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Wal-Mart Moms

The finely demarcated world of political demographics first gave us Soccer Moms.  Then Sarah Palin, the Alaskan 'pit bull', introduced us to Hockey Moms. 

But hovering in the background is the plum working class target of both political parties, the so-called Wal-Mart Moms. Or, as the Republicans would have it, Wal-Mart Women: 

"The fact is, women hauling smiley-face Wal-Mart bags make up a big chunk of the country: Nearly 20% of American women shop at Wal-Mart once a week or more. And the white women who constitute the majority of that group are classic swing voters, unlike their husbands, who ... are more reliably Republican."

Here's the irony.  Just as the campaign for the presidency heats up, big bad Wal-Mart has decided to back away from its less than positive image by opening up a chain of large convenience stores called Marketside with absolutely zero reference to Wal-Mart as the parent company.

Wal-Mart Watch calls it a "stealth" move by Wal-Mart to infiltrate into urban and exurban areas without the typical uproar caused by an opening of one of its Supercenters.

I have no idea whether the new Marketside endeavor will operate under the same low cost, low wage, low benefits principle of the world's largest retailer, but I'm betting it will.

And that's not a good thing for working class Americans despite what you'll hear from Republicans and libertarians who push unregulated free markets.

The milions of Wal-Mart employees who work for far less than living wages is testament to that.

Once again, Wal-Mart bares its anti-union teeth

A few years back, I played an active role in a local coalition fighting the establishment of a Wal-Mart super store on the edge of my Sellwood neighborhood.

So it comes as no surprise to me that the world's biggest --maybe second biggest-- corporation and the nation's largest employer with 1.4 million workers has advised its employees to do everything possible to prevent Barack Obama from becoming the next President of the United States.

Why?  Obama favors passage of the Employees Free Choice Act which, according to Wal-Mart executives, would make it far easier for unions to "add millions of new members", thereby jeopardizing the jobs of Wal-Mart "associates".  Rising labor costs, it seems, may force employee lay-offs. 

Wal-Mart since its inception has been fiercely anti-union.   Keeping its labor and benefits costs low has always been a key element in driving down the cost of its products.  Unionization threatens that.

The irony is that Obama has never truly been an anti-Wal-Mart kind of pol.  In 2007, he backed the pro-Wal-Mart candidate for alderman in Chicago's 3rd Ward, Dorothy Tillman, against labor candidate Pat Dowell.  Some speculated that in his run for President, Obama needed to stay on the good side of Mayor Richard Daley, another Wal-Mart backer and ally of Tillman.

More recently, Obama named another admirer of Wal-Mart's low costs, Jason Furman, as his economic policy advisor.  Needless to say, that didn't sit well with the anti-Wal-Mart crowd.

So maybe Wal-Mart ought to think twice about its opposition to Barack Obama.  He may turn out to be a friend in wolf's clothing.

Latest M37 filings: Is Wal-Mart coming to Sellwood?

Yesterday's KGW online news item about the first Measure 37 claim to be tried in court also included this blip about the latest claims by developers to cash in on M37 before Monday's deadline:

"Meanwhile, land development requests that could mean a new gas station in Sandy or a Wal-Mart in Portland's historic Sellwood district poured in as property owners rushed to file Measure 37 claims by a Monday deadline."

That can mean only one thing: real estate mogul Howard Dietrich has filed his threatened M37 claim on the piece of land he wants to develop and lease to Wal-Mart.

For those of you who haven't followed the story, the Sellwood Wal-Mart proposal is unique.  Unlike Gresham and other Wal-Mart targets in the Portland area, Howard Dietrich, through his Nelson Development Company, owns the property at the foot of the Tacoma Street overpass on McLoughlin Blvd.  Not Wal-Mart.  And it was Dietrich's idea, not Wal-Mart's, to site a mega-big box store on the lot he owns. 

For over a year, those of us in the No Sellwood Wal-Mart campaign haven't heard a peep from Dietrich.  The campaign's steering committee, with $6000 in the bank, has temporarily shut down operations.

Maybe it's now time to gear it up again.

A couple of other posts I've written about Wal-Mart (there have been many) can be found here and here.  Then there's this must read riff on Blogger Jack's falling out with Tribune columnist Phil Stanford on the appropriateness of a Wal-Mart mega-store in Sellwood.

Hooray for Sam Adams! Wal-Mart is bad for Portland AND bad for business!

I take this issue personally.  That sign pictured in the O's front page piece on Sam Adams' opposition to Wal-Mart?  The NOsellwoodWALMART.com sign?  I'm the one primarily responsible for it's creation and production.

Sam Adams was up-front and vocal early on in the grassroots effort to stop the development of a Wal-Mart store on the edge of Sellwood.  So far the effort has seemed to work.  We've heard nothing, not a peep, from developer Howard Dietrich about building a store for Wal-Mart to lease  at the foot of Tacoma Street on McLoughlin Blvd.  For that, I give credit to Adams and the frowny face signs you see everywhere in Sellwood and surrounding neighborhoods.

Adams declared himself ex parte in the Sellwood battle, meaning that he wouldn't vote with the city council should Wal-Mart/Dietrich appeal the issue to the council.  The same is now true over the Hayden Island proposal, which Dietrich,apparently, also has a hand in. 

What the article doesn't say is that the city council only has jurisdiction if a negative finding by a land use hearings officer is appealed.  Adams' so-called "activism", then, is probably not a big deal in the ultimate outcome of the Hayden Island decision.  As in Sellwood, what it will come down to is the issue of traffic over the already congested Interstate Bridge.

Beyond that, Adams is absolutely correct, and his critics wrong, on the impact of Wal-Mart on surrounding businesses.  It has been demonstrated repeatedly that Wal-Mart crushes competition.  Intentionally!   So it's absurd to claim that Adams's stance is anti-business.  It would be more accurate to characterize Adams as pro-Portland business.  And for that he should be commended.

On a side note, conservative Republicans who benefit disproportionately from Wal-Mart's campaign contributions, may in truth be anti-small business.  From the early days of the Reagan Administration attempts have been made to abolish the Small Business Administration.   The latest conservative criticizing the SBA is the nutty Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn.

So let's be careful about who we label anti-business.

 

Hey Wal-Mart, sue ME!

If you're gonna sue someone for trademark infringement, it oughta be me. 

After all, I'm the one responsible, at least partially, for designing and producing the frowny-faced NOsellwoodWALMART.com lawn signs that you can't help but see if you walk, or drive (the preferred conveyance if the destination is one of the two Wal-Mart stores up on 82nd), down any street in my Sellwood neighborhood.

That frowny face is clearly a reference to your smiley face logo, a deliberate and critical reference, if you will, a parody of the happy face that Wal-Mart presents to the public  Maybe not as offensive as Charles Smith's WAL*OCAUST T-shirts, but parody and free speech nonetheless.

So there it is.  Sue me!

Wal-Mart in the news

You may have heard that country music superstar Garth Brooks has signed an exclusive merchandising contract with Wal-Mart.  But you probably haven't heard "Garth" secretly singing  "I've Got Friends with Low Wages."  It's devastatingly funny, at least to someone like me who doesn't like Wal-Mart.  The music video even has a cameo appearance by Sally Field reprising her role as Norma Rae, the title character in one of my all time favorite movies.

In other news, if you listen to public radio, like I do, you've probably heard that Wal-Mart is now one of its sponsors, or funders.  So am I, to the tune of eight bucks a month, but  you'll never hear my name mentioned.  My piddling contribution doesn't amount to much compared to the millions Wal-Mart has probably given to NPR.  Do you suppose Wal-Mart really "supports" non-commercial radio?  I don't think so.  But it is good PR.

In the bad news (for Wal-Mart) category, Maryland passed a law forcing Wal-Mart to provide health insurance to all its employees.  Washington has a similar bill in the works, and thirty or so other states, including Oregon, may follow suit.  Is that good news for Wal-Mart critics?  Well, yes and no.

It's good in that Wal-Mart insures less than half ot its employees and relies heavily on the kindness of the public sector to take care of the rest.  It's bad news in that forcing up Wal-Mart's healthcare costs is hardly an incentive for the company to raise its poverty level wages ( "I've got friends with loooow wages"), let alone unionizing the workforce.    I'm secretly on the side of Wal-Mart in their objections to the Maryland law.  You see, I think the government should take responsibility for the healthcare of its citizens, as in national single-payer healthcare.  It would be a boon for business.

Finally, in local news, the city of Forest Grove is demanding that the proposed Cornelius Wal-Mart include an eight foot wall to completely shield it from the thieves and shoplifters who, after "lifting" valuable merchandise, will undoubtedly flee into Forest Grove to escape arrest.  Not a good idea.  Just join with the opposition and stop the development entirely.  That's the best protection from the criminals who hang out at Wal-Mart megastores.

Speaking of opposition, tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m at the Sellwood SMILE station come hear Javon Gilmore from Gresham and other anti-Wal-Mart types from Sellwood and Cedar Mill speak on potential cures for the Wal-Mart cancer.

Questions for Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart's corporate mucky-mucks recently released this statement to counter all the bad publicity heaped on Wal-Mart from the just-concluded "Higher Expectations Week", which included the Robert Greenwald anti- Wal-Mart movie.

Here are three questions I have for Wal-Mart's corporate brass in response to the "statement":

1. If you want to benefit "working families", why not pay your 1.5 million employees a living wage?  As you are well aware, Wal-Mart's low wage strategy is widely emulated by other big-box mega-retailers.  You have the opportunity to set a good example.
2. Is the plan to provide health coverage for an additional 100,000 employees enough?  Only 47% of your employees, or about 705,000, are currently covered.  Providing health insurance for 100,000 more would still leave 605,000 uninsured.
3. The plan to cut corporate greenhouse gases sounds great, but what about all those cars people drive to your Supercenters and giant discount stores?  I don't know for sure, but I think that the gases emitted from those millions of weekly car trips dwarf whatever pollutants you say you won't release.  Good PR though.  And at least you tacitly admit that global warming is a reality, unlike your conservative free market comrades who deny it.

Before you answer these questions, you might want to read this Neal Peirce column.  It includes this interesting flip-flop on corporate responsiblity as enunciated by the Business Roundtable:

"...as recently as 1992 (the year of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton’s death), the Business Roundtable of top business leaders was asserting that corporations had a major responsibility not just to stockholders, but to their employees, society at large, and the nation’s economy. But now ..., the Business Roundtable, indeed most of the corporate world, focuses almost exclusively on profits for stockholders."

Do you agree?

A star-studded event

Yesterday's gala event at the Moreland Theater, the showing of Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, attracted a crowd of 300 people and a smattering of local celebs.  Oh, and the man himself, Robert Greenwald, the director and producer of the documentary.

In attendance were City Commissioner Sam Adams, who said a few words before the show (as did Greenwald.) Barbara Bernstein from KBOO was there.  So was Steve Duin, the O's marquee columnist.  Look for a column from Duin about the event, about Greenwald, and about Wal-Mart sometime soon.

But it's the people, the everyday folks, that matter.  Word has it that Greenwald's movie has been attracting hordes of people everywhere.  The battle- between the corporate behemoth and just about everyone else, save a few right wing zealots, libertarians, and Bill O'Reilly- has been joined. 

How will it turn out?  Time will tell, but I trust in the power of the people.

The case against Wal-Mart

"Wal-Mart must feel like a piñata these days -- everyone's lining up to take a shot at it."

That everyone would include me and the gang at NASAW - Neighbors Against Sellwood/Ardenwald Wal-Mart.  Our latest "shot" is a showing of Robert Greenwald's devastating new documentary, Wal-Mart: The High  Price of Low Cost, at the Moreland Theater this Saturday at 12:30 p.m.  Click here for details.

Why Wal-Mart?  Here's how Robert Borosage and Troy Peters explain Wal-Mart as pinata:

"If Wal-Mart's size is a problem, its policies are a threat. Wal-Mart is the model 'low-road' corporation in the global economy. Its efficiency is celebrated; but its exploitation is caustic. The average pay of a Wal-Mart employee is $8.23 per hour, or an average yearly income of $14,000 -- not enough to lift a family out of poverty. Wal-Mart is infamous for requiring workers to work overtime off the books. It's been cited for locking workers in plants overnight. The company has been hauled into court for discriminating against female employees. And it is viciously, rabidly anti-union, crushing any attempt by its workers to organize to gain a fair share of the profits they help generate."

If that's not indictment enough, there's always Wal-Mart's continuing deceit and secrecy about its corporate strategies.  The latest is the release of an "internal document" revealing Wal-Mart's true plans for expansion:  "...484 stores across the United States next year, over 100 more than previously disclosed...  ."  That follows the memo detailing various strategies for cutting employees healthcare benefits.

Greenwald's documentary unfortunately doesn't touch on the "Wal-Mart 22", Jonathan Tasini's reference to the twenty-two Democrats who voted against an amendment to a labor appropriations bill that in effect protected Wal-Mart from the prying eyes of the government. The amendment would have have "...barred any spending of money by the Department of Labor to implement the part of the deal the department had made with Wal-Mart calling for advance notice of inspections any time the DOL planned to investigate Wal-Mart."

Tasini concludes that these "lawmakers" are essentially bought and paid for by law breaking corporations.  Surprised?  You shouldn't be.  Remember Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic candidate for President in 2008, served on the Board of Directors of Wal-Mart for six years.

In the heated battle between Wal-Mart and its adversaries, both sides are turning to religious leaders for support.  I don't know how anyone with religious values could possibly join forces with Wal-Mart.  But then again, George W. Bush relies heavily on his fundamentalist Christian base, and George W. and Wal-Mart have much in common.  Wal-Mart is in fact a big contributor to Republicans and Bush.

On the other hand, I like what a Presbyterian minister in Los Angeles had to say about Wal-Mart:

"They are destroying community, which is a value of Jesus; they are exercising greed, which is against the values of Jesus; and they are promoting a culture of greed and extending a culture of poverty, which are against the values of Jesus."

Amen.

The news for Wal-Mart keeps getting worse

And I'm not talking about the release of the Robert Greenwald documentary which is certainly bad news for the world's largest corporation.

No, I'm referring to the back-to-back stories in the O's business section  today documenting the culture of deceit and fraud so characteristic of Wal-Mart's corporate hiearchy.

The first story shows that Wal-Mart executives lied when they denied any knowledge of  subcontractors employing illegal immigrants in company stores:

" 'The sworn testimony (in the affidavit) establishes that top Wal-Mart executives conspired with contractors to exploit undocumented immigrants,' said James L. Linsey, a New York attorney leading a class-action lawsuit on behalf of former janitors."

The other story is about a Wal-Mart VP copping a guilty plea to "... three counts of wire fraud, admitting that he manipulated invoices to embezzle money that was funneled to a senior executive."

Just prior to this spate of negative press, which includes the infamous "secret memo" detailing strategies for cutting health care costs, Wal-Mart had announced ambitious plans for expanding its already bloated retail empire. 

Some people would consider that bad news as well.