Wal-Mart’s Image Continues to Plague It
A report released today by market research firm Clark, Martire and Bartolomeo revealed some rather unsurprising news: consumers do not perceive Wal-Mart to be a gay friendly business. While this may be great news to some supposedly ”pro-family” associations, it’s bad news for Wal-Mart. According to the same report, gay and lesbian consumers are nearly 70% more likely to patronize a business they perceive to be gay friendly. For example, Apple, who recently surpassed Wal-Mart as the top music retailer, was perceived to be the most gay friendly of any retailer.
Unfortunately, these consumer perceptions are backed by Wal-Mart policy. The Human Rights Campaign’s 2008 Buying for Equality Guide gave Wal-Mart a ‘red rating’ which reflects that it offers no domestic partner benefits and its discrimination policy does not include gender identity and/or expression. Wal-Mart refuses to address the concerns of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community citing its policy to avoid “highly controversial issues”. The real controversy, however, is Wal-Mart’s stagnant social policies and an inability to adapt to the growing needs and demands of an increasingly diverse population.
Posted by Michael Mignano on Tuesday, May 13 | 2 comments | Permalink
Op-Ed: Wal-Mart is Anti-Woman
Laura Santina over at CounterPunch has more to say about Hillary Clinton’s involvement with Wal-Mart, and how the Senator’s time on Wal-Mart’s board has impacted the presidential hopeful’s reception among women:
The sad, hollow Hillary Clinton-as-feminist myth melted down when I learned that she had served for six years on the Wal-Mart Board of Directors while she was the wife of the governor of Arkansas. A feminist, even a Republican feminist, wouldn’t serve on the Wal-Mart Board of Directors. Wal-Mart is not only anti-worker and anti-union, but it is anti-woman. Two thirds of the Wal-Mart employees are women, ten percent are managers. A gender bias class action suit against Wal-Mart on behalf of one million women is currently pending...We can do better.
Hillary’s qualifications aside, Santina’s comments are sadly true. Wal-Mart stores profit off women - not only at the register, but by underpaying female employees, failing to promote them fairly and cutting corners on health care for the company’s lowest-wage workers - most of whom are women. More on our Women’s Rights action page here.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, April 24 | 7 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart Pays the Price for Not Securing Embarrassing Footage
News of Wal-Mart managers’ behavior has spread across the ocean to the U.K., where the BBC, the Guardian and the Independent are all reporting on it. The Telegraph calls the last few days a “PR disaster,” and this story from the Independent compares Wal-Mart’s video archives to the Nixon Watergate tapes. More embarrassing than the fact that these tapes were released is the fact that this is only one example of a corporate culture rife with sexist overtones. From the Dukes v. Wal-Mart case to inadequate women’s health coverage on the company medical plan, Wal-Mart needs to shape up and respect women in the company. Click here to learn more about Women’s Rights at Wal-Mart.
For sale: the video archive Wal-Mart should have erased [Independent (U.K.)]
The tape recordings that Richard Nixon made, almost obsessively, of everything that went on in the Oval Office helped bring down his presidency. And now a similarly thorough archive of video footage threatens to create a world of embarrassment – and legal liability – for Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer.
About 15,000 videotapes of Wal-Mart executives at work and at play over the past 30 years have suddenly become available to the public thanks to a series of blunders by the retail giant – which paid too little attention to the company it hired to make the tapes before abruptly terminating their relationship two years ago.
The company, Flagler Productions Inc, depended on Wal-Mart for 90 per cent of its revenue at the time the plug was pulled in 2006, and had just moved into a new 20,000 sq ft building in its home base of Lenexa, Kansas.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Friday, April 11 | 539 comments | Permalink
A Company In Need Of Change
This article originally appeared on the Huffington Post.
Wal-Mart’s dirty laundry is getting more global exposure today just a week after the Debbie Shank story. It has not been a good month for Wal-Mart public relations. To use a sports term, these are turnovers, and they expose the weaknesses of Wal-Mart’s high priced image.
When Wal-Mart Watch started we promised to tell a new more truthful story about the company. In doing so, we have often been critical of Wal-Mart but we have also been willing to applaud when they took steps in the right direction.
Undeniably, over the past three years Wal-Mart has gotten better at hiding the truth from us and from the media usually by obfuscating rather than clarifying the real issues. Their so-called health care reform is just one example. And thanks to the millions they are spending on Edelman Public Relations, they have received some good coverage in the media.
Occasionally though, they fumble the ball and we get to see clearly what is behind the façade. The video of Wal-Mart managers dressed in drag aired on NBC Nightly News last night (April 9, 2008) is a great example.
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Posted by David Nassar, Executive Director on Friday, April 11 | 38 comments | Permalink
Another Sound Investment Decision by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Everyone who sees the video is shocked: Wal-Mart managers dressed in drag, parading around official Wal-Mart corporate meetings. Bloggers have been weighing in on the never-before-seen footage, and while many note how offensive Wal-Mart’s mockery is (particularly in light of the landmark Dukes v. Wal-Mart gender discrimination case) many go on to add that the real problem here is how Wal-Mart treats its vendors. Had Wal-Mart bought the rights to this footage in the first place, it wouldn’t have yet another public relations debacle on its hands. May this be a lesson, that women working at and vendors working with Wal-Mart all learn from.
Flagler Productions, a video production company in Kansas that spent years as Wal-Mart’s corporate archivist, is now selling access to thousands of hours of candid footage of Wal-Mart execs talking about the business’s dirty secrets.
Hell Hath No Fury Like a Wal-Mart Vendor Scorned [Daily Kos]
Ouch! Wal-Mart forgot to sign a contract spelling out the terms of their production services. I’ve leave it up to the legal eagles on this board to offer a more informed opinion, but this can’t be good.....for Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart internal corporate videos up for sale [BloggingStocks]
As many of you may know, Wal-Mart was involved in the largest gender discrimination class-action lawsuit in this decade for alleged discrimination towards female employees in management ranks.
From Jezebel:
Wal-Mart has famously good lawyers, which makes it tough to get money out of them, for your incapacitating injury or class-action sex discrimination suit. So it’s a good thing they’re so stingy!
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, April 10 | 22 comments | Permalink
NBC Nightly News on Wal-Mart Managers in Drag
NBC’s Brian Williams on Wal-Mart managers dressed in drag at meetings. Williams rightly notes, “What you do on camera never goes away.”
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, April 10 | 612 comments | Permalink
CNBC On Wal-Mart’s Secret Video Stash
CNBC discusses the newly-uncovered footage of Wal-Mart’s mangers meetings.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, April 10 | 11 comments | Permalink
Lessons From Dukes
Wal-Mart is currently embroiled in the midst of the largest sexual discrimination suit in the history of the US. And with 25 years of utter disregard for women biting them in butt, Wal-Mart is beginning to recognize their own patterns of discrimination and adjust behavior accordingly.
Take, for example, the actions of Wal-Mart managers in Daytona Beach. Management meetings were usually scheduled during working hours and held at various “men’s oriented establishments....including strip clubs.” Apparently aware that the sole female manager, Tenna Hopkins, did not love the hot wings at Hooters, the male managers chose never to inform her of these meetings. Forcing a female coworker to go to a strip club constitutes sexual harassment! It is much preferable to be left to mind the store while all the guys go out to discuss the big picture and take advantage of any two-for-one lap-dance specials at local “restaurants catering to men.”
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Posted by Cass Brulott on Tuesday, March 18 | 10 comments | Permalink
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