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.
Wal-Mart Tops Ohio List of Medicaid Recipients
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt
As the weakening economy takes its toll on state budgets across the country, a new study from Policy Matters Ohio shows that Wal-Mart employees top the state’s list of Medicaid recipients.
Researchers found that an average of 13,141 Wal-Mart employees and their children were on the state-sponsored medical plan, more than any other private employer in Ohio.
Wal-Mart’s company health plan remains out of reach for many of its employees, and Medicaid is often the only affordable option for low-earning workers. The company’s failure to provide adequate health insurance for its 1.4 million U.S. employees isn’t just an unfortunate company policy - it’s something that affects taxpayers across the country.
Public pays health care for private workers [Beacon Journal (Ohio)]
Thousands of workers across Ohio labor for a paycheck, but still lack health benefits from their employer for themselves or their children.
Instead, they rely on Medicaid — a program funded with state and federal tax dollars — to pay for their medical care.
Researchers with the nonpartisan think tank Policy Matters Ohio estimate in a new report that the state spent $111.5 million last year to cover Medicaid costs for more than 111,000 workers and their dependents from the 50 companies with the highest Medicaid enrollment.
The federal government’s estimated share of the cost totaled $182 million.
‘’Right now, we’re in a very tight budget,’’ said Piet van Lier, the study’s author and a senior researcher at Policy Matters Ohio. ‘’Medicaid is a very big expense — not only for Ohio, but for other states — and here’s a substantial benefit going to employers.’’
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Unionization Spreads Across Wal-Mart China
Posted by Research Team
Two stories in the Chinese press last week show that collective bargaining agreements are spreading across Wal-Mart’s China stores like wildfire. Several stores even had union card signing ceremonies, showing that employees take pride in their union membership.
The unions at Wal-Mart’s store in China are made possible in large part by China’s powerful retail labor laws. Strong governmental involvement has thus far been the most effective tool in the quest for Wal-Mart unionization. While workers in China bargain collectively for better pay and better benefits, politicians in the U.S. work to strengthen labor laws here so unionization is not just a possibility, but something workers can accomplish and take pride in.
900 Wal-Mart Employees in Wuhan Sign Collective Contract [Sina Finance]
On August 26, officials from the Wal-Mart store on Xudong Street and the store on Zhongshan Street in Wuhan, Hubei and the local labor union held a collective contract signing ceremony…
This collective contract involves nearly 900 Wal-Mart employees from two stores. The contract addresses essential issues such as wage increases, paid vacation, social security, worker safety, etc. with clear-cut provisions. The contract includes a mechanism to collectively consult on wages. For 2008 and 2009 full-time employee wages will increase an average of 8%. Workers with at least three years may sign the contract without a fixed deadline with provisions on salary, vacation, social security, working women’s rights, benefits, protections, etc. and employee welfare. “Henceforth, we employees have the right to demand wage increases,” a labor union representative from the Zhongshan store expressed.
Presently, Hunan has 27,000 companies that have agreed to collective contracts – establishing mechanisms to evaluate equality. For collective contracts, labor unions and workers elect representatives to consult and negotiate on issues such as wage and hour, work conditions, rest and vacations, worker health and safety, insurance, etc.
Friday Blog Round-Up: Labor Day Edition
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt
We’ll be extremely busy this weekend relaxing and celebrating the valiant efforts of American workers, so in the meantime - a brief round up of the week’s Wal-Mart blogs.
DEADLY BASSINETS SOLD AT WAL-MART
Wal-Mart Still Selling Dangerous Cribs [WakeUpWal-Mart.com Blog]
Wal-Mart has long been plagued with recalls of dangerous products, and it has often been implicated in taking too little action about such products. Now it seems Wal-Mart is still selling a dangerous crib that is responsible for two deaths.
Here is the story yesterday at Consumeraffairs.com. I hope Wal-Mart (mentioned in this story) and other retailers have stopped selling these products, since being notified of the imminent hazard warning. And I assure readers, if SFCA’s defense somehow prevails in court, that the Congress will be quick with a technical correction to the new law.
After the jump, Wal-Mart’s local food, more on the company’s mandatory meetings and the new Marketside stores.
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Wal-Mart draws a line between the company and its stores
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt
A story out today from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette helps to clear up some of the questions about Wal-Mart’s recent logo change. The article explains that Wal-Mart The Company will continue to use the current, hyphenated form of the logo but that Walmart The Store will use the fancy new non-hyphenated version. As if that weren’t confusing enough, the article explains that the ever popular “squiggly” will remain in the Wal-Mart cheer. Yes, questions of how to spell Wal-Mart’s name will now involve a lengthy existentialist examination.
Exactly why Wal-Mart feels the need to make this distinction - between “the company” and its stores - remains unclear. The company wanted a new look for its stores, but changing every instance of its logo might have proven too complicated. Wal-Mart is, after all, the world’s largest company. But the distinction also plays in to an issue we raised yesterday - Wal-Mart The Company is beginning to distance itself from its stores. The company’s new Marketside shops bear no mention of their Bentonville parent, and perhaps the hypen/no-hypen distinction plays in to that. Does Wal-Mart The Company exist separate from its stores? Can it ever?
‘Walmart’ new, but store’s familiar [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]
Wal-Mart or Walmart ? That depends, the company says. With the June 30 announcement of its new, nonhyphenated store logo, “Walmart” started showing up in some of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. ’s news releases and other statements and has been appearing in its printed advertising and in-store signs since then.
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Wal-Mart Still Selling Bassinets Tied to Infant Deaths
Posted by Media Team
The Chicago Tribune and Consumer Affairs bring news today that despite a warning from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Wal-Mart is still selling a line of bassinets that has killed two infants.
The bassinets - which are sold exclusively at Wal-Mart - feature metal bars spaced farther apart than CPSC guidelines require. In some instances, infants risk slipping through the metal bars and suffocating.
Despite the warning from the CPSC and the harrowing testimonies of parents who have witnessed the crib’s fatal flaw, Wal-Mart is still selling the bassinets on its website and in its stores.
Wal-Mart Selling Bassinets Blamed for Killing Two Babies [Consumer Affairs]
Simplicity bassinets that are still being sold at Wal-Mart and on Wal-Mart’s Web site have been blamed for killing two babies.
An apparently faulty frame on the Winnie the Pooh 4-in-1 Simplicity Bassinet crushed and suffocated two babies according to family members and a police report. This is the latest in a string of six deaths blamed on Simplicity baby furniture, with the previous four followed by recalls of those products.
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Court Case Reveals Alice Walton’s Contributions to Crystal Bridges
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt
A tumultuous lawsuit between Fisk University and the State of Tennessee has revealed just how much money Alice Walton has donated to her pet project, the Crystal Bridges Art Museum in Benton County, Arkansas. The figure is an astounding $317 million, small change for a woman worth $19 billion, but a bonafide fortune for any working American. The Walton family has long been a prominent patron of art and entertainment in northwest Arkansas - the Bud Walton Arena at the University of Arkansas is just a stone’s throw away from the Walton Arts Center in downtown Fayetteville. So Alice’s contributions to a still-unconstructed art museum in the area are part of a long family tradition.
That family tradition exists for a reason: in the span of six months - from November 2007 to June 2008 - the Walton family made $29 billion off the increase in Wal-Mart’s stock price. With income like that, it’s not surprising that family members can afford to build art museums almost single-handedly. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart employees across the country continue to make poverty-level wages and go without decent, affordable health care.
The article quotes museum director Bob Workman saying, “Crystal Bridges is a gift to the community from Alice Walton and the Walton family. The focus is on what we are creating, not what it is costing.” Perhaps an even better gift to the community - and communities across the country - would be to pay the Wal-Mart’s 1.4 million U.S. workers a fair wage, and build wealth from the ground up.
Crystal Bridges case sheds light on contributions [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]
Alice Walton, her family and one of their foundations have donated $317 million to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, which has nearly half a billion dollars in assets, according to documents filed in a Tennessee court.
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Saving Money or Saving Face? Wal-Mart Canada Pledges to Go Green
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt
Wal-Mart Canada has faced some big labor problems lately. A 2005 lawsuit against the company’s anti-union labor practices made it to the Canadian Supreme Court this month, and at almost the same time workers in a Wal-Mart garage in Gatineau, Quebec managed to unionze, much to the company’s chagrin. So the company’s PR department did what it does best: divert attention.
David Cheesewright, CEO of Wal-Mart Canada, announced today that all of the company’s new Canadian stores will be “energy efficient.” The retailer has yet to meet any independent guidelines for energy efficiency, so its environmental claims are somewhat unclear, but the announcement comes at a time when Wal-Mart Canada could use some serious public relations karma.
Cheesewright insisted that the efficiency improvements were simply cost-saving measures, and said “environmental sustainability and business sustainability—it’s the same thing.” However, the company has yet to announce any such measures for its U.S. stores - or its stores in any other country, for that matter. The number of “energy efficient” Wal-Mart stores remains a pitifully small percentage of the company’s total operations. So if Cheesewright’s statements are true, Wal-Mart is missing out on a lot of cost savings - and we all know Wal-Mart wouldn’t do a thing like that. Perhaps the retailer is actually just looking for some free PR among our neighbors to the north.
Wal-Mart aims for ‘greenest stores on the block’ [Financial Post (Canada)]
Wal-Mart Canada Corp. pushed its green agenda ahead Tuesday by pledging that all new stores will be built to be markedly more energy efficient, and existing stores will be retrofitted to make them more environmentally friendly.
“Wal-Mart Canada (WMT/NYSE) has been intensely dedicated to environmental sustainability over the past three years,” Wal-Mart Canada CEO David Cheesewright said at the annual meeting of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario on Tuesday. “Perhaps no change has been as significant as those made to the way we build and operate our buildings. And the changes are progressing. We are confident that Wal-Mart stores will be among the greenest on the block.”
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First Photos of Wal-Mart’s New “Marketside” Stores
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt
The Financial Times brings news that the Building Dept. of the City of Mesa, AZ. has posted on its website some of the first photos of Wal-Mart’s new “Marketside” stores. The stores signal a departure for Wal-Mart, as they are significantly smaller than the retailer’s traditional format and designed to compete head-to-head with UK retailer Tesco’s “Fresh and Easy” markets.
Marketside’s small format isn’t the only thing that distinguishes the pilot program from other Wal-Mart stores. Marketsides have completely independent design elements and don’t mention the word “Wal-Mart.” From the Financial Times:
The design includes a natural wood finish around the entrance, and deep-purple awnings - the same colour that will be used on the aprons of the staff, and on its website, http://www.marketplace.com. The Marketside name appears in lower case green lettering, with no reference to its parent company.
As Wal-Mart nears the U.S. saturation point for its traditional stores, the company has been forced to evolve into alternate formats. But Marketside’s distinct branding implies the company is worried customers have had enough not only of Supercenters, but of Wal-Mart itself.