Our Mission

Our aim is real change -- transparent and lasting -- to benefit Wal-Mart communities. To date, we have made remarkable progress in getting Wal-Mart to respond to a wide array of concerns about its business practices. Wal-Mart has acknowledged the harm it causes by providing poor health benefits that force its employees to seek taxpayer-supported public assistance. It has taken some promising first steps on a long road toward creating a more environment-friendly business. We are hopeful the company is serious when it acknowledges that change is necessary, and we will continue to push Wal-Mart forward.

As our nation's largest employer and most successful company, Wal-Mart is most certainly an American institution. Wal-Mart occupies a unique position in our worls by virtue of its size, reach and responsibility for the livlihoods of millions of workers and the needs of billions of consumers. And with such overwhelming influence come certain moral responsibilities.

In 2006 we launched A Handshake with Sam, seven moral principles that reflect sound business practices and responsible corporate behavior in the twenty-first century. Our mission is to persuade Wal-Mart to assume its leadership role as America's largest corporation and enact positive change. If Wal-Mart commits to these principles and assumes the moral responsibility we expect of our biggest and most important American corporation, it will have proven worthy of America's admiration.

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