Who would you say is the most repugnant corporation in American corporate history? Is it Enron, who gave record amounts to the Bush-Cheney machine and bankrupt millions of investors? Halliburton, the shameless war profiteer? Or Wal-Mart, the company that has done more than any other to drive down wages in America and has set a new low for how it treats its employees?
It's a tough choice. The competition is fierce. But lately I think Wal-Mart has been giving the others a run for their money, especially when it comes to cooking the books, deceiving the public with smoke-and-mirror statistics, and generally screwing over citizens and taxpayers. It's no secret that Wal-Mart treats its employees horribly, but Progress Ohio has uncovered troublesome data showing that the retailer is costing the Buckeye State taxpayers tens of millions on health care and welfare.
You see, Wal-Mart claims that only 2.6% of their workforce and their dependents rely on Medicaid - that appears to be a flat-out lie. If Wal-Mart's figure is correct, we would expect only 1,385 Ohio employees to be on Medicaid. However, more than 15,000 of Wal-Mart's Ohio employees and their dependents are on the program. Unless Wal-Mart's Medicaid enrollees have 10 dependents each, Wal-Mart's official number is suspect beyond reasonable doubt.
That's a lot of dough in a state that is under a lot of economic stress. Wal-Mart makes billions each year and Ohio is suffering mightily, yet Wal-Mart would rather enrich executives (4 out of 10 of the richest Americans are Waltons) and send billions to China rather than provide decent benefits to hard working Americans in Ohio. What is wrong with this picture?
If this concerns you as much as it does me, please join me at WakeUpWalmart.com to help get our priorities straight in Ohio and America once again.
The Ohio Benefits Report has been altered from the original publication. Appropriate changes were made to this diary to reflect those changes on Oct. 6, 2009.
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.
I watched the great movie Wall-E last night. If you haven't seen it yet, fire up your Netflix or jot down a note to hit Blockbuster after work.
If you have seen it, you probably recognized the corporate behemoth of Buy-N-Large. We have a similar, sinister company down here on Earth called Wal-Mart.
In the movie, Buy-N-Large has gotten so gargantuan and out-of-control that it has taken on every aspect of society: It peddles every possible product at its Supercenters, it sells gas, it controls the banks -- and it has even taken on the role of a quasi-government.
Wal-Mart would love to be Buy-N-Large if it could. Indeed, the Bentonville behemoth has recently attempted to grow beyond its traditional Supercenter model. It has introduced gas stations and has even tried to create a bank!
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:
A lot of my posts here pertain to corporate responsibility-- most specifically and most often, with the halting attempts of America's largest retailer to fully grasp and embrace the meaning of that term, especially as it pertains to its employees, here in Texas and around the country.
This is because of my association with Wake-Up Wal-Mart and my dedication to the group's agenda.
Generally in this pursuit, I oscillate between a tone of detached snark and one of outraged derision toward the company, so I've been fairly described as having "an axe to grind."
But I've been speechless since Black Friday. No snark, and it's hard to even muster outrage. There was a great thread on Daily Kos on the events of that day, and since that point we've learned that the name of the brave deceased worker is Jdimytai Damour.
It's been a week, and I still don't know what to say, but Meghan Scott of Wake-Up Wal-Mart has issued the following statement:
Supposedly, the company is specifically focused on facilitating the needs of mothers.
Walmart's silly, pandering, new "Eleven Moms" campaign-- consisting, no kidding, of 19 rather than 11 bargain-hunting, values-beaming women bloggers-- will probably serve its intended purpose of buoying the brand through the upcoming holiday season.
But to peel back the facile PR facade-- to examine real real stories of women's experiences at Walmart's stores-- is to see something else entirely:
Heather Silvis says she felt bullied when Wal-Mart associates told her she could not breastfeed her baby in the store on Two Notch Road.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s share price posted the biggest jump in 20 years, surging 11 percent to $55.17, after the world's largest retailer forecast "low-single" digit same-store sales growth on a percentage basis going into 2009. The company plans to increase international capital spending in emerging markets as it scales back U.S. expenditures.
So to keep track: as we experience the most devastating blow to our economy in 20 years (measured in terms of Dow percentage) Walmart experiences its largest gain.
Al Norman's got an interesting piece on the pace of Walmart growth, over at Huffington Post:
Wal-Mart holds a Wall St. analyst's meeting every October---right before Halloween---to announce its growth projection plans for the year. Wal-Mart opponents applauded the company's announcement this week that it would continue to slow down the production of new stores.
Even the Bentonville Behemoth's cheering section, aka the Murdoch Street Journal, notes this trend in financial-speak:
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) sees fiscal-year capital spending at the low end of its reduced expectations and said such expenditures might not increase next year. The retail giant continues to ratchet back its once-breakneck growth and focus on nurturing existing stores.
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.
