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.
The Night Before Christmas at Wal-Mart
Posted by Media Team
Scrooge doesn’t look so bad: he just made Bob come into work on Christmas Day. Wal-Mart, on the other hand, takes money from communities, mistreats employees, and with its low-quality toys, keeps millions of kids from having a happy holiday. Merry Christmas indeed...
‘Twas the night before Christmas, And all through Wal-Mart
There were no toys laying, In one single shopping cart
Barbie had lead, Aqua-Dots caught with drugs
And the prepackaged fruitcake? Infested with bugs
Lee Scott was nestled, all snug in his bed
While visions of profit danced in his head
The toys were all gone, they’d been taken away.
Mr. Scott said “Be cheaper! Come whatever may!”
“But lead paint hurts Children!”
The CPSC said
“The toxins it has
Make kids sick in the head!”
Wal-Mart didn’t care, it kept working away,
To cut costs (and cut corners!) in every possible way.
No customers came, no one said hello.
And the wage Wal-Mart paid? Not worth standing in snow.
Employees got sick, they were too poor to pay.
“Keep working!” Wal-Mart said. “You’ll get insurance some day!”
The town was all quiet, most businesses had shut down.
What once had been festive was now a ghost town.
An elderly worker stood by Wal-Mart’s front door
He was still here at midnight and he wondered “what for?”
With no toys, low wages, and a stingy health plan,
Wal-Mart’s Christmas present? Good will towards no man (woman or child).
9th Circuit Reaffirms Dukes Class Action Status
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt
Late yesterday, the 9th Circuit Court of U.S. Appeals issued a ruling in the landmark discrimination case Dukes v. Wal-Mart. While the new ruling may exclude a small fraction of the original 1.6 million plantiffs, it could also make it more difficult to overturn the case’s class-action status.
Wal-Mart has discriminated against its female managers and employees for years. It is shocking that a company which depends so deeply on women as customers treats its female employees so poorly. Perhaps Wal-Mart’s leadership will finally recognize it would benefit by making substantive changes to its business practices: keeping prices low by discriminating against employees is unjust and unsustainable.
Court Toughens Rules for Inclusion In Wal-Mart Discrimination Suit [Wall Street Journal]
A U.S. appeals court, in an unusual move, tweaked its decision in a sex-discrimination suit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc., toughening the rules for including workers in the massive suit.
Wal-Mart said it would again appeal the decision to the full Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
While reducing the potential number of plaintiffs, the revisions “may make it that much harder” to overturn the panel’s decision supporting class-action status, said Joseph M. Sellers, plaintiffs’ co-lead counsel and a partner at Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll.
The 2001 suit alleges gender discrimination in pay and promotions at the world’s largest retailer. The women claim Wal-Mart, of Bentonville, Ark., systematically paid them and other women less than men with similar qualifications, and frequently overlooked women for promotions. Wal-Mart has denied it discriminates and maintains any pay disparities were isolated. It is the largest discrimination case ever filed.
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Who Pays for the Products at Wal-Mart?
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt
The sticker price at Wal-Mart only reflects a fraction of a product’s true cost. From natural resources to workers’ health, Annie Leonard from “The Story of Stuff” explains the hidden costs of Wal-Mart’s prices. Go to http://storyofstuff.com to see the full video.
Progressive Wednesday: Downsize Wal-Mart
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt
Progressive Wednesday, a website devoted to weekly acts of social change, turns its attention this week to Wal-Mart, giving readers some great ways to take action on Wal-Mart issues. The site brings up some of the most fundamental problems with Wal-Mart: poor environmental stewardship, the company’s reliance on local tax subsidies and its devastating effect on local communities. To Progressive Wednesday’s readers, welcome. Click here for a primer on our issues with Wal-Mart.
Downsizing Wal-Mart Some More [Progressive Wednesday]
Problem:
A scant few weeks after we opened our P.O. Box in Model City, New York, we received our first piece of junk mail, the kind of junk mail that makes us believe in a god of irony (okay, we don’t actually believe in a god of irony, but, well, sometimes we find it difficult to rule it out): a circular from Wal-Mart. Not just any flyer, mind you. This one promised, amongst other things, “instant savings,” “the season’s best savings,” and “brilliant holiday savings.”At Progressive Wednesday, we’re all about saving and even savings, but we’re also about taking action to protect our tax dollars, our families, our environment, and our small businesses. And we could use your help. It’s time to stop the Walton family from harming our country more than it helps. It’s time to downsize Wal-Mart.
Watch:
To witness an even-handed and wonderfully heartbreaking documentary, check out the PBS Frontline flick Is WAL-MART Good for America? by clicking here. It’s conveniently broken into five segments, so you don’t even need to watch the whole thing straight through. You can watch ten minutes, then fix a sandwich (we dig Monte Cristos, by the way). You can watch another diez minutos, and buzz your grandma–she misses you and you never call. You get the picture.
Much more after the jump.
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Wal-Mart Watch Calls on Wal-Mart to Match Donations to Shank Family
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt
Wal-Mart Watch is calling on three major, Wal-Mart-funded foundations to match the funds recently raised for former Wal-Mart employee Deborah Shank and her family. The Wal-Mart Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation and the Wal-Mart Associates in Critical Need Fund have all been invited to donate to the cause. Many generous individuals have already contributed money to the Shank family (click here to donate) and with Wal-Mart Watch matching dollar-for-dollar, we’ve raised $10,000. The following letter was sent to the groups, asking the multi-billion dollar company to match that sum.
Walton Family Foundation
Attn: Mr. Buddy D. Philpot,
Executive Director
P.O. Box 2030 Bentonville, AR 72712December 5, 2007
Dear Mr. Philpot:
With the recent nationwide news coverage, you have likely heard about the tragic story of former Wal-Mart employee Deborah Shank of Jackson, Missouri.
Mrs. Shank was a devoted Wal-Mart employee when she was left permanently brain damaged after a tragic collision with a semi-trailer truck seven years ago. Her Wal-Mart health plan promptly paid her initial medical bills, and the Shanks subsequently won a modest settlement from the trucking company. After lawyers’ fees and expenses were deducted, the remaining $417,000 was placed in a special trust fund to pay for Mrs. Shank’s future medical expenses – around-the-clock care for the remainder of her life.
Wal-Mart, within its legal rights of subrogation under the health care contract, successfully sued the Shank family for reimbursement of $470,000 in medical expenses, plus the company’s legal fees and expenses. Wal-Mart will drain all of the funds from Mrs. Shank’s trust, leaving no money for her future medical care. In addition, the amount of Wal-Mart’s lawsuit exceeds the trust amount, which will plunge the Shank family further into debt.
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New Idea: Being Nice Pays Off
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt
This post from BloggingStock’s Zac Bissonnette points out that Costco manages to turn a profit DESPITE the fact that the company isn’t greedy to the point of ruthless destruction. Costco’s wages and health care plan are among the best in big box retail, employee turnover is lower as a result and, as this post points out, their CEO seems like a halfway decent guy.
As we can see in many aspects of Wal-Mart’s business model, cutting costs at the expense of quality-of-life is NOT always the most profitable way to go. Though Wal-Mart saves money on its stingy health care plan, it loses just as much in employee turnover, lawsuit payouts and public relations costs. Saving money on product quality leads to lower sales, higher returns and more lawsuit payouts. Cutting corners on environmental compliance leads to EPA fines, discriminating against women and minorities leads to yet even more lawsuit payouts and mistreating local communities leads to fewer opportunities to build new stores. Maybe “doing good” isn’t such a bad business model, after all…
Costco does well by doing good—pay attention Wal-Mart! [BloggingStocks]
It was hard to argue with Wal-Mart’s ruthless efficiency and emphasis on cost-cutting at all costs when it was producing results.
But as the five-year chart below shows, Wal-Mart’s stock has been a serious laggard of late. Meanwhile, its more socially conscious discounting cousin, Costco has been on a tear.
Over the past five years, shares of Wal-Mart have lost more than 10% of their value. Costco is up better than 100% over the same period.
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Wal-Mart’s Unethical Actions A P.R. “Nightmare”
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt
Proof of why scrimping on employee policies just doesn’t pay in the end.
Wal-Mart Takes Image Hit From Shank Case [Arkansas Morning News]
Wal-Mart won a lawsuit against a former employee, injured in an accident that left her brain damaged, divorced and penniless, for reimbursement from her medical care.
But public relations experts say the cost to the company’s image may outweigh the $470,000 it received for repayment from Debbie Shank’s care.
It’s a tragic tale of an insurance loophole called “subrogation” increasingly common in employee health insurance plans that allows a company to recoup expenses incurred for the injured party’s medical care should that person receive damages from a lawsuit with a third party.
Shank, a 52-year-old former stocker for Wal-Mart in Cape Girardieu, Mo., signed such a contract with her then-employer before a traffic accident with a semi-trailer truck. After receiving a settlement from the trucking company, Wal-Mart did what experts say any corporation would—demand repayment. In this case, it happened to be slightly more than the settlement amount left after lawyer’s fees and expenses — about $417,000 placed in a trust for her future care.
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Words from the Coalition: Reactions to Deborah Shank’s Story
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt
We wanted to share with you a sampling of the responses we’ve recieved from our campaign to raise money for the Shank family. Thank you so much to everyone who has donated so far - and additional thanks to those of you who have given us feedback, shared your stories and told us your experience with Wal-Mart’s health care plan.
- “This same thing happened to my wife also. She has a terminal lung disease and is currently in the hospital now, because of complications from a botched gallbladder surgery. We sued the doctor, but my walmart insurance stepped in and took our settlement money. I am a manager at walmart, and i can’t believe that the company that I work for, could do this to me , and my family, but they did. I still have to work for them, because I need the insurance for my wife’s constant hospital stays. My life is ruined because of all of the debt that I am in, through no fault of my own. if you want to know how much walmart cares for families, just talk to my wife or me, and you will hear the truth.we were victimized first by the medical system and then by my own employer. i don’t know how the walton family, and the corporate leaders at walmart, can sleep at night. they should all be ashamed of themselves.”
- “I have a sister that was seriously injured recently in an accident at her local Wal-wort store. You might be interested in how the store and the corporation responded. If so, contact me and I will put you in contact with her, if you choose, with her permission.”
- “After watching this video, my heart went out to the Shanks and my respect for Wal-Mart has lowered even more! No sane person (pardon me, that wasn’t meant to be a pun) would ever do something as cruel and hateful as what Wal-Mart did to Deborah Shanks. Though I’m a bit to young to give a donation to her family by myself, I hope prayers are enough for right now!!”