Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Wal-Mart Watch Keeping Close Eye on Titan
June, 5 2005
by Christopher Leonard

When Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton bought an Asher B. Durand painting for $35 million last month and promised to give it to a new museum in Bentonville, it seemed like a positive development for Northwest Arkansas.

But not to a group called Wal-Mart Watch.

The Washington-based organization sent out a national news release that painted Walton’s actions as insensitive.

“A painting is worth health care for 8,572 Arkansans,” the news release said. It noted that thousands of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. employees in Arkansas receive public assistance to cover medical costs. If Walton had given her money to them, they could get off taxpayer assistance, it said.

Such is the new public-relations environment for the world’s biggest retailer. For decades, Wal-Mart enjoyed relative obscurity as a discount retail chain based in the Ozarks. Now affairs in Bentonville are closely watched by national activist groups like Wal-Mart Watch.

Another Washington-based group, Wake-Up Wal-Mart, backed by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, staged events in Little Rock and seven other cities Wednesday to complain about Wal-Mart’s health-benefits plans for its employees.

Even water-cooler gossip at Wal-Mart’s headquarters can become fodder for national debates on health care, corporate governance, the environment and other issues.

“We continue to be amazed by how our every action is scrutinized and interpreted,” said Wal-Mart spokesman Mona Williams.

Perhaps no other group is scrutinizing the company more thoroughly than Wal-Mart Watch. Since it was founded in March, Wal-Mart Watch has unleashed a torrent of news releases, advertisements and statements meant to change the way Wal-Mart does business.

Wal-Mart Watch was founded with money from the biggest union in the United States, the Service Employees International Union. While the union isn’t trying to organize Wal-Mart workers, it says the company needs to improve pay and benefits because it is the nation’s biggest employer.

Unions have criticized Wal-Mart for decades, but Wal-Mart Watch is markedly different from earlier campaigns. It is a kind of clearinghouse for numerous groups opposed to Wal-Mart, including environmentalists, religious organizations and organized labor.

Wal-Mart Watch also has a political savvy that’s new for Wal-Mart critics.

At least two senior employees at Wal-Mart Watch are former political operatives with the Democratic Party. They bring the skills and techniques of Washington politics to their jobs.

Andrew Grossman, Wal-Mart Watch’s executive director, was executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee that sought to elect Democrats to the U.S. Senate in 2004.

At Wal-Mart Watch, Grossman helps with the all-important task of fundraising. Seed money from the Service Employees International Union helped Wal-Mart Watch hire dozens of staff members and rent an office in downtown Washington that formerly housed an advertising firm. Grossman now generates income using fundraising techniques he learned on the campaign trail, calling on large and small donors to give money.

“Our goal is not to be [a union]-funded vehicle,” Grossman said. He says Wal-Mart Watch aims to raise an annual budget of “several million dollars,” although he declined to elaborate.

Campaigning is also old hat for Tracy Sefl, a chief spokesman for Wal-Mart Watch. She was a head researcher with the Democratic National Committee during the 2004 presidential campaign.

“I was in there specifically to conduct the research and create the communications about Bush’s record — so you can see some natural similarities right there,” Sefl said.

Sefl certainly employs one aspect of campaign politics in her new job — tempo. Wal-Mart Watch tries to make sure the message is heard.

“What we’re putting forth are what we see as sound and necessary counterperspectives to what Wal-Mart is alleging,” Sefl said. “We certainly recognize that Wal-Mart, on occasion, tries to be quick on their feet. But we think we’re quicker.”

The volume of statements from Wal-Mart Watch makes it seem as if Wal-Mart is involved in a day-to-day election campaign.

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