Walmart Workers Launch Strike Action in Three Cities

shortlink here: http://wp.me/p2w2NH-nh

mnemonic here:  http://urlet.com/instituting.sounds

Walmart  Workers Launch First-Ever ‘Prolonged Strikes’ Today

Josh Eidelson on  May 28, 2013 – 10:57 AM

Walmart employees are on strike in Miami, Massachusetts and the California  Bay Area this morning, kicking off what organizers promise will be the first  “prolonged strikes” in the retail giant’s history. The union-backed labor group  OUR Walmart says that at least a hundred workers have pledged to join the  strikes, and that some workers walking off the job today will stay out at least  through June 7, when Walmart holds its annual shareholder meeting near  Bentonville, Arkansas.

Organizers expect retail employees in more cities to join the work stoppage,  which  follows the country’s first-ever coordinated Walmart store strikes last  October, and a high-profile Black Friday walkout November  23. Like Black Friday’s, today’s strike is being framed by the union-backed  labor group OUR Walmart as a response to retaliation against  worker-activists.

Update (5:30 PM EST Tuesday): Dozens of Southern  California Walmart retail employees plan to join this week’s strike starting  Thursday. According to organizers, the employees will rally on Thursday morning  in Pico Rivera with supporters including US Congresswoman Judy Chu (D-CA), and  warehouse workers employed in Walmart-contracted buildings in the region. The  retail workers will take part in the “Ride for Respect,” traveling from  California to Arizona and New Mexico before arriving in Arkansas. Their caravan  will also include two fired warehouse employees, David Garcia and Javier  Rodriguez, who allege that their activism cost them their jobs.

Read more: http://www.thenation.com/blog/174551/walmart-workers-launch-first-ever-prolonged-strikes-today
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Enterprise Zone Scam Revealed – Yes Eureka is Infected

 

shortlink here:  http://wp.me/p38Pt0-c6

mnemonic here: http://urlet.com/anyone.territory

Enterprise Zones: Killing the California Dream

By Gary Cohn

“John Thomas and Hans Burkhardt have a lot in common. For more than 17 years each man had a good paying union job, with health and pension benefits, near San Francisco Bay. Thomas worked as a warehouseman for VWR International, a medical supply company with a warehouse in Brisbane, south of Candlestick Park. Burkhardt also worked as a warehouseman, for BlueLinx, a building products company with a facility across the bay in Newark.

The similarities don’t end there. Both Thomas and Burkhardt are now collecting unemployment, having lost their $22-an-hour jobs after their employers moved to take advantage of California’s enterprise zone plan, a controversial state program that is supposed to create jobs.

The enterprise program, established in 1984, provides $700 million in tax breaks for companies that set up business or move to one of 40 zones within the state. It is operated by the state but administered by local governments. The program gives companies tax credits of up to $37,440 per person hired in one of the zones, which are intended to create jobs and spark investment in economically-distressed areas. Yet interviews and public documents reviewed by Frying Pan News reveal that some of these zones are located in relatively well-off areas, including San Francisco’s Financial District and the city’s hipster-packed SoMa neighborhood, which is home to many software and technology firms. In Southern California, enterprise zone areas encompass parts of Hollywood and the corporate center of downtown Los Angeles.

Overall, 61 percent of enterprise zone tax credits were claimed by corporations with more than $1 billion in assets. People familiar with the program say that recipients include huge retailers such as Walmart. The total amount of enterprise tax credits received by Walmart is one of those facts cloaked in the program’s tax secrecy.”

the rest of the article:

http://www.calitics.com/diary/15051/enterprise-zones-killing-the-california-dream

Big Box Living Wage Ordinance Advances in D.C.

shortlink here:  http://wp.me/p2w2NH-kE

‘Large retailer’ living-wage bill is moving forward in D. C.

Posted by Mike DeBonis on March 13, 2013 at 1:02 pm

Washington Post

“Big box” stores like a Lowe’s planned for Northeast are targeted by Council Chairman PhilMendelson’s bill

A D.C. Council bill that would require the city’s largest retailers — including Wal-Mart, Costco, Home Depot and others — to pay higher wages is showing signs of life.  The “Large Retailer Accountability Act,” introduced by Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) in January,  will get a hearing next Wednesday before the council’s Business, Consumer and Regulatory Affairs committee.

The bill would require “large retailers” — defined as businesses operating an indoor store of at  least 75,000 square feet and whose corporate parent has sales of at least $1 billion — to pay  wages no lower than $11.75 per hour plus, benefits. That “living wage” would be indexed to the  local consumer price index every year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/mike-debonis/wp/2013/03/13/large-retailer-living-wage-bill-is-moving-forward/

WalMart organizes opposition to big box ordinance:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/mike-debonis/wp/2013/03/14/wal-mart-is-among-dont-block-d-c-progress-backers/

Mercy for Animals Protests Cruel WalMart Policy in Alabama

via AL.com

photo Bob Gathany more at link.   |Members of Mercy For Animals and local animal rights activists protest Monday morning Feb. 25, 2013 in front of Walmart on Drake Ave. in Huntsville, Ala. This was the 88th stop of a 117 city tour to influence Walmart to stop selling pork from suppliers that Mercy For Animals  claim raise their pigs in cruel conditions. (Bob Gathany / bgathany@al.com)

read the article:

http://blog.al.com/breaking/2013/02/group_brings_giant_inflatable.html

Mercy for Animals Website:

http://www.mercyforanimals.org/

Mercy for Animals Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercy_for_Animals

A Perfect Example Of How Walmart Is Taking Over Small Towns

A Perfect Example Of How Walmart Is Taking Over Small Towns

via Business Insider

“The Fairfield High School scoreboard in my Ohio hometown used to advertise local businesses. There was a big ad for Bigg’s — a local grocery franchise — and smaller ads for Fairfield Pizza, Play-It-Again Sports, and more.   But in the summer of 2011, I visited Fairfield and noticed that the scoreboard was a solid blue and now advertised Walmart as the only sponsor.   There are four Walmart stores within 15 minutes of the high school stadium. One Supercenter is just a mile away from the old Bigg’s store.   As of 2011, Bigg’s had closed that location and all of its other stores around Cincinnati. The shopping mall where Bigg’s was located, Cincinnati Mills, is mostly empty now, with many other local businesses shut down.    Here’s a Google Street View image of how it used to look (other local sponsors are listed on the lower half):”

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/scoreboard-shows-walmart-taking-over-2013-2#ixzz2Lg98MRf7

WALMART PRESSING FELONY CHARGES AGAINST EMPLOYEE WHO ATE OREO COOKIES

Walmart is moving forward with felony charges against an employee of an Indiana store who admitted to eating “multiple” Oreo cookies because she said that she couldn’t afford to pay for them with her salary.

A Portage Police Department report obtained by The Smoking Gun on Thursday said that Penny Winters had been arrested after a Walmart investigation determined she was guilty of theft.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/21/walmart-pressing-felony-charges-against-employee-who-ate-multiple-oreo-cookies/

more from the google http://urlet.com/consistently.beverages

below is from a comment at the rawstory link

“If she makes $11.40 per hour and works the typical Walmart 30-32 hrs per week, she is about $100 over the monthly limit to receive food stamps in Indiana. 30 hrs is  just under qualifying as “full time.” If full time (35 hrs), Walmart would have to pay health care and other benefits.

The saddest part is, if she is convicted of the class D felony, she’ll have to disclose it at interviews, pretty much assuring she’ll never work again. Let’s hope it gets reduced to a misdemeanor or dropped altogether.”

Walmart’s “Honest Graft”

By Peter Dreier and Donald Cohen – June 21, 2012

found at Dissent http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/wal-marts-honest-graft

Nobody knows how much the Arkansas behemoth and its founding family have given to local politicians, but it is obviously another Wal-Mart standard practice. In one of the more blatant examples, Wal-Mart—eager to open a new store in one of Chicago’s African-American neighborhoods—lavished campaign contributions on Alderwoman Emma Mitts and feted her at the gala held during its annual stockholders meeting. Mitts has become a prominent spokesperson for the company, flacking for Wal-Mart in a Washington Post op-ed and even referring to the company as “we” on a local Chicago television show.

Nowhere has the battle over Wal-Mart been as intense as in the Los Angeles area. Eager to gain a foothold in the area a decade ago, Wal-Mart proposed building a mega-store in Inglewood, a mostly African-American and Hispanic working-class suburb. In 2004 the company spent about $1 million to mount a ballot initiative that would change the city’s zoning laws to allow Wal-Mart to build its supercenter. Despite being outspent ten-to-one, a local community coalition defeated the ballot measure by a two-to-one margin. That same year, the Los Angeles City Council enacted a big-box law making it difficult for Wal-Mart to open new stores.

Wal-Mart retreated, but in the past year it has returned to Los Angeles with a vengeance, attempting to open a store in the city’s Chinatown neighborhood. It has hired three powerful lobbying firms—Ek & Ek; Manatt, Phelps & Phillips; and Mercury Public Affairs (where former California Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez is a partner)—to help the company get the approvals it needed.

To gain the support (or silence) of community groups, Wal-Mart dramatically increased its charitable philanthropy, as it has done elsewhere. Its total giving in the United States rose from $270 million in 2007 to $873 million last year. In Los Angeles, the company hired the politically connected Javier Angulo—former employee at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials—to coordinate its local philanthropic program. Wal-Mart recently donated several million dollars to dozens of local nonprofits, including the NAACP, the Urban League, Homeboy Industries, California Charter Schools Association, Los Angeles Parents Union, Goodwill, Catholic Charities, Salvation Army, Union Rescue Mission, Meals on Wheels, Chrysalis, Children’s Hospital, and the Mexican American Opportunity Foundation, as well as several Asian American organizations, including Little Tokyo Service Center, Korean American Coalition, the Center for Asian Americans United for Self-Empowerment, and Chinatown Service Center. Angulo makes sure that whenever Wal-Mart hands over a check to one of these groups, elected officials are there for the photo-op.

Earlier this month, the day before the City Council was to vote on an ordinance that would have put the construction on hold, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s office pushed through permits to allow Wal-Mart to move forward on its Chinatown store. Hoping to stop the project, community and labor groups are fighting back. They’ve produced a “No Wal-Mart in Chinatown” video, lobbied council members to override the mayor’s efforts, and scheduled a large protest march for June 30 at a state park near Chinatown.

read the rest of it

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/wal-marts-honest-graft

 Peter Dreier is the E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics at Occidental College, chair of its Urban & Environmental Policy Department, and author of The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame, which Nation Books has just published. Donald Cohen is the chair of In the Public Interest, a national resource center on privatization and responsible contracting, and the director of the Cry Wolf Project.

Walmart’s Plan to Govsource Employees Healthcare At Taxpayers Expense

Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, plans to begin denying health insurance to newly hired employees who work fewer than 30 hours a week, according to a copy of the company’s policy obtained by The Huffington Post.   Under the policy, slated to take effect in January, Walmart also reserves the right to eliminate health care coverage for certain workers if their average workweek dips below 30 hours — something that happens with regularity and at the direction of company managers.

Labor and health care experts portrayed Walmart’s decision to exclude workers from its medical plans as an attempt to limit costs while taking advantage of the national health care reform known as Obamacare. Among the key features of Obamacare is an expansion of Medicaid, the taxpayer-financed health insurance program for poor people. Many of the Walmart workers who might be dropped from the company’s health care plans earn so little that they would qualify for the expanded Medicaid program, these experts said.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/01/walmart-health-care-policy-medicaid-obamacare_n_2220152.html

Walmart Added As Defendent in Supply Chain Lawsuit

via InTheseTimes http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/14250/lawsuit_charges_walmart_cant_shirk_liability_for_contract_workers/

Walmart may soon find it harder to avoid responsibility, as it has in the past, for the mistreatment of workers in its long supply chain.

Lawyers who sued temporary labor firms in a giant Walmart warehouse last year for violating federal and state laws with their abusive labor practices today took what they described as the “historic” step of adding Walmart as a defendant in the case.

They claimed that their investigation and depositions undertaken for the original suit filed in October 2011 show that Walmart really  “calls the shots” at the warehouse and should be held liable along with its subcontractors for “stealing millions of dollars from the low-wage warehouse workers who move Walmart merchandise,” as Michael Rubin, an attorney for the workers, wrote to the Center for Public Integrity.

The updated charges included six theories supporting the claim that Walmart is legally a joint employer and shares liabilities with the contractors, arguing that the relationship is not that between an arm’s length provider of services or goods, like a painting contractor or bookkeeping firm that a small business might hire. The amendment to the lawsuit calls Schneider “closely-controlled” by Walmart—until last year most if not all Schneider managers had walmart.com e-mail addresses—and notes that a Walmart-owned security firm is responsible for protecting the warehouse.

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/14250/lawsuit_charges_walmart_cant_shirk_liability_for_contract_workers/

court filing:  http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/526803-355-1-memo.html

Warehouse Workers United WWU  http://www.warehouseworkersunited.org/

more http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/30/walmart-warehouse-workers-lawsuit_n_2218773.html

Walmart Destroys the Local Economy

• Wal-Mart’s entry into a new market has a strongly negative effect on existing retailers. Supermarkets and discount variety stores are the most adversely effected sectors, suffering sales declines of 10 to 40% after Wal-Mart moves in.

• Stores near a new Wal-Mart are at increased risk of going out of business. After a single Wal-Mart opened in Chicago in September 2006, 82 of the 306 small businesses in the surrounding neighborhood had gone out of business by March 2008.

The full report is available at: http://advocate.nyc.gov/files/Walmart.pdf