart Still Avoids Taxes
An article this week in the Wall Street Journal reports that state legislatures across the country are facing painful budget shortfalls. Reporting from the National Conference of State Legislatures, the article’s author notes that budget deficits are growing as the economy weakens, and legislators don’t know what to do.
We’ve long documented Wal-Mart’s failure to pay its fair share of state taxes - whether it’s by elaborate schemes to avoid property taxes or by forcing a disproportionate number of its employees on to state-sponsored medical plans. Wal-Mart isn’t mentioned in this article from the WSJ, but it certainly deserves to be. The company makes promises to communities it wants to build in, and in exchange townships wind up footing the bill for store construction and forgiving Wal-Mart the tax money it owes. While this certainly isn’t a solution to nationwide community budget shortfalls, it’s one piece of the puzzle local officials need to bear in mind.
States Slammed by Tax Shortfalls [Wall Street Journal]
The stumbling U.S. economy is forcing states to slash spending and cut jobs in order to close a projected $40 billion shortfall in the current fiscal year.
That gap—identified Wednesday in a survey by the National Conference of State Legislatures—is more than triple the size of the previous year’s. It is the result of broad economic weakness at the state and local levels that could cause pain throughout this year and into 2010. Sales-tax collections, for example, have been hurt by the housing slump and high gasoline prices, which are prompting cutbacks in consumer spending. Personal income-tax collections have been hit by rising unemployment, while corporate income-tax collections have been eroded by falling profits.
“We expect it to get worse before it gets better,” said Corina Eckl, fiscal-program director of the National Conference of State Legislatures. The conference’s new report describes the shortfalls states face in their budgeting process for the current fiscal year, which began in July.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Friday, July 25 | 38 comments | Permalink
Give Workers A Break, Not Wal-Mart
Every day, communities across America choose to side with Wal-Mart, the world’s largest corporation, rather than local workers and small businesses. Wake Up Wal-Mart, along with community leaders across the country, are standing and demanding a change. From WakeUpWalMart.com:
Starting today, supporters of WakeUpWalMart.com and local elected officials will hold hundreds of press conferences throughout the country to launch a new campaign “Give Workers a break, not Wal-Mart.” The national effort will call on local officials and candidates at the local, state and federal level to side with workers, not Walmart.
As part of the launch of this new campaign, local WakeUpWalmart.com supporters, elected officials and candidates for office will gather outside Walmart stores to speak out about how the world’s largest retailer stands to profit from John McCain’s tax plan while working Americans continue to struggle in this tough economy. Supporters of WakeUpWalmart.com will hand out flyers to tell Wal-Mart customers how the retail giant stands to save billions under John McCain’s tax plan.
Elected officials, community leaders and candidates will also sign the “Give Workers a Break, Not Wal-Mart Pledge” which calls on John McCain, as well as local and state governments to demand that Wal-Mart end its irresponsible and immoral business practices.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, July 23 | 32 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart Has Its Lawyers Working Overtime
Well, at least someone is getting paid.
Another day, another wage/hour class action is awarded judgment against Wal-Mart. This time it comes to us from Minnesota, where Dakota County District Court Judge Robert King Jr. ruled Monday that Wal-Mart broke Minnesota labor law more than two thousand million times over a six-year period by forcing employees to work without breaks and without full pay.
That is, in fact, not a typo. Two million times.
Judge King ruled that, in addition to penalties, Wal-Mart owes workers at least $6 million in back wages. In addition to penalties, you say? Ahhhhh, penalties...this is where it could get expensive for Wal-Mart, a company which, as the Northwest Arkansas Morning News reported last week, is already facing a whole plethora of legal woes. The violations at issue here carry a penalty of up to $1,000 each, which could be pretty pricey when you have two million of the darn things. According to Bloomberg’s math, which I am hardly in a position to disagree with, that puts the ceiling up around $2 billion. It probably won’t get that high, but it will be high, nonetheless...all I’m saying is, don’t be surprised if the next time you’re in Wal-Mart, a brand new copy of Guitar Hero costs...ummmmm...a million dollars?
A jury is expected to decide the amount of punitive damages and penalties in October, according to the judge’s order. And that could drive the amount Wal- Mart pays to hundreds of millions of dollars, said lawyer Frank Azar, whose Colorado firm was involved in the case and began fighting Wal-Mart in the 1990s.
Wal-Mart Faces $2 Billion Labor Law Trial, Judge Says [Bloomberg]
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. broke Minnesota labor laws, a state judge ruled, handing the world’s largest retailer its third-straight defeat in a wage-class action trial and the possibility a jury may order it to pay $2 billion.
The company required hourly employees to work off-the-clock during training and denied full rest or meal breaks in violation of state wage and hour laws, Hastings, Minnesota, District Judge Robert King Jr. held today following a non-jury trial. King ruled Wal-Mart broke labor laws more than 2 million times and ordered the company to give employees $6.5 million in back-pay.
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Posted by Corey Himrod on Tuesday, July 01 | 48 comments | Permalink
Blair, NE. Wal-Mart Confident Of Approval For Superstore
Blair, Nebraska, a city with roughly 8,000 people, is located in eastern Nebraska on the Missouri River, about twenty minutes north of metropolitan Omaha. Blair sits at the cross roads of Highway 30, Highway 75 and Highway 91. If the good citizens of Blair want to buy cheap, Chinese imports, they have 5 Wal-Mart supercenters within 25 miles of where they live---four of them in Omaha. This allows residents of Blair to keep their small town lifestyle, and drive into Omaha for big town shopping. According to Blair Mayor James Realph, “Blair understands exactly who we are. We are grounded in traditional community value...With special focus on our enviable quality of life.”
Wal-Mart also envies the value of the market in Blair---even though this small morsel is surrounded by big box stores. According to the Midlands News Service, 65 acres of open fields across from the local Chrysler dealer has displayed a sign for at least a year promoting the arrival of one of the largest retail projects in this tiny city’s history: The Hayden Place development. On July 1st, the City Planning Commission will decide whether to increase the number of lots at Hayden Place from 8 to 10. The city explains that this is key to attracting a Wal-Mart supercenter to the site.
The city’s Assistant City Administrator has been playing coy with the press. “I have not been told that if this replat gets approved, then Wal-Mart will announce,” he told Midland News. “The city has not been working with any specific retail company, but the developer has.” But Wal-Mart was more forthcoming: a spokesman admitted that the giant retailer expects to announce plans to break ground within the next several weeks. Given the fact that the Planning Commission has not even met yet, the Wal-Mart spokesman either has a ‘done deal’ on this hands, or has been promised success by the Mayor.
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Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, July 01 | 0 comments | Permalink
WAL-MART CONTROVERSY IN POLSON, MT
Wal-Mart has signed contract to buy Napanoch Valley Mall [Times Herald-Record (N.Y.)]
Members of the Polson City Council have given retailer Walmart a two year extension plat approval for its planned Super Center in town.
While everything is in line to start construction, opponents are now working on a appeal process.
The current Walmart sits on the south end of Polson, but company representatives say the store is just not big enough, and they want more space to build on new land just above it.
“I think it’s awful I think it’s going to ruin Polson, it’s just too big in this small town and it’s gonna hurt all of the smaller businesses one way or another” says resident Kitty Starke.
“I don’t have an opinion either way, I was involved in the process, which was lengthy, but there’s a lot of people saying the like the idea, but there’s a lot saying it’s not such a good idea” commented Polson City Attorney James Raymond.
Exactly two years ago this month Walmart’s original proposal was approved to build a Super Center just off of U.S. Highway 93, overlooking the city, and now it appears, the way is clear for the bulldozers to get to work.
But controversy still surrounds the proposal, with opinions about how it will affect the local economy, the aesthetic value and even tourism.
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Posted by Joel Nezianya on Friday, June 27 | 0 comments | Permalink
Polson, MT. Citizen’s Lawsuit Delays Wal-Mart For Nearly Three Years
On October 10, 2005, Sprawl-Busters reported that residents in Polson, Montana had organized to prevent Wal-Mart from closing down its existing store, just to build a supercenter three times bigger on a nearby highway.
Wal-Mart wants to abandon a 50,000 s.f. store and build a 156,000 s.f. Super Center. The city already has two 45,000 s.f. grocery stores. Wal-Mart needed to have 28 acres rezoned from residential to commercial and to annex the property into the city. Polson is located on the Flathead Indian Reservation in a natural amphitheater at the south end of Flathead Lake. The city describes itself as being a “charming lakeside community” and the trading center for one of Montana’s most fertile farming areas.
Local residents told Sprawl-Busters that the city’s maximum potential draw of shoppers is 15,000 (Lake county only has 28,000 people). The group Lake County First has filed a lawsuit against the city to stop construction of the Wal-Mart supercenter. Lake County First is charging that the Polson City Council ignored its own growth policy and master development plan when it approved a zoning change that would allow construction of the super center next to U.S. Highway 93, near the Miracle of America Museum.
“Polson is a good place to live, and the things that make it so - the lake, the view, the compact business district, the small-town ambience - should be sustained,” reads the Polson Master Plan, according to the brief filed by Martin S. King of the Missoula law firm Worden Thane. Wal-Mart attorneys responded by saying the city council obeyed all legal requirements, including public notices and hearings, before reaching a decision, and noted the council rejected Wal-Mart’s original request for a zoning change - and did not approve a new one until the company presented more details about their plan for the proposed project. “Having once rejected a similar application, and having insisted on thorough scientific and professional analyses, it is apparent the council’s action was based on a solid record,” the Wal-Mart brief says. “The court ought not substitute its judgment for that of the council.”
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Posted by Al Norman on Wednesday, June 25 | 0 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart’s Legal Troubles Grab The Spotlight
The Northwest Arkansas Morning News released over the weekend a Kim Morrison piece on some of the largest legal cases currently pending against Wal-Mart, and most of the findings really shouldn’t come as a surprise at this point. There is, of course, the Dukes gender discrimination suit, and the multitude of wage and hour cases pending - the full extent of which you can also see here, on Wal-Mart’s SEC filing. The two largest wage/hour cases to date - Savaglio and Braun/Hummel - have resulted in combined judgments of over $350 million against Wal-Mart, although the cases are currently in the appeals stages, so Wal-Mart has yet to pay a cent.
What you might find really interesting in the story is the way a company the size of Wal-Mart plans ahead for the day it will have to make a possible million billion-dollar payout:
“It’s not like they wouldn’t be able to pay the light bill if they had a billion dollar settlement,” said Patricia Edwards, fund manager with San Francisco-based Wentworth, Hauser and Violic. “It wouldn’t be good, don’t get me wrong. But the low point in cash last year at quarter end was just short of $5 billion.”
Edwards said Wal-Mart reserves cash for potential future lawsuit payouts so there would be a reduced impact on shareholders in the event of such a case. With Wal-Mart’s ability to absorb some of the impact, a billion dollar payout may show up in earnings as a loss of 5 cents per share, Edwards said.
Well that is certainly good to know, that Wal-Mart - instead of making sure its female employees are treated equally, and ALL of its employees are provided adequate breaks and paid for the overtime they work - has socked plenty of money away underneath its $150 bargain mattresses to pay for its legal shortcomings.
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Posted by Corey Himrod on Monday, June 23 | 2 comments | Permalink
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