Handshake With Sam
While Wal-Mart’s founder, Sam Walton, steered his company’s growth over its first thirty years, he never let anyone forget that with such tremendous success come certain moral responsibilities. He led by example, and he did business with a handshake.
Today’s Wal-Mart has lost Sam’s way. That’s why we’ve proposed a new contract with Wal-Mart’s current leadership—to help Wal-Mart take its place as a responsible business leader for the new century.
Friday Blog Round Up: Last Post Edition
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt
Well, my faithful blog readers, after two years of working on Wal-Mart issues and more than a year as the main editor of this blog, our Friday Blog Round-Up today will be my last post. I hope you all continue reading, commenting and working to challenge Wal-Mart’s business practices. Enjoy the writing of my Wal-Mart Watch colleagues and try to keep the infighting to a minimum. As for now - on to the week’s blogs!
BLOGGERS WEIGH IN ON “EMPLOYEES SPEAK OUT”
Real Voices, Some More Wild Stuff [Working Life]
Wal-Mart Watch has set up a website where you can actually hear and read about the actual workers who have to put up with the oppressive behavior of The Beast. This is part of the picture: the Great Robbery that we have all endured for a number of decades--wages not going up (even though productivity goes up), no health care, no pensions--plays out, day-to-day, in those aisles at Wal-Mart.
The voice of the workers (Part 1) [Writing on the Wal]
What you get there is a look behind Walmart’s PR curtain to see what employees are really thinking, but too afraid to tell their supervisors since they don’t have a union to protect them. Indeed, let’s start this series there, in the category that Wal-Mart Watch calls corporate culture.
After the jump, union-busting in Canada, bottle water, Nike’s suit against the Bentonville behemoth and Sarah Palin.
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Harry Potter and the Prisoners of Waldemart: Download the Poster
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt
“Harry Potter and the Prisoners of Waldemart” premiers on Halloween, 2008, and the trailer is already online. Sign up at http://waldemartwatch.com for an invitation-only sneak preview of the film on October 30th, or click here to download the webready poster (381 K) to send to friends.
Wal-Mart Watch Launches “Wal-Mart Employees Speak Out”
Posted by Media Team
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.
More on closure of Canadian Wal-Mart’s Tire and Lube Express
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt
Wal-Mart earned $31 billion in profit last year, but repeatedly refuses to raise wages for its lowest-paid employees. When workers at a Tire and Lube Express in Canada voted to unionize in hopes of raising their wages and securing better benefits, Wal-Mart responded in the same way it has before: it shut the shop down. Such actions have been challenged before; hopefully these workers will be able to find justice.
Wal-Mart Closes Quebec Tire Center After Labor Accord (Update1) [Bloomberg News]
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s biggest retailer, said it closed a unionized Quebec tire and lubrication shop because of costs tied to the first labor agreement imposed at any of its North American locations.
The closing is effective immediately because it would have raised operating costs by at least 30 percent and triggered “dramatic’’ price increases on products, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer said today in a statement. The Quebec Labour Relations Board imposed the three-year labor contract in August after the union and company failed to reach an agreement.
“The union contract that was imposed is simply unworkable,’’ Wal-Mart Canada spokesman Andrew Pelletier said in a telephone interview.
Wal-Mart rose $1.89, or 3.8 percent, to $51.94 at 1:05 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
Under the contract, wages would have increased by a third, or more than 10 times the average hourly rate of Quebec companies this year, the company said in the statement. Wal-Mart Tire and Lube Express’s six employees in Gatineau won’t be fired and will be offered jobs at other regional shops.
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Coming Soon: Harry Potter and the Prisoners of Waldemart
Posted by Media Team
Go to www.waldemartwatch.com to sign up for an invitation-only sneak preview of “Harry Potter and the Prisoners of Waldemart” on October 30th. Look for the full release on October 31st, 2008, or watch the original.
Wal-Mart Executives Harrass Blogger’s Daughter for Being a Democrat
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt
Wal-Mart’s official company position on politics is bipartisan, but glimpses into Wal-Mart’s corporate culture reveal this is far from true. Daily Kos diarist Arkydem wrote a post today about a party his adult daughter attended in northwest Arkansas hosted by two Wal-Mart executives. From the sound of it, Wal-Mart’s executive corps is made up entirely of the insensitive meatheads you hated in high school, but instead of teasing you about your lame off-brand sneakers, now they tease you about not being a Republican. Says Arkydem:
I live in the Republican stronghold of Arkansas, the northwest corner. The home of over 7,000 Wal-Mart employees and since early 2002 when Wal-Mart made the announcement that if you’re a vendor, you set up shop here, adding another 30-40K folks and a sea of vendor offices all over the county, all carrying the misinformation and hate that corporate Wal-Mart spreads through its ranks and its vendor slaves about Democrats and about a million other things.
Wal-Mart strives to be seen as a politically neutral company for several reasons. The politics of Wal-Mart have never been positive for the company: low wages, poor benefits and other stingy practices have dogged the retailer for years, and have damaged its reputation. The farther the company can distance itself from these issues, the better. But Wal-Mart is also desperate to break in to several predominantly Democrat markets, and aligning with Republican values never helps this cause. Stories like Arkydem’s present a real problem for Wal-Mart, and seriously hamper its attempts to woo Democrats. Stories like this one don’t help much either, but no one said the company was interested in actually changing its practices to achieve change.
They Attacked our Daughter [Daily Kos]
Wal-Mart on the attack [Arkansas Times]
Friday Blog Round-Up: Power to the People Edition
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt
WAL-MART AND THE ‘POORING OF AMERICA’
I’m not sure where the phrase “Pooring of America” came from, but it’s perfect to explain Wal-Mart’s effect on working families. Seeking Alpha ponders why Wal-Mart and McDonald’s are doing so well right now.
What are McDonald’s and Wal-Mart Telling Us? [Seeking Alpha]
I am very intriqued by our top 2 choices for the “Pooring of America” trend - Walmart (WMT) and McDonalds (MCD) - what exactly are the charts above telling us? If we are to enter a long drawn-out recession, which I have believed, these seem to be screaming buys here. The only question is credit - how does a lack of credit potentially hurt both. They are not expanding a ton, in the U.S. at least - perhaps with Wal-mart it’s financing of inventory, but I cannot wrap my mind around this behavior.
Wal-Mart gets downgraded while stock up in 2008 amid the turmoil [BloggingStocks]
Will Wal-Mart weather the storm? To a point, it already is. Sure, all retailers are expected to have a dismal holiday season this winter, but Wal-Mart will do better than the competition. It has more stores, more pricing leverage and more wherewithal to hold customers hostage with lower prices and inventory turns at a time when it’s needed most. Perhaps we’ll see WMT return to the $60/share level by Thanksgiving—if not sooner.
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New Website From Wal-Mart Watch Examines Walton Family Influence
Posted by Media Team
Wal-Mart Watch has launched a new website - http://www.waltoninfluence.com - which analyzes and tracks the Walton family’s and Wal-Mart’s growing influence on American politics.
Although Sam Walton believed his company should stay out of politics and stick to retailing, Wal-Mart’s strategy changed immensely after his death. From 1999 to 2007, Wal-Mart’s lobbying expenditures for outside firms increased 7425%. Although Wal-Mart attempts to tout its bipartisanship, the Wal-Mart PAC has given the vast majority of its over $7.5 million in the past decade to the Republican Party and other conservative groups.
With more than $12 billion in profits last year, Wal-Mart is the biggest and arguably most powerful corporation in America. Sam Walton’s heirs, the majority owners of the company, are worth over $100 billion - making them the wealthiest and certainly one of the most influential families in America.
During the past year, Wal-Mart Watch conducted an analysis of public lobbying and political contribution records for the Walton family and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., in order to determine how this influence is used to affect politics and policy. The conclusion is clear: Wal-Mart and the Walton family spend millions of dollars every year to fund an extreme right wing corporate agenda that is often directly at odds with the interests of Wal-Mart’s workers and shoppers.