Low wages and unionbusting have been par for the course at Walmart.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Walmart has a new CEO, Mike Duke, who has a chance to take Walmart on a better path.

Tell Mike Duke to do the right thing for workers and bring respect to Walmart.

As Walmart’s new CEO, Mike Duke has the power to stop intimidating and firing workers who want a union, to provide fair wages and better working conditions, and to stop fighting against the Employee Free Choice Act – a bill that would level the playing field for workers who want to form a union and improve their lives.

At his first annual meeting as CEO, Duke reiterated the company’s stated commitment to “… helping our customers to save money and live better.”

But don’t both customers AND workers deserve to “live better?”

Take Eugene Hart, a 33-year-old Walmart associate whose work helps support the company’s bottom line. “I can’t eat, I can’t pay my bills, I can’t do the things I want to do,” he said. “The insurance is garbage. Before they kick in, you’ve got to pay a $350 deductible.”

Walmart posted a record $400 billion in sales last year, and over $13 billion in earnings. The company can afford to do better for workers.

Tell Mike Duke it’s time to start a new legacy at Walmart – one that ensures workers like Eugene have fair wages and a voice at work.

Thanks for all that you do.

Sincerely,

Liz, Manny, Elizabeth B. and the American Rights at Work team

P.S. For a quick rundown on Walmart’s anti-union record, watch this video and pass it on to your friends!

The excuse Walmart gave is that, “The goal of this test is to gauge customer reaction. We think we’ll get a more accurate reaction by offering these bags after the holidays.” But we can’t imagine why the reaction would be any different. The real reason, it would seem, is that Walmart does a huge portion of their business during the holiday season and they don’t want to do anything to cut in to their sales.

Of course there is nothing wrong with wanting to maximize your sales during the busiest shopping time of the year, the issue is with Walmart portraying itself as a super green, environmentally friendly force of good. Walmart’s main concern is profit, and this belies their true motives.

Here’s the article from The Sacramento Bee:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Wednesday said it will not be removing free plastic bags from two of its locations in the region until at least January.

Signs in Walmart stores in Folsom and Citrus Heights had announced that shoppers would soon have to either bring their own bags or buy reusable ones – for 15 cents.

The two stores, along with a third in Ukiah, make up a small test program. Going plastic bag-free is one of a variety of strategies being tried at stores around the world as Walmart evaluates ways to meet its goal of cutting plastic bag waste 33 percent by 2013.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Amelia Neufeld said the company decided that launching the reusable bag-only program just before the holiday shopping season would skew the test results.
“The goal of this test is to gauge customer reaction. We think we’ll get a more accurate reaction by offering these bags after the holidays,” she said.

Neufeld would not comment on whether recent customer reactions had driven the decision to postpone the test.

At the Folsom store earlier this week, customers interviewed by The Bee were roughly split on the plan.

Matthew Oliver, a Folsom resident who complained in writing at his local store after learning of the plan, said a Wal-Mart representative called him Wednesday to say the Sunday launch of the test program had been called off.

Oliver said he resented the reusable bag program because he felt it was a cost-cutting measure with a green veneer that deprived him of the right to choose how he’d like to carry his purchases.

“I just want to buy my milk from you,” he said. “I don’t want you to tell me what my political views ought to be.”

Wal-Mart is also evaluating other strategies for reducing plastic waste that don’t involve removing free plastic bags from stores altogether. It is retraining some checkers to put more items in each sack, for instance, and is considering switching to thinner bags that contain less plastic.

The company’s 15-cent reusable bags will continue to be offered at the checkout counters in Folsom and Citrus Heights, Neufeld said. They are royal blue and made of a lightweight, recyclable polypropylene fabric.

The words “small” and “Wal-Mart” don’t fit well together.
Yet the dominant retailer on the globe has been telling Wall Street analysts for several years running that small is beautiful.
Last year this time, at an analyst’s meeting, Tom Shoewe, Wal-Mart’s Executive Vice President, summarized his company’s strategy on new store growth: “A moderation in new stores, migrating to a smaller footprint for the stores that we’re adding, more efficient smaller stores.”

This week, at their annual analyst’s gathering, there was more talk of less. Small was still on the agenda. Wal-Mart reversed its decision from June of 2007 to slow down new store growth, and told Wall Street to expect an acceleration in the number of new stores being proposed. Wal-Mart has been aggressively remodeling hundreds of existing stores---its so-called ‘Impact Store’ project---but the retailer also sounded like the annual speaker at the E.F. Schumacher Society.

One Wall Street analyst reported that although Wal-Mart would open more stores in 2010, the stores themselves would be smaller. The Associated Press quoted this analyst as predicting that Wal-Mart will be “scaling back the size of its supercenters.” In fact, the analyst said in recent sit-downs with management at Wal-Mart, the company “even expressed some confidence in developing supercenters as small at 70,000 square feet.”

A store that size---1.6 acres just for the building--- is far larger than the typical grocery store in most small communities. Add in a parking lot that is usually at least twice the size of the building, and you’re no longer talking about a ‘small’ project.
But this is small for Wal-Mart, and these pronouncements by the company are important to local communities---where activists for more than a decade have packed town hall hearings, demanding smaller, less intrusive stores.

Last year, a Wal-Mart real estate planner told Women’s Wear Daily that his company was concentrating heavily on smaller stores. He said that Wal-Mart was far more likely these days to consider a 90,000 s.f. store for a supercenter. “We can generate as much sales, as much profit from a smaller store,” the Wal-Mart official admitted.
Talk of smaller footprints goes back at least to 2004, when Merrill Lynch Global Securities said that Wal-Mart could build 850 of its smaller supercenters over the next decade. The smaller stores could go into urban areas where land isn’t available for a traditional supercenter.

The reality is: land is not available anywhere for the classic Wal-Mart supercenter, weighing in at over 200,000 s.f. These retail dinosaurs will---in the not too distant future---sit empty by our roadways. They are cheaply made, energy guzzling eyesores, and the sooner their Ice Age comes, the better for our communities.

Wal-Mart has learned that it can take an existing store around 120,000 s.f. and convert it into a supercenter---without altering its size. This format is called an “in-box conversion,” and its been done in Milwaukee and other U.S. cities. The advantage here is that the existing discount store doesn’t get abandoned--as the company has done to more than 1,000 of its stores since 1995---and the company doesn’t have to go through extensive zoning hearings.

It is doubtful that Wal-Mart will ever learn to think small. But the company is clearly grasping that consumers don’t want to shop in endless concrete caverns, and that shoppers are increasingly aware of the environment in which they are shopping as much as what they are shopping for. It also helps that competitors like Aldi and Tesco are focusing on smaller formats. Huge superstores are obviously land-consumptive and inefficient. They clash with Wal-Mart’s claims to be a sustainable, green company.

The fact that Wal-Mart is stepping up its new store growth just means that more local citizen’s groups will step-up their opposition. But smaller stores will be welcomed everywhere.
Small is not yet beautiful at Wal-Mart---but it’s still an improvement over the wasteful land use monstrosities they’ve built over the past 15 years.

Here’s the story from the local paper in Florida:

Josh Rutner said he was just doing his job as a Wal-Mart “asset protection officer” earlier this month when he chased a knife-wielding theft suspect across the store parking lot.

The man, later identified as Marc Ash, was arrested by Ocala police and the merchandise was recovered.

The next day, Wal-Mart fired Rutner.

Rutner said it boiled down to doing what was right or following policy. For him, it was an easy choice.

“I couldn’t let him get away,” Rutner said. “That’s wrong.”

But Michelle Bradford, a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. spokeswoman, said the store’s no-chase policy is clear.

“We take the safety and security of our customers and associates very seriously,” she said. “There are specific instructions as to what an associate can and can’t do during a shoplifting episode.”

According to Ocala police reports and Rutner’s account, the trouble happened at the Wal-Mart on Southwest 19th Avenue Road near the Paddock Mall. Ash picked up a pack of golf balls, valued at $42.98, and put them in his pants.

Ash then took the golf balls to another section, left them, and ate deli chicken without paying, Rutner said.

Rutner said he watched Ash put the golf balls back in his pants and head out the front of the store.

After radioing for assistance, Rutner and two other employees tackled the man outside the food center doors.

Rutner worked for Wal-Mart for nearly four months, he said. He’d done plenty of stops before.

He wasn’t expecting Ash to pull a knife, slash at his face and take off running, Rutner said.

“I felt now that he was a danger to the public and the city,” he said. “If he’d pull a knife on two security guards, he’d pull a knife on anyone.”

Rutner attempted to hit the man with a shopping cart, he said.

Customer Franchesca J. Marie told authorities she followed Ash into the parking lot from inside her car. She told him to stop and to put down the knife, which officials say she then picked up and threw in the middle of the road.

Police arrested Ash, who was charged with robbery with a deadly weapon and aggravated assault.

Rutner returned to work the next day.

“I was doing my normal routine,” he said. “Nobody said anything.”

Around lunch time, he was called into a manager’s office. A corporate representative from Arkansas was waiting.

“They said this is a non-rehirable offense,” he said. “At the age of 65, I can’t even come back and become a greeter.”

Bradford, the Wal-Mart spokeswoman, declined to comment on Rutner’s potential for rehiring.

Rutner said he knew Wal-Mart policy prohibits employees from going after suspects armed with a weapon, but there was no time to think about the consequences.

Rutner turned in his keys, security codes and badge.

“I didn’t get hurt. They got their merchandise,” he said. “And yet I got fired.”

Rutner said he was required to give a deposition Tuesday in Ash’s court case.

Ash remains in the Marion County Jail in lieu of $57,000 bail.

We’re not sure about you, but it seems a pretty odd situation when an employee can literally kill someone on the job and not get fired, but an employee who does his job and gets the merchandise back gets the boot. Perhaps its time Walmart take a look at their loss prevention strategy so that folks aren’t getting brutalized and employees aren’t getting fired.

A demonstration is planned for today at the new Walmart here, with some 300 to 400 members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union Local 1262 expected to hold what it calls a “consumer education rally” outside the store.

The local represents some 30,000 food service workers, mostly in supermarkets, in the northern half of New Jersey. The demonstrators gathered at a hotel in Woodbridge yesterday morning and would board seven or eight buses to come here, said Cyndi Spill, local communications director.

The rally was planned “to make the public aware of Walmart business practices, as far as not providing health care to their employees” and paying low wages. She said that in the union’s view the health insurance takes a long time to quality for and its cost puts it “out of reach for most workers” at Walmart.

Also, in the union’s opinion “they do not pay what we call a fair, living wage, something that you can raise your family on.” The rally was to “educate the public on Walmart’s impact on and cost to the local community,” she said.
While the union internationally has an initiative to try to unionize Walmart, Spill said “we’re not as a local to try to organize this location.”

Raritan Township police said they were aware of the demonstration.

Here’s the article from the local a local TV station:

Chattanooga Police have arrested 8 people, charging them with theft under $500 in connection with a sting that was conducted at area Walmart parking lots in Chattanooga.

Property Crimes Investigators set up yesterday on the lots of the Walmart in Brainerd and Gunbarrel Rd. and waited on would-be thieves. Investigators used 2 females who posed as shoppers who would leave their purses on the trunks of their vehicle and walk off into the Walmart.

With the holiday season approaching, Chattanooga Police are taking a pro-active approach in deterring thefts from vehicles, auto thefts and parking lot robberies by conducting these types of stings and getting the message out we are out in the communities and are working to prevent these types of crimes.

Chattanooga Police also report there were more good honest shoppers than thieves, 30 – 35 people who saw the purses that had been left, quickly turned them in to the store. Chattanooga Police want to commend these honest people and thank them for their honesty.

Charge with Theft Under $500 were:

Jermichael Bowling
Kelshia Hicks
Gaynor Espy
Joe Young
Sandra Harris
Marlin Dewayne Gates
Monica Gates
Elvis Carbajal-Osorio

“Indeed, with well over 2,000,000 associates spanning the globe, and growth figures leaving industrialized nations in the dust, Walmart is shaping up to be a formidable new player on the international scene. ‘We never gave too much of a crap about all those OSHA safety regulations, health codes, SEC rulings, Labor law bs, etc.’, said WalMart’s Mike Duke, ‘But now that we’re our own nation, we are the law - and I assure you that we are in full compliance with that law!’”

The article goes on to describe Walmart’s loss prevention team as a burgeoning private army which will deal with any nation trying to regulate it and Unions, presumably the biggest threat to a nation of Walmart.

“While not so visible to the public, their fifty thousand strong Loss Prevention Specialists are expected to make up the nucleus of one of the world’s largest private armies. Augmented by Nigerian mercenaries and ex-pats from Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan, it is expected to be one of the most formidable ever seen. ‘Our forces will purely be for self defense, to repel any attacks from rivals like Target or K-Mart. Of course, they are also expected to come in handy if any small nation tries to regulate us, or start up any ‘union nonsense’. We are working closely with Coca Cola for tips on that.’, said El Presidente Duke.”

Go read the full article here.

Of course the settlement is far from satisfactory. First because Walmart admitted no wrong doing, even though they clearly systematically abused their workers. Second, with 97,000 workers sharing the $11 million settlement, that works out to a little over $100 a person. I would bet that that doesn’t even cover the wages they cheated workers out of.

Read the full story from the AP here.

Here’s a quick synopsis of what was wrong with Walmart’s digital security:

“stores, for example, housed complete backup copies of transaction logs on network-connected UNIX servers, which included at least four years’ worth of unencrypted credit card numbers, cardholder names and expiration dates from purchases at the stores…

...servers, transaction processing systems, and other network-connected devices handling sensitive information used the same usernames and passwords across every Wal-Mart store nationwide. In some cases, the passwords could be easily guessed…

...sensitive customer information [was] stored unencrypted on pharmacy computers...including customer names, home addresses, Social Security numbers, genders, credit card numbers and expiration dates.”

Essentially Walmart was leaving itself open for someone to steal huge amounts of data and use it to steal thousands or millions of identities. In addition to their lax security, we were particularly interested in this revalation:

“Wal-Mart commissioned the probe from security auditors at CyberTrust as part of its efforts to become compliant with Payment Card Industry (PCI) security standards that were established in 2001. Enforced by credit card issuer Visa, top-tier companies such as Wal-Mart were theoretically required to be in compliance with the standards by mid-2004. Wal-Mart says it received a number of deadline extensions.”

We would like to know why Walmart got these extensions. Why was world’s largest retailer, who processes millions of credit cards a year, allowed to slack on security? 

With its history of breaches, can consumers trust their identities to Walmart now?

You can read the full article here.

“It’s troubling that Wal-Mart goes to such lengths to shine its image instead of simply avoiding the practices that tarnished it in the first place. In a desperate attempt to keep its costs down, Wal-Mart—which clocked in as the 14th-most-profitable company in the world last year, as measured by Fortune—has established corporate policy that calls for stepping on virtually everyone it’s involved with.
In a 2005 memo (.pdf file) to the Wal-Mart board of directors, a human-resources executive outlined myriad ways to save money on benefits, including ways to hire healthier people and requiring physical activity for all associates. She even raised the problem that comes with employees who are happy enough to stay at Wal-Mart for longer than the company would like:

“(T)he cost of an Associate with seven years of tenure is almost 55% more than the cost of an Associate with one year of tenure, yet there is no difference in his or her productivity,” she wrote. “Moreover, because we pay an Associate more in salary and benefits as his or her tenure increases, we are pricing that Associate out of the labor market, increasing the likelihood that he or she will stay with Wal-Mart.”

The horror! If we treat our people well, they might actually want to stay. This kind of thinking by a senior human resources executive at one of the world’s biggest companies is simply unconscionable. Over the years, there have been too many examples of this kind of pervasive thinking among Wal-Mart’s top ranks.

When you have to hire an army of people to help improve your image, you’ve probably been doing some things wrong. That’s a lesson Wal-Mart seems incapable of learning.”

The counter argument, on the other hand, is based on company touted lines about saving Americans money and a rather terse explanation that Walmart is big and is slow to change, but it can change, but it’s great because it’s still running on the same strategy that it used to. Most importantly, it hardly convinces us of its thesis, which seems to be to prove that this vision of Walmart is wrong:

“The goods Wal-Mart sells aren’t hip enough for self-styled trendsetters on the U.S. coasts. To those who would never deign to set foot in a Wal-Mart, the chain’s labor practices are widely regarded as only slightly more civil than a slave galley. The retail giant is belittled for driving mom-and-pop shops out of business and bullying vendors into cutting profits to the bone.”

This is, of course, not the only example of gender discrimination at Walmart. Today, according to the Associated Press, “The highest court in Massachusetts has upheld a $2 million jury award to a former pharmacist at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. who claimed she was fired by the retail chain after asking to be paid the same as her male colleagues.” The plaintiff in the case, Cynthia Haddad, had worked at the Walmart store for ten years, and was not only discriminated against, but also fired for simply asking to be treated the same as everyone else. Imagine how hurtful it would be to find out that your employer was not paying you the same as your coworkers simply because of your gender. Now imagine that when you went to talk to your manager to fix the situation, they fired you. Talk about adding insult to injury. 

If you are an Ohio taxpayer, you’re probably footing the bill for Walmart’s unaffordable health care plans.

Newly released data shows that Ohio spends roughly $68.5 million each year providing state benefits to Walmart employees. The numbers are staggering. Over 15,000 Walmart employees use Medicaid, 12,000 are on food stamps, and thousands more utilize other state-run programs.

Worst of all, it’s paid for out of Ohio taxpayers’ pockets.

Walmart doesn’t need your money to support its employees. With nearly $14 billion in profits last year, Bentonville can clearly afford to do better.

We can’t allow Walmart to fail its employees and your state. Please take action: inform your local newspaper about Walmart’s exploitation of Ohio’s health and welfare programs.

Write Your Newspaper: Let Your Community Know That Walmart is Failing Ohio

Walmart claims to support health care reform and the employer mandate. Yet, In spite of astronomical profits, Walmart fails to cover 700,000 of its employees and offers plans too costly for its average employees to afford.

Walmart claims that nearly 95% of its employees are covered by company health care or by a family member. Yet, in Ohio, 28% of Walmart’s Ohio employees are on Medicaid.

Walmart’s claims simply don’t add up, and your state needs to know about it.

Why is Ohio subsidizing the #1 company in the Fortune 500? Let Ohio know that you won’t allow your tax dollars to be a stopgap for Walmart’s low wages and unaffordable health coverage.

Write a Letter to the Editor Today

With your help, we can make Walmart live up to its responsibilities to its workers and to Ohio.

The Team,
WakeUpWalMart.com

Next time you hear anyone claim that Walmart can’t afford to give their employees quality, affordable health care, or a decent wage, or anything else, you just remember how much the Waltons are making off the backs of their employees.

Here are the top 24 richest Americans this year.