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 begins on Wal-Mart and the economy, and whether Wal-Mart sales statistics can be used as a new barometer for the U.S. economy. You’ll also find stories on changes in shopper behavior, now that consumers are faced with less disposable income. And, you’ll find stories on Wal-Mart’s slowed growth, and the switch to smaller store formats by retailers across the country.
In addition to the economy, you’ll find stories related to next week’s election. Barack Obama highlighted the story of a 72-year-old man forced to go back to work for Wal-Mart in his half-hour special this past Wednesday night. Meanwhile, according to Reuters Wal-Mart vows to remain non-partisan in the 2008 election season, while the Financial Times reports on the candidates attempting to woo the so-called “Wal-Mart Moms.” Plus, there are suspicions that Wal-Mart is behind a new grassroots group recently set up to fight the Employee Free Choice Act, as reported in The National Journal.
Also: Find out whether a Wal-Mart case in Montana could lead to changes in that state’s campaign finance law.
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. A California ballot measure could lead to increased demand for more humane animal products, while citizens in Virginia continue to fight Wal-Mart’s attempt to build near an historic Civil War battlefield.
Wal-Mart Watch Weekly Update for Elected Officials [October 31, 2008]
Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
The collection is from an undisclosed company - unnamed because of state tax confidentiality laws.
The REIT loophole issue, which focuses on the use of captive real estate investment trusts to avoid paying state corporate income taxes, has been in the national spotlight for going on two years now. In North Carolina, Wal-Mart saved millions of dollars in state tax bills by essentially transferring its properties to its own REIT and paying rent to itself, then writing it off as a tax deduction. These transactions were frequently followed by rather suspicious looking characters in black masks trudging back to Bentonville with big old gobs of money that could have gone to funding state programs.
North Carolina got wise to the scheme and assessed Wal-Mart for back taxes. Additional states have sought ways to close the loophole up, either through attacking it directly or by adopting combined reporting. Maryland is one of those states - last year Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot announced that his state would no longer allow payments to captive REITs to be deducted from state tax returns. Now following its first publicized audit since then, Maryland will receive $10.8 million in back taxes for a 3-year period from the unnamed company.
We’ve chronicled again and again that Wal-Mart is one of the worst offenders in this area. Simply closing the loophole is one way to fix it. Adopting combined reporting is another. At least in Maryland’s case, the effort has already resulted in nearly $11 million coming back into the state treasury.
Maryland collects millions after closing tax loophole [Washington Post]
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
Several retailers including Wal-Mart have been named in a nationwide class action for their participation in selling polycarbonate plastic baby bottles and toddler training cups containing the controversial hormone BPA.
This whole BPA - or Bisphenol-A - controversy is not a good thing. BPA is a key compound used in polycarbonate plastics, which are clear and nearly shatter-proof (a good thing), and also possibly toxic and poisoning us and our children daily (apparently bad...very, very bad). These plastics are used to make a variety of common products including baby and water bottles, sports equipment, medical devices, lenses, CDs, and household electronics...a fact that, in the interest of full disclosure, actually made me check the bottom of my water bottle this morning to make sure I wasn’t slowly killing myself.
The lawsuit in question was filed in Georgia, and you can read the (very long) complaint here, in which defendants are accused of manufacturing and selling materials made with BPA despite knowledge of likely adverse affects. In addition to Wal-Mart, retailers such as CVS, Target, and Kroger have been named in the suit. Also named were manufacturers of the bottles themselves, including Evenflo, Gerber, and Playtex. The best part of this whole thing - not only have over a hundred studies been produced in the last decade warning of the adverse affects of BPA, but apparently in deeming the compound safe the FDA decided to rely on only two, both of which were produced by the American Plastics Council. So kudos to the FDA for that.
The lawsuit has been filed in the U.S District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. You can read the release on it below.
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
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 begins with reports from two states that Wal-Mart is undercutting high school activity and athletic fundraising by selling merchandise bearing the logos of local high schools. In both cases, the schools in question were never contacted by Wal-Mart about whether sales of the items would hurt the school’s efforts to raise funds.
In addition, you’ll find Time and The New York Times delving into the topic of Wal-Mart moms, and the role they’ll play in the November election. Plus, check out our section on Wal-Mart and the environment to find out more about the unethical behavior of Wal-Mart’s sustainable mining supplier, and from California read about how the retail giant fought (unsuccessfully) a port-truck plan that would require tougher environmental and security standards.
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 | Permalink
The past couple weeks have seen plenty of stories describing ways in which Wal-Mart has mobilized to aid the Gulf Coast in preparation and relief efforts during hurricane season.
It seems, however, that even though the corporation was making efforts to lessen the blow of the storm, they still haven’t lost sight of the bottom-line. In a story posted yesterday in The Examiner, Wal-Mart was accused of price-gouging gasoline at one of their stations along an evacuation route in Southeast Texas. The Wal-Mart/Murphy USA located on U.S. 69 in Lumberton raised their price of gasoline a total of 12 cents in the day leading up to the evacuation for Hurricane Gustav, then another 10 cents when the evacuation was announced.
These prices were NOT consistent with other gas-stations in the area and following the storm, prices dropped again to reflect market prices. And despite a gas station manager claiming that prices went up because of a “gas price rise”, the cost of oil per barrel dropped over each of the three days.
Evacuation Gas Game [The Examiner (Texas)]:
In the days and hours leading to the potential call for a mandatory evacuation for Southeast Texas residents the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) blasted across its electronic billboard alert system that a hurricane was coming and residents needed to fill up their tanks with gasoline.
According to a local wholesale fuel provider, most everyone heeded TxDOT’s advice, but The Examiner also kept close watch on one gasoline retailer located along the main evacuation route from Southeast Texas.
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Posted by Luke West | Permalink
If you’ve read our FEC complaint by now, you’ll be familiar with our contention that at its training sessions, Wal-Mart was explicitly advocating against the election of Democratic candidates this coming November because of its fear of possible unionization in the future. You’ll also be familiar with our contention that Wal-Mart is limited, under both the United States Code and the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, from directing its political meetings or “trainings” at anything beyond its stockholders and executive or administrative personnel. Certainly, the issue is serious enough to warrant a looksee from the Federal Election Commission - now that multiple labor groups have sent a complaint of their own, similar to the one submitted by Wal-Mart Watch last week, we’ll see if the FEC decides to initiate an investigation.
If that does happen, attorney Bob Bauer has been helpful enought to give a brief guide on the federal regulations involved - you might want to read it in shifts, as staring too long at federal regulatory language has been known to cause eyes to bleed, etc. Bauer is the Chair of the Political Law Group of Perkins Coie LLP, and the author of numerous books including: United States Federal Election Law (1982, 1984), Soft Money Hard Law: A Guide to the New Campaign Finance Law (2002) and More Soft Money Hard Law: The Second Edition of the Guide to the New Campaign Finance Law (2004).
The Wal-Mart Matter [posted August 14, 2008]
The Wal-Mart controversy, now headed toward the Federal Election Commission, presents interesting questions about how the campaign finance laws treat coercive political conduct by a corporate employer. As the allegations have been framed in press reports, Wal-Mart is claimed to have breached two requirements for lawful corporate political action: (1) it spent corporate funds outside the limited allowances for election-related speech, and (2) it did so through coercive means, subjecting employees to job-related pressures to support one candidate or party rather than another.
FEC rules specify in fair detail when and how corporations may spend resources in relation to federal elections without breaking the core campaign spending prohibition. 11 C.F.R. Part 114. The most liberal of the allowances is for “partisan” communications to the “restricted class,” of executives and shareholders, and a corporation may also repeatedly solicit them for contributions to the company’s political action committee. It can arrange for the candidates favored by the company to address this defined group.
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
Well, first it was the tomato that was the culprit. Then tomatoes were deemed clean, and safe to eat again. Then, in a twist of culinary fate, a new villain in the salmonella outbreak showed its face - a spicy little number possibly originating at a farm down in Mexico. The jalepeno pepper. And now the tiny pepper has turned its capsaicin-spewing fury on Wal-Mart.
Actually, the complaint at issue was filed on behalf of Delores, Colorado resident Brian Grubbs against Wal-Mart and an unknown supplier, referred to in the complaint as “John Doe”. According to the lawsuit, the Grubbs family purchased jalapeño peppers from the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Cortez, Colorado in late June. Grubbs and his family proceeded to eat them over the next week. According to the Rocky Mountain News:
Samples showed he was positive for salmonella Saintpaul, and later the jalapeño peppers back at his house that he hadn’t yet eaten also tested positive for that strain of salmonella, the suit said.
“Consumers believe that retailers like Wal-Mart know the quality and safety of products they sell,” Marler said. “Retailers benefit from that trust, and must be held accountable for the products they sell.”
Salmonella is, of course, no fun at all - Salmonellosis illnesses from the Saintpaul strain began showing up in Texas and New Mexico in late April, and in early June the CDC linked those illnesses to raw tomatoes and issued consumer warnings. Those warnings were, of course, completely wrong - the list of possible culprits was first widened before eventually being narrowed to raw jalapeno and serrano peppers.
On July 30, the FDA confirmed the presence of salmonella Saintpaul at a farm in Mexico, both in irrigation water and on produce. The investigation is continuing.
Man sickened by jalapeños files first salmonella lawsuit [Rocky Mountain News]
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
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 | Permalink
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