WAL-MART PUSHES AHEAD IN ST. LOUIS, MO
With gas and food prices soaring, Jan Stalley says she’s thrilled that the Wal-Mart on Telegraph Road is being expanded to a supercenter, adding a full-service grocery.
“I can’t wait,” said Stalley, who lives with her husband and two sons in south St. Louis County. “Wal-Mart is going to make Schnucks and Dierbergs run for their money.”
Those sharing Stalley’s sentiments will be glad to hear that the Bentonville, Ark., retailer is proceeding with expansion plans in the St. Louis area despite cutbacks in other parts of the country. The company plans to open eight of its supercenters through next year, the first being in Fenton next month.
“We have slowed down growth, but it hasn’t affected the St. Louis market,” said Carol Johnston, vice president and regional general manager. “It’s a fantastic market for us. … The time is so right.”
Consumers are finding their budgets increasingly squeezed by rising prices for food and fuel. Reports from the Labor Department on Thursday showed consumer prices have risen 5.6 percent during the last 12 months, and weekly earnings, when adjusted for inflation, are down 3.1 percent.
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Posted by Joel Nezianya on Friday, August 15 | 1 comments | Permalink
Site Fight of the Week: Granite City, IL.
The town of Granite City, Illinois, takes great pride in putting people first. Now its residents are putting people before corporations by rallying against a proposed measure that would allow Wal-Mart to expand.
Recently, the Granite City Planning and Zoning Commission granted Wal-Mart’s request to rezone agricultural land for commercial use. Now, the world’s largest corporation will take the measure to the City Council on August 19th. If it passes, Wal-Mart will be allowed to expand its current store on to agricultural land. To add insult to injury, Granite City taxpayers will help subsidize Wal-Mart’s expansion because the project is located in a Tax Increment Financing District.
Wal-Mart hurts communities in many different ways. One Collinsville, Illinois resident wrote to the Press-Record, saying:
“We had a nice, quiet little store before the supercenter took over. Many, many life-time associates—I am talking 20 plus years—have been cut to part time… We are tired and our spirit is broken, don’t do this to your town. Glen Carbon said no, you can too!”
Granite City’s local businesses will feel the brunt of the expansion, as Wal-Mart edges in on their market share. Citizen action group Granite City First explains Wal-Mart would not provide increased sales tax revenue for the town, but rather would simply transfer existing sales away from local businesses. This is hardly compatible with Granite City’s plan for a revitalized downtown.
Granite City does not need unchecked growth; it needs sustainable development. Help make sure Wal-Mart isn’t allowed to super-size its store in Granite City. Use our simple email tool to write a letter to Mayor Hagnauer and the Granite City Council and tell them to stand up to Wal-Mart:
http://action.walmartwatch.com/granitecity
Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton once wrote, “If a community does not want us there, we will go somewhere else.” On May 8, Granite City First delivered 3,000 letters to City Hall from community members protesting Wal-Mart’s expansion. There can be no clearer sign of a community’s opposition. In communities across America, residents have stood up to Wal-Mart and won. Now it’s Granite City’s turn.
Posted by Media Team on Wednesday, August 13 | 1 comments | Permalink
Legal Blog: Race Discrimination Still Black and White in Michigan
Wal-Mart has, unsurprisingly, been the target of more lawsuits than one can count over the years. The company’s treatment of it workers and “save money at all costs” mentality has resulted in a flood of legal challenges ranging from single plaintiff suits to multi-million dollar class actions. Dukes v. Wal-Mart is of course one large example (the largest class action in American history, actually), as are the myriad wage/hour/overtime class actions the company faces.
Just as important as those large class actions, however, are the countless suits filed by individual plaintiffs – the tiny David trying to win justice over Wal-Mart’s Goliath. We at Wal-Mart Watch will be focusing on one of these stories each week, highlighting those cases that warrant further attention because of the light each sheds in its own way on how Wal-Mart does business.
In February of 2007, Daniel Bajor was employed at a Wal-Mart in Warren, MI – about an hour away from Lake Erie. According to Bajor, who is white, he was hired as a member of the custodial staff, working the midnight shift on a team that was 55% Black. During his eight month tenure, Bajor witnessed fellow employees steal from the store on several occasions and even work while intoxicated, only to receive verbal reprimand for their actions. These slaps on the wrist were a far cry from the company’s policy of mandatory termination in both instances.
But on October 5, 2007 when Bajor took three unauthorized breaks (to cope with a lingering illness) that totaled one hour off the clock, he was unable to benefit from such lax enforcement of company policy. Instead, he found himself severely sanctioned – first suspended and later fired, both of which occurred over the course of four days. Having seen several Black co-workers get away with far more egregious violations of company policy in a store where Blacks comprised nearly two-thirds of the management team, Bajor decided to file a Title VII complaint for a wrongful discharge.
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Posted by Joel Nezianya on Wednesday, August 13 | 13 comments | Permalink
IOWA CITY COUNCIL HEARS BOTH SIDES, MAKES NO DECISION ON WAL-MART
Council defers Wal-Mart plan [Iowa City Press Citizen (Iowa)]
The Iowa City Council voted at Monday night’s meeting to extend the public hearing on plans for a new Wal-Mart Supercenter to an Aug. 26 meeting.
Several people spoke in favor of and against Wal-Mart’s plans to build an 189,000-square-foot supercenter that will replace their existing building at 1001 Highway 1 W.
In order for Wal-Mart to build at the site, the council must amend a conditional zoning agreement signed when the property was first developed. The agreement states that the property should contain several smaller stores arranged similar to a shopping center.
Wally Taylor, attorney for Iowa City Stop Wal-Mart, said that the plans fail to meet the “essence” of that zoning agreement.
Taylor said the group would consider legal action if the plans are approved.
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Posted by Joel Nezianya on Tuesday, August 12 | 0 comments | Permalink
Iowa City, IA. City Officials Put Off Wal-Mart decision Until August 26th
On June 21, 2008, Sprawl-Busters reported that local residents in Iowa City, Iowa were being saturated with flood waters, and saturated with big box stores. Iowa City already has a 110,000 s.f. Wal-Mart discount store on Highway 1 West. The city also has a 122,000 s.f. Target at the Coral Ridge Mall, and a 128,000 s.f. Dillards. They have a 97,000 s.f. Kmart as well. There’s also a Wal-Mart supercenter less than 5 miles away in Coralville, Iowa. There are three Wal-Mart supercenters within 25 miles of Iowa City---so the city’s 63,000 population has easy access to cheap Chinese imports within a short drive. The Iowa City Planning and Zoning Commission in late June delayed for a second time the processing of a Wal-Mart supercenter proposal. According to the Iowa City Press-Citizen, a number of Commissioners just don’t like the looks of the proposed 189,000 s.f. Wal-Mart. “It seems like you didn’t look at the code when you planned this—the big-box standards,” the commission’s chairwoman told the retailer. “We’re not even close to meeting the minimum on these things.”
The Commission wants Wal-Mart to put more green space into their plan, and said the proposal itself is not compatible with the city’s comprehensive plan, which expects an integrated, pedestrian-friendly community. In response to the criticism, one of Wal-Mart’s engineers said, “We will definitely take a look at it.” To approve this plan, the Commission will have to change an agreement that already exists regarding the development of this site. The original agreement says that the site is supposed to have “individual, unrelated buildings.” This week, the Press-Citizen explains that the city council must now vote to amend a conditional zoning agreement signed on the property when it was first developed. That agreement says that the parcel is supposed to be configured with several smaller stores arranged like a shopping center---not one huge box store.
The citizen’s group, Iowa City Stop Wal-Mart, has hired attorney Wally Taylor, who told the city council that the project does not meet the ‘essence’ of that existing zoning agreement. He also indicated that if the city council chooses to ignore that agreement---which all the neighbors have relied upon in making their investment decisions---the citizens would consider appealing to court. Wal-Mart has been busy getting shoppers in their Iowa City store to sign petitions in favor of the supercenter. The retailer says it has gathered 1,600 signatures. At their meeting this week, the Iowa City Council took no action, voting instead to continue the public hearing until August 26th, giving both sides several weeks to lobby the council members.
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Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, August 12 | 0 comments | Permalink
Granite City, IL. Council To Vote On Wal-Mart Superstore Expansion Next Week
On May 17, 2008, Sprawl-Busters reported that in the early 1990s, the Mayor of Granite City, Illinois made headlines when he took the names of 2,000 local residents who wanted a Wal-Mart store in Granite City down to the corporation’s headquarters in Arkansas. The Mayor ended up getting his store---but a little more than a decade later, the current Mayor of the city received a stack of letters too—but this time from residents who don’t want the existing Wal-Mart expanded into a superstore.
In addition to their discount store on W. Pontoon Road in the Granite City, the retailer also has a supercenter 8 miles away in Colllinsville, Illinois, and has a total of 14 stores within a 20 mile drive of the city. The proposal to expand the current Wal-Mart into a supercenter in Granite City has pushed some residents over the wall. In early May, the Granite City Press-Record carried a photo of anti-Wal-Mart activists, organized into a group called Granite City First, submitting a long scroll of names to the city clerk. The newspaper reported that the group delivered 3,056 letters of opposition to the supercenter to Mayor Hagnauer’s office. “Wal-Marts are bad for any community,” one of the opponents told the Press-Record.
“When unions try to unionize them, they shut them down. They are unfair to workers. They don’t pay enough, and they take away from smaller businesses.” Granite City First said that Wal-Mart’s revenue would simply be transferred from local businesses, lowering Wal-Mart’s assertion that it would boost sales tax in the city. The group stated that the supercenter was incompatible with the city’s plan to revitalize its downtown.
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Posted by Al Norman on Monday, August 11 | 0 comments | Permalink
VICTORY IN PORTSMOUTH, MI
Wal-Mart abandons Portsmouth Township store plans [Bay City Times (Mich.)]
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced today that it is dropping plans to build a store on M-15 in Portsmouth Township. The decision was met with disappointment by some and celebration by others.
“We are no longer exercising the option to buy the property on M-15 and build a Wal-Mart there,” said Nick Infante, senior manager of public affairs for the retailer.
Infante said Wal-Mart’s decision is based on research of the area’s customer base and a nationwide strategy to scale back building plans. Longstanding opposition to the project by some residents in rural Portsmouth was not a factor in the company’s action, he said.
But the news was welcomed by people such as Tim Kaczmarek, a Portsmouth resident who waged a more than four-year fight to stop the project.
“I don’t feel I won. I feel the people of Portsmouth Township and all the small-business owners won,” Kaczmarek said. “I feel very good about this.”
Another Wal-Mart opponent, Dr. Mark Stewart, expressed similar sentiments.
“This is great news. It means we’re going to save farmland and it means we’re not going to lose local jobs and not going to duplicate services with another Wal-Mart down the road,” Stewart said today.
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Posted by Tony Calero on Monday, August 11 | 0 comments | Permalink
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 again on Wal-Mart’s efforts to warn its managers across the country of a Democratic win in this November’s elections. The company has been holding mandatory meetings for its store managers and department supervisors (possibly in violation of state and federal election law), who are being warned that if Democrats win in November it could lead to potential store unionization. And speaking of unionization, read how Wal-Mart’s attempt to bust up unions in Canada has made it all the way to Canada’s Supreme Court, while on the other side of the globe all Wal-Mart stores in China will have labor contracts by September 2008.
In addition to the aforementioned stories, you’ll also find Bloomberg and the International Herald Tribune questioning whether a slowdown in Wal-mart sales could be a negative sign for the U.S. economy in the future. And on the environmental side of things, you’ll find the Christian Science Monitor among others discussing Wal-Mart’s opposition to carbon-offset guidelines, while the New York Times and Newsweek explain why concerns over keeping costs at low levels has lead Wal-Mart to drastically alter how its products are made and transported.
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, August 11 | 24 comments | Permalink
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