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We’ve been talking all week about the looming fight between Wal-Mart and the Obama Administration over labor reforms which might force Wal-Mart to treat its employees a little more fairly and give workers a little more say in the terms of their employment.

But we shouldn’t look at this as just a fight between Lee Scott and Barack Obama. There are 1.4 million Americans in the middle of this fight as well.

How has Wal-Mart been responding to the state of its workforce? Last week, Lee Scott was quoted talking non-specifically about his company’s response to the EFCA threat:

“We’re going to run this business,” Scott said. “Our associates are going to be productive. We’re going to reach out. We’re going to have relationships with our associates. We’re going to care about them and we’re going to serve our customers.”

("We’re going to care about them”?....that’s the best you can do, Lee? Anyone else think that sounds eerily like he’s admitting that he’s not caring about them now?)

But regardless, over the next year Wal-Mart execs will continue to tell us that all Wal-Mart employees are happy and productive and that all 1.4 million U.S. “associates” are one big warm fuzzy family. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. We know because every day we hear otherwise from Wal-Mart employees. Here’s a few more stories we’ve received lately.

Read these and more - in their entirety - on walmartspeakout.com:

“Why do you work overtime when you know that they will not pay you?”

“I have posted here a number of times before and I am always amazed that I have new bullets for my anti-Wal-Mart weaponry. No, my store doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to denying overtime pay.”

“Benefits” is a Loose Term to Wal-Mart

“When I was hired at Wal-Mart about 7 months ago, I was told by the hiring manager that Wal-Mart has the best benefits and I would receive then after 3 months. I believed him, but was in for a very rude awakening.”

Deaf Employee’s Request: Ignored

“I tried to apply for a promotion and they required me to do an interview over the phone, which was difficult considering there was no accommodation made for my disability.”

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Reader W.D. sent us a note over the weekend, with an interesting strategy to help struggling Wal-Mart employees: give them a tip.

It’s not a cure-all to the Wal-Mart problem, but it’s an interesting idea - and it would certainly shame any manager who knew it was happening. It’s great to have readers who are so keenly aware of the Wal-Mart dilemma to think of things like this:

“I shop at Wal-Mart. I never believed a boycott would be effective in changing their grotesque management system. I always believed a boycott would only hurt workers and cause more pain. After years of struggling within when I stepped into the front doors of Wal-Mart an idea suddenly hit me on how I could directly help employees while shopping for products I probably didn’t need. This idea I had would directly help some employees but the action of the idea would hopefully shame management. I decided I would implement it when checking out. I got to the register, the lady working at the check out stand was an older woman around sixty years of age, very friendly. When she finally gave me the total $68.38, I handed her my credit card. She ran the card through, and I decided to put my idea into action. When I finished signing my receipt, I reached into my pocket and handed her a $10.00 bill. She asked me what that was for, I responded that it was her tip. She said they don’t accept tips. I asked her if she believed the customer was always right? She said “yes” and I responded “well, I know you don’t get paid a fair wage for what you do, so I want to give you a tip”. She didn’t know what to say, I just said “please take it”. The lady behind me was laughing and said “take the tip cause I am going to tip too” and then she said “awesome”. The lady finally took my tip and said God Bless you. I told her if management gives her any problem, give the tip to them and tell them to disperse it and that I demanded you take it. I was concerned she would get in trouble for taking it.

So far I have tipped five times when visiting a Wal-Mart. I tip based on the restaurant scale, 20% on the dollar amount. During the last five times, I have had one manager ask me what I was doing. I told him why I was tipping, he just stared at me and smiled.

Start tipping your check out clerk. If not money, buy them a wal-mart gift card. Let’s shame management into action.

Just doing my part.”

What do you think?

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Several stories over the past two days have outlined the oncoming fight between Wal-Mart and the Obama administration over labor reforms, primarily over the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) - but also health care reform and a slew of other potential legislation.

This is no suprise for anyone. Wal-Mart isn’t stupid, it read the writing on the wall and has been preparing for a democratic win and a push for labor reform for a while. It’s been donating more money to politicians (including democrats) to curry favor, as well as funding major anti-EFCA initiatives (not to mention explicitly telling its employees to vote for John McCain.)

Other big business - retailers especially - will be play major roles in the fight, but no American Business’s model is more threatened by labor reform right now than Wal-Mart - which looks to be ground zero in the upcoming battle with the new administration.

A labor attorney quoted in Reuters sums it well:

“You’ll see an all-out battle at Wal-Mart” by labor, said attorney Richard Hankins, who leads the labor and employment practice at the law firm of Kilpatrick Stockton.

Jonathan Birchall at FT tells about the Obama administration could hit Wal-Mart on health care as well:

On healthcare, Mr Obama’s platform included setting a minimum contribution level for businesses to their employees’ healthcare plans - an approach that has been opposed at state level by big non-unionised retailers, including Wal-Mart...The retailer, with more than 1.3m staff, has said it wants to work on healthcare reform with a new administration.

And if Wal-Mart hadn’t already made it clear enough how much it refuses to change or pay its workers a dime more, check out the gall on Lee Scott - quoted by the Associated Press at the recent analysts’ meeting:

“It’ll be generations in the impact it [EFCA] has on this country. And it won’t be positive. I guarantee you that. It will not be positive. But for Wal-Mart, in the short term, and in the longer term on a relative basis with our peers, we’re going to run this business,” Scott said. He continued, ”We like driving the car and we’re not going to give the steering wheel to anybody but us.”

Will the next four years see better wages and benefits for Wal-Mart’s 1.4 million employees? Will it loosen Wal-Mart’s grip on the steering wheel? We look forward to finding out - and blogging about it. 

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If you happened to catch Democratic Presidential Candidate, Senator Obama’s infomercial last night, you saw a retired couple who couldn’t afford to pay for their medications so the 72-year old husband had to take a job at Wal-Mart. Instead of enjoying their retirement and what should be their “golden years,” this man like many others in these tough economic times had little choice but to join the forces of low-paid Wal-Mart workers. Go in any Wal-Mart and you’ll see many folks just like him – folks working as Wal-Mart sales associates, greeters and stockers.

But, with Wal-Mart’s average hourly wage of around $10 – not the starting wage, which is much lower - this family and others like them are struggling.  An average full-time employee earns about $19,200 a year – that’s living in poverty for a family of four. And, what about those medications and doctor bills?  You can bet this family is still paying them out of pocket – with Wal-Mart’s lousy health care plans and waiting periods.

Part-time workers have to wait a year before they are eligible for health care plans while full-timers still have a six-month wait. And even for eligible employees, the decent plans are too expensive to afford on a meager hourly wage. Most end up with high deductibles and very little coverage, which is why only about half of Wal-Mart’s employees are even covered under the company health care plan. 

As Senator Obama pointed out, this couple’s situation is not an isolated one. But, the sad thing is that so many of these folks who find themselves working at Wal-Mart in these desperate times, find themselves subject to bad treatment, low wages and poor health care plans. The stories we hear from employees every day show a disturbing pattern of Wal-Mart’s willingness to take advantage of these hard-working employees - who are just trying to support their families and make ends meet. All you have to do is read a few of them to understand working at Wal-Mart isn’t always a good option.

We hope that the mention of Wal-Mart in this political infomercial puts the company on notice. People are paying attention: it’s time for a change, Wal-Mart.

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On the heels of the recent passage of the Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act, Wal-Mart Watch today is releasing a report which exposes a conscious strategy by Wal-Mart to flout the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and discriminate against the company’s employees with disabilities.

To accompany the report, Wal-Mart Watch is also releasing a new video in which a mother tells how her daughter, who has a cognitive disability, was essentially terminated when she was required to take a leave of absence while Wal-Mart considered her request for a schedule accommodation.

The report, entitled “Reasonable Accommodation – Denied,” reveals Wal-Mart’s deliberate use of a “leave of absence” tactic to remove employees with disabilities from employment with the company. The report is the culmination of an exhaustive study by Wal-Mart Watch of more than 700 federal discrimination lawsuits filed against Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. since January 1, 2004 to present – including more than 100 filed by persons with disabilities.

“Reasonable Accommodation – Denied” profiles many currently pending lawsuits and reveals two very disturbing trends. First, Wal-Mart intentionally uses a tactic the report describes as the “leave of absence trick” - requiring employees with disabilities to take an unpaid leave of absence as a method for ultimately removing them from employment with the company. Second, Wal-Mart repeatedly refuses to comply with federal law and provide ADA-mandated accommodations for employees and applicants with disabilities.

Download the full report PDF here, and make sure read similar employee stories about Wal-Mart’s discrimination against employees with disabilities at www.walmartspeakout.com.

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So, every few months Wal-Mart holds a meeting to crack down its suppliers for one reason or another. What makes this one different enough to earn coverage in every major newspaper in the country? We’re not sure, but it definitely gave Lee Scott an international podium to further shift ethical responsibilty away from Wal-Mart and tell all of China to “do as I say, not as I do.”

Women’s Wear Daily gives what is definitely one of the most absurd quotes we’ve heard from Lee Scott in a long time (links added by me, but he might as well have put them in himself ):

“I firmly believe that a company that cheats on overtime and on the age of its labor, that dumps its scraps and chemicals in our rivers, that does not pay its taxes or honor its contracts — will ultimately cheat on the quality of its products,” said Scott. “And cheating on the quality of products is the same as cheating on customers. We will not tolerate that at Wal-Mart.”

That sounds like someone I know, I just can’t put my finger on it…

A couple other interesting bits. The Financial Times quotes a grumbling supplier:

“It’s going to make things a lot worse,” said one manufacturer at the meeting, who asked not to be identified. Others were more relaxed. “If they don’t like it, they are not going to be doing business with Wal-Mart,” said one US-based Wal-Mart supplier who sources components from China.

The New York Times’ Dot Earth Blog asks what might be the fundamental question:

Wal-Mart has been working to improve its image and lighten its environmental impact for several years now. Of course, as some campaigners against over-consumption have pointed out, Wal-Mart is still selling consumerism even as it pledges to cut the social and environmental costs of making the stuff in its stores. Can we have it all? Can we have cheap shirts and disposable batteries in a world heading toward 9 billion people seeking a decent life? I guess we’ll find out one way or the other.

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Great News! Wal-Mart Watch’s new website - walmartspeakout.com - has a had a great first day! We’ve had a ton of visitors on our first day, and even better - new stories from Wal-Mart employees are rolling in. You can bet that we’ll be formatting them and loading ‘em up, so make sure to keep reading the site.

Below are two unbelievable stories we received this morning:

I tripped over the box and went down to the hard cemment floor. I screamed and management came running. I was told to go to the office, so I started hobbling to the office to fill out the paper work. The assistant and support manager were their and after the paper work was filled out they asked me if I wanted to see a doctor and I replied yes. Then they told me I had to see my family doctor. I replied on a Friday night. Saturday morning and they replied yes. My clinic is not open and they me that I have 24 hours to see my family doctor. I was told to go back to work. The store was closed and we are locked in the store at night. I was forced to work for 8 hours when my shift was over I left and said I am going to the ER. The assistance manager just shruged her shoulders. When I was done in the ER I had to go back to the store to give them the papers. The store manager asked me how many days was I going to be off work. and I replied 2 because I don’t work the other days. He replied oh ok. He never asked if I was ok or anything. The following Wed. when I returned back to work the Harassing started by management.That Friday I was cut from full time to part time (I have it on tape). I ended up to going in for surgery and now I must use a wheelchair to get around and I haven’t been back to work.

This one, if true, is terrifying:

I worked for a transportation company that was under contract to WalMart in Canada. When Walmart was closing its Quebec store due to the union issue it requested us to quote on sending in a trailer to the closing store to load 26 pallets of inventory and then deliver 1pallet to each of 26 stores in western canada.This expensive request was to send a message to each store that this skid came from a store that organized a union and now it is closed . Expensive message but you get what their purpose was.

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Today marks the debut of a new project from Wal-Mart Watch: Wal-Mart Employees Speak-Out. The new website is a chance for Wal-Mart’s employees and former employees to talk about how the retailer’s low wage, poor benefits business model impacts their lives. The site features user-submitted material in the form of comments, stories, and video testimonies. Check it out at: http://walmartspeakout.com.

Wal-Mart workers often face retaliation for speaking out about the many problems at the company. This website is a chance for them to speak out – anonymously, in many cases – without fear of being fired or demoted. The project comes at a time when working Americans are suffering more than ever, but while Wal-Mart reaps record profits as the largest corporation in the world.

Are you a former or current employee of Wal-Mart that has a story to share?  Click here to SPEAK OUT! All entries will be kept anonymous unless authorized. Speaking out helps others fight the unfair treatment Wal-Mart is infamous for. Help transform Wal-Mart into the kind of workplace it claims to be, and speak out against unfair policies at the company.

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In case you hadn’t noticed, Wal-Mart has received some criticism for its business practices over the last few years. Condemnations of low wages, discrimination, environmental damage, damage to local economies and sweatshop sourcing have come at Wal-Mart from all angles. At some point, someone at the company realized these attacks might be bad for business.

So the company went on the offensive. Charles Fishman, author of The Wal-Mart Effect, explained to a conference of editorial writers this week that in recent months, Wal-Mart has made a massive effort to improve its image. Whereas the retailer once focused on lowering prices regardless of the cost, attacks on the company’s ethics made Wal-Mart realize the high price of behaving badly.

Fishman is certainly right on this point: after years of criticism, it seems Wal-Mart’s leadership finally recognized the value of a good reputation. Since its revelation, Wal-Mart has worked to highlight not only its low prices but its good deeds too, spending millions to publicize its environmental efforts and charitable giving. A new ad campaign, a new slogan and numerous public appearances by company executives drive home Wal-Mart’s new message: We’re not all bad, really.

Wal-Mart’s work to become a socially responsible company, however, is far from done. The company’s labor problems remain completely unresolved: wages and benefits for hourly workers are still paltry, allegations of union-busting remain rampant, and the company’s discriminatory practices have resulted in dozens of lawsuits in the last year alone. Labor issues are the most expensive to resolve, but a recent study (PDF) shows that shoppers take a company’s labor practices into consideration above all other social responsibility issues. The company cannot and will not succeed with its image overhaul until these issues are addressed.

Even Wal-Mart’s highly-touted environmental campaign has problems. While the company cites reduced packaging and organic cotton among its crowning achievements, Wal-Mart’s massive energy consumption, unsustainable land use, and unethical sourcing practices negate any positive impact the company might have. Poor product quality contributes to environmental problems too, and several recalls over the last year and a half reveal the high price of cutting costs. The company’s relationship with local communities continues to be a problem as well.

Like Mr. Fishman, we are also interested to know the impact of Wal-Mart’s environmental footprint - both good and bad. But any examination of Wal-Mart’s sustainability efforts should take into account the company as a whole - with all its problems, from factory to shopping cart - not just the side Wal-Mart wants us to see.

Two say Wal-Mart image on mend [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]

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While the FEC investigates Wal-Mart’s possibly-illegal attempts to influence the votes of its employees, writers at the Legal Times discuss what those mandatory meetings exposed. While obviously making clear how much Wal-Mart fears unionization - and how much its managers exaggerate the impact of Democrats and the Employee Free Choice Act - the meetings also exposed the national need for stronger laws against employee intimidation.

Chained to Office Politics [Legal Times]

Imagine you work for the largest company in town. You live from paycheck to paycheck like a large portion of lower- to middle-wage workers and can’t afford to be without a job for long. Your company has pretty high turnover, and it has a reputation for firing people it labels troublemakers, people who don’t fit into the corporate culture.

Now imagine that at a mandatory work meeting, your supervisor warns you that Congress is considering legislation that will make it easier for unions to come into your company. A union here would be a disaster, the supervisor warns, and would mean layoffs, or even worse, closing down entire locations. Unions are bad news. And just to top it off, if a Democrat gets into the White House, we can be sure that bill in Congress will become the law. So think about that, he says, when you’re in that voting booth.

This speech might make you a little nervous about what your supervisor thinks your political leanings are. You might be very careful about what you say to be sure it can’t be interpreted to support the Democrats, particularly if your company has the reputation of firing people who support unionizing. And since your employer is the biggest in town, you watch what you say no matter where you are. You can’t afford to have anything get back to the company.

Read the rest of this story ...

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Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in the world, with just over 2 millions employees on its payroll. So when the company does something wrong, there are usually a lot of people involved and for that reason, Wal-Mart often finds itself the subject of class action lawsuits.

An article today from Bloomberg News notes that there are currently over 70 lawsuits currently pending against Wal-Mart which deal with wage-and-hour violations alone. A 2005 federal law, which ruled that any lawsuit involving parties from multiple states and damages exceeding $5 million must go to federal court, means some of the cases filed since 2005 and currently pending against Wal-Mart will be combined. This had included class action suits from Delaware, South Dakota, Nevada and Alaska, until U.S. District Judge Phillip Pro denied their class status in June. Today’s article asserts that Wal-Mart stands to benefit from the 2005 law, which could make it harder for employees to collectively litigate against the company.

Whether Wal-Mart “shaved” time off employees’ schedules is not up for debate here: Judge Pro explained each wage-and-hour violation will simply be treated individually. Wal-Mart continues to look for ways to spend as little as possible on payroll, even if this means unfairly compensating employees for their hours worked. Rulings such as this one make it more difficult for employees to change Wal-Mart as a whole, but the company should stop breaking labor laws in the first place and pay its workers fairly.

Wal-Mart Shareholders Benefit From Judge’s Pay Ruling [Bloomberg News]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., facing as much as $2 billion in damages in a Minnesota employee-pay trial, may be shielded from similar cases in the future thanks to a 2005 federal law.

The statute requires federal courts to handle class-action lawsuits of $5 million or more when plaintiffs and defendants are from different states. Because judges have been less willing to certify these cases as class actions, the law may save Wal-Mart as much as $5 billion, said Robert Bonsignore, lead workers’ attorney in Nevada suits against the world’s largest retailer. That’s equivalent to 77 percent of Wal-Mart’s $6.5 billion first- half profit.

Read the rest of this story ...

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An AP story today highlights efforts in several states to pass legislation requiring employers to offer paid sick leave to workers.

When asked in the article, Wal-Mart takes no position on proposed federal sick leave legislation, and quotes spokeswoman E.R. Anderson as saying Wal-Mart “feels good” about the company’s sick leave policy. 

Technically, Wal-Mart does offer paid sick leave to full-time employees - but the company’s policy is certainly nothing to “feel good” about.

Some of the less feel-good details about Wal-Mart’s sick leave policy:

- It is only valid for full-time employees. Wal-Mart refuses to tell us the percentage of workers who are full-time and part-time, but it reasonable to assume that well over 40% (560,000) are part-time and therefore ineligible for any paid sick time. It’s also safe to assume that whatever the percentage of part-time associates is, that number is growing. Going back to the 2005 Chambers Memo, Wal-Mart has made clear its intention to shift more of its workforce to part time to cut down on the cost of benefits.

- Even full-time associates must wait 6 months to be eligible for any paid sick time, whereafter employees accrue one half of one day of paid sick time a month - which is only 6 days per year.

- We’ve heard reports from SEVERAL employees that managers required them to miss two days to take one day of sick leave. Basically, if an employee was out one day and called in sick, he/she would be forced to take unpaid leave - unless he/she missed at least two consecutive days, in which they could start receiving pay on the second missed day. So for these employees, even those who are full time and eligible for the policy, Wal-Mart REQUIRES them to take unpaid leave.

Wal-Mart Executives probably feel a lot better about that than their employees do.

More to come on this issue. 

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Representatives from some of the nation’s largest labor organizations will be a formal letter to the FEC today requesting an investigation of Wal-Mart’s political meetings with employees. Along with the letter are the names of thousands of activists who signed a petition endorsing the request.

While Wal-Mart’s political involvement here might have been illegal - an FEC investigation would determine that for sure - the company’s message in its meetings was indisputably anti-union and anti-worker. The specter of unionization at its U.S. stores has Wal-Mart executives nervous, and the company’s actions reveal its intent to keep employees paid poorly and too afraid to speak up. The most important thing that could come out of this discussion of Wal-Mart’s practices is for store employees to realize federal law protects their right to speak out and band together.

Unions Seek Probe of Wal-Mart Over Election Law [Wall Street Journal]

Prominent labor groups are seeking an investigation into whether Wal-Mart Stores Inc. violated federal election laws by telling employees that electing Democrats would lead to passage of legislation making it easier to unionize companies.

In a letter to be delivered as early as Thursday, the labor groups are asking the Federal Election Commission to determine whether the company “made prohibited corporate expenditures” by organizing meetings across the country to warn employees that a Democratic president would back legislation known as the Employee Free Choice Act, which the company opposes. The groups say such statements amount to advocating the defeat of Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in the November election.

Companies aren’t permitted under federal election law to expressly advocate to hourly employees the election or defeat of specific candidates. The complaint cites as its source an Aug. 1 front-page article in The Wall Street Journal that reported the Bentonville, Ark., retailer held meetings with thousands of store managers and department supervisors across the country to discuss the legislation.

Read the rest of this story ...

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SEIU President Andy Stern commented today on the Wall Street Journal’s article “Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win,” saying in the release:

“Hardworking men and women such as Wal-Mart’s average hourly employees are having a tough time making ends meet in this economy, yet Wal-Mart’s board of the directors and the Walton family continues to prosper.  Rather than adjusting the company’s behavior to improve conditions for its employees, Wal-Mart has chosen to intimidate its workers to maintain the status quo.  This time the company may have crossed the line.”

Stern later went on The Ed Shultz Show, severely criticising Wal-Mart for its anti-union activities and political involvement:

“This is a campaign contribution – an illegal campaign contribution to John McCain – because, basically, they have their supervisors out mobilizing to (basically) tell the workers, “Don’t vote for Barack Obama.  Vote for John McCain.” And they’re using the revenues from their company as an illegal campaign contribution.  And the Federal Election Committee should just tell them.  This is just another violation – just like not letting people have their lunches, just like locking people in the stores who were doing the cleaning overnight, just like the sex discrimination suit against women.  This is just another pattern of intimidation.  Whether it’s unions or elections, Wal-Mart thinks it knows better than everyone else.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Ed Shultz.

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Today, a front-page Wall Street Journal article reported that Wal-Mart is holding mandatory meetings with supervisors and managers to warn them that if Senator Obama wins the presidential election, Democrats will pass the Employee Free Choice Act to unionize their stores.

You may ask: why is Wal-Mart so worried?  The answer is that unionizing gives workers the power to stand up to their employers and demand higher wages, better health care, and more fair work places. Tell Wal-Mart to stop intimidating its employees into voting against Senator Obama:

http://action.walmartwatch.com/voters

Wal-Mart is notorious for its union-busting tactics.  It has repeatedly demonstrated that it will do anything to get out of treating its employees with the dignity and respect they deserve.  As the Wall Street Journal article states:

Through almost all of its 48-year history, Wal-Mart has fought hard to keep unions out of its stores, flying in labor-relations rapid-response teams from its Bentonville, Ark., headquarters to any location where union activity was building.

Not only are Wal-Mart’s actions morally despicable, but they also raise legal concerns. Show Wal-Mart that the country is listening and that we want workers to decide for themselves how to vote:

http://action.walmartwatch.com/voters

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Conscientious consumers everywhere know it’s hard to sort through all the conflicting messages about where to shop. Multiple factors go in to making a company socially responsible - fair labor standards, ethical sourcing, environmental care, community impact and transparent corporate practices - and it can be hard to take them all into consideration simultaneously.

Co-op America’s newly expanded Responsible Shopper website is designed to cut through that confusion. The site lists news stories, special reports and academic studies about companies’ business practices in hopes of helping shoppers make informed shopping decisions. The site’s profile of Wal-Mart notes several outstanding labor and human rights violations that no responsible shopper would support, and offers low-price alternatives to big box retailers.

Co-op America’s Responsible Shopper >>

Web Site Dishes Up Dirt, Exposes ‘Greenwashing’ [Consumer Affairs]

Worried that your consumer dollars are rewarding bad corporations with problem practices? Concerned about greenwashing? Wish there was an easy way to get the dirt on America’s biggest companies before you buy something? Looking for a way to pressure consumer companies you patronize to get responsible and clean up their acts?

A new Web site, ResponsibleShopper.org, promises to do all that, and then some.

Read the rest of this story ...

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This article originally appeared on the Huffington Post.

Civil Rights Group Gives Wal-Mart A C+
More than 1,300 delegates to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Convention were warmed up by Barak Obama and John McCain speeches---but the real heat in Cincinnati came during a debate over Wal-Mart.

During 5 days of conventioneering, the delegates took up 45 resolutions---one of the most contentious being the business practices of the World’s Largest Retailer.

On the Convention floor, NAACP Resolution #14 read:
“Oppose Wal-mart and Other Retailers Unfair Labor Practices Resolved: That the NAACP will challenge Wal-Mart and other retailers to overcome any of their practices that are inconsistent with the highest standards of Labor and Civil Rights, to ensure equal opportunity and equal pay for Women, people of color and other minorities, and work with local communities to effectively address Wal-Mart’s and other retailers negative impact on issues like the environment and local businesses, and establish a ‘Buy American’ program that annually increases the percentage of ‘Made in America’ goods purchased by Wal-Mart and Other retailers to help protect American Jobs.”

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