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Here's an idea: Let's build a shopping mall on the National Mal in Washington, or even better, how about a McDonalds on Half Dome in Yosemite Park? Don't these sound like good ideas? Well if you're saying NO, then you probably agree that they make about as much sense as the proposal to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter on the grounds of the Wilderness Civil War Battlefield. Robert Duvall agrees also and spoke out earlier this year:
Just last week, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Friends of Wilderness Battlefield, and six nearby residents filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Orange County. The suit challenges the August 2009 approval of Walmart's proposal to plant a massive super center unacceptably close to the historic battlefield.
Video is via the Civil War Preservation Trust, and there is more after the fold:
This Labor Day, Wake Up Walmart, along with a large coalition of labor, environmental and community groups, are challenging Walmart to live up to their PR promises and join us in supporting the American Values Agenda for Change at Walmart.
To help with the effort, Wake Up Wal-Mart is airing two TV ads in major cities. Check out the first here and the second below the fold:
Last week Virginia's Orange County Board of Supervisors vote to approve the building of a new Wal-Mart Supercenter within the historic boundaries of the
Wilderness Battlefield - and one of the most significant battlefields of the Civil War. The Civil War Preservation Trust has been fighting Wal-Mart on this location for over a year - seeking an alternative location and compromoise - and after last week they desperately need everyones help to stop Wal-Mart from moving forward and opening the door to further destructive development.
Even State Senator Creigh Deeds, the Democratic candidate for Virginia Governor, has written a letter to the president and CEO of Wal-Mart pleading with him to move the location off the historic battlefield. Wake-Up Wal-Mart is helping in this fight and you can too by also writing a letter on the Civil War Preservation Trust's website and also help spread the word yourself.
More from Blue Virginia and the Washington Post below:
Walmart, in one of their worst ways of prioritizing prices above qualities to date, turns to a foreign drug supplier, Ranbaxy Laboratories, LTD, who has repeatedly been investigated by the FDA and the DoJ for "inadequate" safeguards against contamination, falsification of records and submitting false information to the FDA.
On top of that, just eight months before the FDA inspected Ranbaxy's Paonta Sahib plant and found significant violations, Walmart awarded the company a "Supplier Award" for improving shipping times and performance.
In a new report on our website, we detail their multi-year spanning violations, DoJ investigation, Congressional Investigation, and list out all of the drugs made at the facility in questions. Additionally, we detail their recent violations below.
The WSJ's law blog has an update on the discrimination suit in which a 54-year-old Wal-Mart employee from California named Betty Dukes alleged in a discrimination claim that she was denied the training needed to obtain a higher-paying job because of her sex.
It seems that Wal-Mart is on a settling kick. Fresh off their announcement that they will settle 63 wage and hour class action law suits, Wal-Mart has decided to settle a class action suit on behalf of African Americans who felt they were being discriminated against in Wal-Mart's trucking fleet. The settlement calls for Wal-Mart to pay $17.5 million and improve their hiring practices. Among their new practices will be appointing a diversity recruiter, hiring minorities proportionate to applicants, and stepping up recruitment for African Americans.
One thing that has been hammered home time again by Walmart critics is that its unsavory business practices has allowed it to thrive in recession by profiting off the misery of others. We saw more evidence of that when it released its January revenue numbers:
One of the most consistent defenses of Walmart is that it has succeeded because it simply delivered what customers wanted and that if you don't like it, just don't shop there. But Firedoglake has a great piece up this week that explains how even the non-Walmart shoppers are not only affected by Walmart, but are actually paying in many ways to subsidize it:
Have you just started shopping regularly at Walmart? This may be a sign that you haven't been doing so well financially. At least that's what some credit card companies think, because reportedly your credit card score can be lowered if you shop at the retail giant:
This December, Wake Up Wal-Mart is going all out with our annual Holiday Campaign to awaken America's largest retailer to its responsibilities. Here is a peek at our second TV ad for 2008's holiday season:
Titled Wal-Mart: America Just Can't Afford It Any Longer, the ad focuses on the hidden costs of shopping at Wal-Mart:
Walmart is notorious for pulling all kinds of schemes and shady tricks, but in Connecticut, their fleecing consumers and getting away with it in plain sight.
According to the Hartford Courant, Walmart is taxing people who buy products and then taxing them again if they want to return it. A surprisingly large number of consumers do return items, especially around holiday season when they exchange gifts, so this is costing consumers a lot.
Question: What do Walmart and Wall Street have in common?
Answer: The execs get fat contracts while the workers get shafted.
A week after Wall Street bankers collected taxpayer-funded golden parachutes, Walmart announced that it was shutting down its first shop in North America that had successfully unionized.
Brian White at Blogging Stocks reports on the shuttered store in Gatineau, Quebec:
"The retailer would rather see the operation shut down entirely instead of having employees with any kind of power. ... Was the global retailer trying to get a message out to any other Wal-Mart location in North America -- "unionize and we will shut your doors?" If so, that's no way to run a business, right? Is Wal-Mart so afraid of unions in its stores that it would rather shut them down (or pieces of them) instead of continuing to operate?"
McCain probably thought that by choosing Sarah Palin as a running mate he could mask his record on women's issues - or to borrow a timely phrase, put lipstick on the pig that is his platform.
But WakeUpWalmart.com is going to make sure he doesn't get away with it.
In a new ad, WakeUpWalmart.com highlights what is one of the most egregious examples of his standing in the way of progressive reforms like fair pay for women.
Women working at Walmart make notoriously less than their male counterparts (it's the Walmart way). That's why WakeUp Walmart joined together with other groups to form the largest discrimination class action in history.
This was a chance for Big Mac to prove those reform credentials he likes to talk about, but instead he case a big, fat, regressive "NO" to fair pay.
Amid a new national recognition of our utterly corrupt centers of finance, and with an economic tailspin generating from those centers now reaching the very heart of the nation, John McCain is changing his mind by the hour.
He doesn't know which master he's supposed to please.
My friends, you ask: what's this got to do with Walmart?
My freinds: this has got everything to do with Walmart:
Mrs. Clinton largely sat on the sidelines when it came to Wal-Mart and unions, according to board members. Since its founding in 1962, Wal-Mart has aggressively fought unionization efforts at its stores and warehouses, employing hard-nosed tactics — like firing union supporters and allegedly spying on employees — that have become the subject of legal complaints against the company.
A special team at Wal-Mart handled those activities, but Mr. Walton was vocal in his opposition to unions. Indeed, he appointed the lawyer who oversaw the company’s union monitoring, Mr. Tate, to the board, where he served with Mrs. Clinton.
During their meetings and private conversations, Mrs. Clinton never voiced objections to Wal-Mart’s stance on unions, according to Mr. Tate and John A. Cooper, another board member.
“She was not an outspoken person on labor, because I think she was smart enough to know that if she favored labor, she was the only one,” Mr. Tate said. “It would only lesson her own position on the board if she took that position.”
Mr. Tate, a prominent management lawyer who helped stop union drives at many major companies, said he worked closely with Mr. Walton to convince workers that a union would be bad for the company, personally telling employees when he visited stores that “the only people who need unions are those who do not work hard.”
Walmart, in one of their worst ways of prioritizing prices above qualities to date, turns to a foreign drug supplier, Ranbaxy Laboratories, LTD, who has repeatedly been investigated by the FDA and the DoJ for "inadequate" safeguards against contamination, falsification of records and submitting false information to the FDA.
