Here is the Ad running on NY1 from the guys at Wal-Mart NO WAY!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48oOPX33i2w]
Here is the Ad running on NY1 from the guys at Wal-Mart NO WAY!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48oOPX33i2w]
WalMart Gets Heat from Conservatives for Joining Gay Group
Nearly two months after Wal-Mart announced its membership into the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, an anti-gay organization is sounding off, asking its own members to avoid shopping at the retail giant. The American Family Association is reminding its supporters that Wal-Mart recently joined the NGLCC and says Wal-Mart plans to give “two large grants” to the organization.
According to Cybercast News Service, the president of the NGLCC said he expects Wal-Mart to use its influence to pressure suppliers such as Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson and Gillette to give preferential treatment to businesses owned by gay and lesbians. The AFA, noting that the NGLCC is a leading promoter of same-sex marriage, is urging conservatives to take action: “Send your email to Wal-Mart expressing you displeasure with their promotion of homosexual marriage,” AFA told its supporters, reports CNS. “Call your local Wal-Mart manager and express your displeasure.”
According to the Agape Press, AFA states it found (via a search function at Walmart.com) more than 1,100 items for sale when the term “gay” was entered, almost 500 in response to the term “lesbian,” and more than a hundred based on the terms “transgender,” “bisexual,” and “gay marriage.” Sharp says the corporate giant’s new link to support of the homosexual agenda is clear. “There’s no question that Wal-Mart is supporting homosexuality,” Randy Sharp, AFA’s director of special projects, told the Agape Press. “They’re supporting the homosexual agenda, whose number-one directive is to bring same-sex marriage to America.”
Despite all the pressure and criticism, Wal-Mart stock was up this week. Accrding to the Associated Press, Wal-Mart pleased investors with its announcement that it “plans to bring costs in line with a slowdown in sales and earnings growth.” Even so, the company reportedly plans to open stores in 600 new locations next year, reports the AP.
Last night 40-50 concerned community members joined at 30 Rock to tell Lee Scott he and his irresponsible company are not welcome in New York City. It was a successful night filled with chants that surely intimidated the Wal-Mart entourage. Scott, who received an environmental award last night, knows Wal-Mart is not welcome in New York(taken from Wal-Mart’s fake blog www.paidcritics.com).
Our organization has brought people of all backgrounds together to fight for a common cause. We have all seen the facts of the affect Wal-Mart has on communities, how they treat their employees, and their disrespect for labor laws. along with the help of community activists has stopped them from opening stores throughout the five boroughs. We Thank all of you for your support.
Press from yesterday’s events…
NY Metro: http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/WalMart__MTV/5295.html
NY SUN: http://www.nysun.com/article/42161
5:30 pm
30 Rockerfeller Center 49th st. Entrance
WAL – MART
Continues their Attempt to Enter Our City
Lee Scott To Be Honored
Show him Low Wages,
Increased Polution, No Benefit Jobs AREN’T WELCOME IN NYC
For More Information and to RSVP Please
Email: Walmartfreenyc@yahoo.com
Wake up Wal-Mart T-Shirts will be Distributed at the Event
Wal-Mart must pay at least $78.5 million for violating Pennsylvania labor laws by forcing employees to work through rest breaks and off the clock, a jury found Friday.
Plaintiffs’ lawyer Michael Donovan will also seek another $62 million in damages because the jury found that Wal-Mart acted in bad faith. Common Pleas Judge Mark Bernstein is expected to rule on that issue in the next few weeks.
The jury awarded the exact amount the plaintiffs sought, rejecting Wal-Mart’s claim that some employees chose to work through breaks and that the loss of a few minutes’ pay here or there was insignificant.
Reason #439 Not to let Wal-Mart in our Unique City.
Honestly, after reading countless articles and reports on the great people who run Wal-Mart and their PR department you learn to laugh at some of the ridiculous stunts they try and pull over the eyes of American people. Regardless of where we stand on Wal-Mart, their ethics and Public Relations are a joke. Whether it be hiring fake liberal politicians, creating fake organizations or establishing front groups now what is simply the icing on the cake, Fake couples and their Fake traveling stories.
It has finally been revealed that the humorus flog (fake blog), www.WalMartingAcrossAmerica.com is a flat out PR stunt.
MediaPost.com has revealed the truth about the two travelers “Jim” and “Laura”. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Jim and Laura, here is a quick summary on what their blog was about…
Jim and Laura are like every American couple, hard workers just simply in search of a fabulous vacation from their full-time jobs. One day Jim and Laura had a brainstorm,
“I started thinking about all the other amazing things there are to see in this vast country of ours. And then I started thinking about how Wal-Mart — one in every town, practically — lets you park overnight for free.”
Great idea, couldn’t have said it better myself, this is where we encounter our first problem(s), they don’t exist (yet at least). Through non-stop heavy criticism from bloggers proclaiming that Jim and Laura did not exist, they now do…Wal-Mart Watch: Identity revealed.
“Laura” is now Laura St. Claire, a freelance writer. Jim is James Thresher, a professional photographer and Washington Post employee. Freelancing although, is against his contract with the Post, which has ordered him to return Wal-Mart’s money and remove his photos from the flog.
“Wal-Mart has hired fake people,” says Jonathan Rees, a labor historian and associate professor at Colorado State University at Pueblo, who has also worked as a staff researcher at the AFL-CIO. In a blog posting for the Web site The Writing On the Wal, Reese published an open letter to Laura and Jim challenging them to reveal themselves and asking who paid for their RV and gas.
When the blog was first released, many bloggers immediately knew how unrealistic the blog was. There has been plenty, not surprisingly… there’s more here, here, and elsewhere.
Businessweek sums up the entire confusting soap opera here in this report – “Jim & Laura- The Real Story”
Blogging is an independent way for regular people to voice their opinions and feelings. We’re fine with Wal-Mart running a blog, what we shouldn’t be fine with is the integrity of their blogs. Wal-Mart trying to create this ‘hip’ image that it is so far from, this is yet another example of Wal-Mart’s attempt to fool their consumers. Another reason why this company is extremely messed up.
“Edelman wanted to make consumers think that Wal-Mart is a hip place that you’d want to use as the anchor point for a roadtrip. The problem is it’s not. And because blogging is not a control-based medium, Edelman couldn’t make Wal-Mart appear to be something it’s not. It rang false, and they got caught.”
—Publishing 2.0
Wal-Mart Adjusts Attendance Policy
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has enacted a new attendance policy that penalizes workers for multiple unexcused absences and requires them to call an 800 number whenever they get sick, changes critics say are part of a bigger effort to nudge out unhealthy and long-tenured employees.
Also on the labor front, a Pennsylvania jury on Friday awarded $78.4 million to thousands of Wal-Mart employees who claimed they were forced to work during rest breaks and off the clock.
Wal-Mart, of Bentonville, Ark., says the new attendance policy benefits employees by documenting their requests for time off instead of relying on harried store managers to remember each request. And it benefits shoppers by discouraging unexcused absenteeism. “It’s not for tracking; it’s really to ensure a more consistent application of our absentee policy,” spokesman John Simley said.
The new policy instructs employees requesting time off for illness to call an 800 number to get a code and then relay that code to their store manager for approval of their absence. Previously, employees asked their store manager directly for such time off, employees say.
In addition, the new policy formalizes penalties for employees who fail to get their absences authorized or don’t bother to call. Among them: Any employee with more than three unauthorized absences in a six-month span will be disciplined, and those with seven will be fired. Any employee who is absent three times during a six-month period and doesn’t call the 800 number for any of the three times can be fired. And employees needing more than three consecutive sick days are encouraged to apply for an unpaid leave of absence or time off under the Family Medical Leave Act. Previously, store managers had more discretion regarding discipline for unexcused absences.
The policy change comes at a time when some of Wal-Mart’s 1.3 million U.S. workers are riled by fears that the retailer wants to cut costs by attracting healthier employees and a greater percentage of part-time workers. Some employees and Wal-Mart critics decry the new policy as a way for Wal-Mart to discourage unhealthy employees by tracking sick-time use more closely, setting stricter guidelines for authorization and making the process of applying for sick leave more onerous.
“I guess they’re just trying to see how many people they can get rid of,” said Ramiro Gonzalez, a 49-year-old full-time worker in the produce section of a Wal-Mart in El Paso, Texas. “They’re trying to make ways that you can mess it up so they can let you go, especially if you’re a full-timer.”
Wal-Mart’s concerns about its soaring health-insurance costs came to light last year, when an internal memorandum authored by a top Wal-Mart official was leaked. The memo offered numerous suggestions for corralling benefits costs by luring healthier workers.
The new policy “just sends another terrible message that this company looks at its workers as a commodity,” said Chris Kofinis, spokesman for Wal-Mart critic WakeUpWalMart.com.
From the employer perspective, automated telephone or Internet-based systems to track worker absences can protect employers against litigation related to providing adequate time off to workers under overlapping federal and state leave laws. “There are a lot of issues that surface when someone calls in sick,” said Lisa Franke, a workplace analyst with CCH Inc., a Riverwoods, Ill., provider of employment-law information to companies. “It’s really an administrative nightmare, so a lot of employers are outsourcing that to the experts and having them do the dirty work.”
Unscheduled absences cost some large employers more than $1 million a year, according to a CCH survey of 323 human-resources executives last year. The survey found that unscheduled absenteeism cost employers $660 per employee per year on average last year, up from $610 the prior year.
In the Pennsylvania case, Wal-Mart was ordered by the jury to pay damages to nearly 187,000 current and former workers in that state. The class-action case had covered labor practices at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores from March 1998 through May 2006. In addition to the damages awarded by the jury, a state judge is expected to add $62 million in minimum damages required under state labor law, according to Michael Donovan, attorney for the plaintiffs in the case. That would bring total damages in the case to about $140.4 million, excluding an estimated $40 million in legal fees, he said. Wal-Mart attorney Neal Manne said he was confident the company would appeal the jury’s decision.
—- Peter Loftus and James Covert contributed to this article.
Write to Kris Hudson at kris.hudson@wsj.com and Kris Maher at kris.maher@wsj.com
Wal–Mart Comes To New York
Forbes – NY,USA
After a number of false starts, Wal–Mart Stores is planning to launch in New York City–the five boroughs, and especially the juicy, consumer-driven world of …
Made in China: Wal–Mart Unions
YaleGlobal Online – CT,USA
… the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), the trade union notorious throughout the world for being “useless,” has taken on Wal–Mart and set up …<!– D(["mb","
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nnBoard gets Wal–Mart’s revised site plans
nFinger Lakes Times – Geneva,NY,USA
nGENEVA – Developers presented town planners with modified site plans fornthe Wal–Mart expansion project last night, but no action wasntaken on them. …“,1] ); D([“mb”,”
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Wal–Mart loses suit over rest breaks
Boston Globe – United States
PHILADELPHIA — Wal–Mart broke Pennsylvania labor laws by forcing employees to work through rest breaks and off the clock, a jury decided yesterday in a …
Wal–Mart’s Too Cool for School
MSNBC – USA
By Rick Aristotle Munarriz. It’s another small step back for Wal–Mart(NYSE: WMT) and a giant leap back for its not-so-hip kind. The …
Why Wal-Mart Wants to Invade New York
Think Wal-Mart is just going to pack up its box and go home? Think again.
The Evils of Wal–Mart
ProgressiveU.org – San Mateo,CA,USA
Today my dad sent me an article from “Shopping Centers Today” about Wal–Mart‘s newest plan to take over the world: having different stores target different …
Official Union in China Says All Wal-Marts Are Organized
<!– D(["mb","New York Times – United States
“,1] ); D([“mb”,”n… Mr. Guo said the labor federation would now assist workers inntheir negotiations with Wal–Mart management for newncontracts and would seek to improve …
n
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n This as-it-happens Google Alert is brought to you by Google.n
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“,1] ); D([“mb”,”
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… Mr. Guo said the labor federation would now assist workers in their negotiations with Wal–Mart management for new contracts and would seek to improve …
Wal-Mart Voters
The GOP-leaning retailer is encouraging employees to vote. Will that help the Democrats?
By Daniel Gross
Last Friday, Wal-Mart announced it was starting a campaign to encourage its 1.3 million associates to register to vote and participate in the electoral process. Wal-Mart is hiring politicos from the left (Charles Baker) and right (Terry Nelson) to help, and the company is providing workers with voter-registration and education materials.
Critics will assume that this is yet another attempt by Wal-Mart to stack the deck in favor of its favorite political party: the GOP. As the Center for Responsive Politics noted, Wal-Mart has given more than $1 million in federal campaign donations in this cycle, with 71 percent going to Republicans. And Wal-Mart itself is a lot like the contemporary Republican Party—strong in the South, Midwest, Sunbelt, and Great Plains, weak in the cities and coastal areas, and steadfastly hostile to organized labor. The company has also been less than subtle in letting employees know what it thinks about certain politicians. As the Financial Times noted, “In August, Wal-Mart distributed a letter to its employees in Iowa and three other states, highlighting what it said were inaccuracies in criticism by Gov. Tom Vilsack, as well as Sens. Evan Bayh of Indiana and Joseph Biden of Delaware and New Mexico’s Gov. Bill Richardson.” (Democrats, all.) Wal-Mart also promised employees it would “keep you informed about what these political candidates are saying about your company while on the campaign trail.”
But with Wal-Mart, the politico-economic issues are never as simple as they seem, as former Kerry adviser Jason Furman has argued. It is safe to assume that most senior officers of the company are Republicans, although their numbers now include top flack Leslie Dach, a former Democratic political operative. But what about its vast army of associates? If Wal-Mart encourages them to vote and brings some marginal voters to the ballot box in the process, it could be doing Democrats a huge favor.
Wal-Mart’s diversity data shows that the company’s workforce, and in particular its vast army of sales associates, looks an awful lot like the Democratic base.
It is disproportionately African-American. African-Americans are about 11 percent of the American population and vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. According to this CNN exit poll, they went for Kerry by an 88-11 margin in 2004. But African-Americans constitute nearly 17 percent of Wal-Mart’s employees and 18 percent of sales workers. Encouraging more middle- and lower-income African-Americans to vote in states like Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Mississippi would almost certainly be a net positive for Democratic candidates.
We know, as well, that women tend to vote disproportionately for Democrats. In 2004, according to CNN, women (and working women) voted for Kerry by a 51-48 margin. Women are substantially overrepresented in Wal-Mart’s workforce. About 60 percent of all employees are women. And three-quarters of its sales workers are female—a higher proportion than at other retailers. All things being equal, more women voting will boost Democratic candidates.
Finally, Wal-Mart’s workforce is disproportionately composed of lower-income workers. Barbara Ehrenreich says Wal-Mart’s mean wage is $9.68 an hour, which comes out to about $20,000 a year on a full-time basis. In 2004, again according to CNN, those with incomes under $15,000 voted for John Kerry by a 63-36 margin, and those with incomes in the $15,000-$30,000 range voted for Kerry by a 57-42 margin. More lower-income Americans, many of whom are women and African-American, voting would benefit Democratic candidates.
Now, if Wal-Mart’s workers all suffer from false consciousness and, a la Thomas Frank’s Kansans, reliably vote against their own economic interests, then Wal-Mart’s efforts to get them to the polls could help Republicans. But if the African-American, female, and low-wage workers who toil at Wal-Mart tend to vote the way other African-American, female, and low-wage workers who toil elsewhere tend to vote, then Wal-Mart’s efforts will be a boon to Democrats.
Another possibility is that by encouraging employees to vote and making it clear which party it generally supports, Wal-Mart is unduly pressuring its employees to vote for Republicans. But unless Wal-Mart goons accompany associates into the ballot box, it’s hard to see how that would work. Wal-Mart employees may not have been successful in organizing unions, but they don’t simply take whatever the company dishes out without resisting. Lots of them show the ultimate form of resistance to pressure from their employer: Every year, about 40 percent of them quit.
Daniel Gross (www.danielgross.net) writes Slate‘s “Moneybox” column. You can e-mail him at moneybox@slate.com.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2151043/