WalMart: The Empire Strikes Back

[bizorky]

Wal-Mart launches defensive campaign

MARCUS KABEL
Associated Press

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will run national television ads starting Monday praising its record as an employer and corporate citizen, taking its arguments straight to the public in an ongoing battle over its reputation with unions and other critics.

The world's largest retailer, increasingly a lightning rod for politicians as well as labour unions and other activists, cites the legacy of late founder Sam Walton in a folksy 60-second ad. A 30-second ad focuses on Wal-Mart's health insurance plans for its more than 1.3 million U.S. employees.

“It all began with a big dream in a small town, Sam Walton's dream,†a narrator says as one ad starts with a black-and-white photo of Sam Walton and a grainy shot of Walton's first five-and-dime store in what is now the chain's headquarters town of Bentonville, Ark.

“Sam's dream. Your neighbourhood Wal-Mart,†the ad ends.

Both ads recite key points Wal-Mart has been making to reporters for months about its record, but the ads now take the arguments straight to the public.

The nation's largest private employer says it creates tens of thousands of jobs a year, offers employee health plans for as little as $23 (U.S.) a month, saves “the average working family†more than $2,300 a year through its low prices and is a major contributor to local charities with donations last year totalling more than $245-million.

In a news release about the ads, Wal-Mart said a survey of its employees nationwide last summer found 88 per cent believe the company is a good corporate citizen and 81 per cent would recommend a Wal-Mart job to a friend.

Company spokesman David Tovar declined to say how much Wal-Mart is spending on the ads, which were tested last summer in Tucson, Ariz., and Omaha, Neb. They will run for an as-yet undetermined period on national broadcast and cable networks as well as in a “couple of dozen†individual markets, Mr. Tovar said.

Steven Silvers, a corporate reputation management expert with Denver-based consultancy GBSM Inc., said it was strategically smart of Wal-Mart to take its case directly to the public to counter mounting attacks.

“If they're targeted, they have to get their message out there,†Mr. Silvers said. “It's because they have become political fodder. They have to frame the discussion.â€

Wal-Mart was the focus of two high-profile but unsuccessful efforts last year to legislate how it treats employees.

Maryland's Legislature passed a union-backed law that would have forced Wal-Mart to spend a fixed percentage of payroll on employee health insurance. That law was overturned by a federal court. Chicago's City Council passed an ordinance mandating higher wages at big-box retailers, but it was vetoed by Mayor Richard Daley.

Union-funded campaign groups have also recruited national Democratic figures to back their calls for higher wages and better health care at Wal-Mart, including potential 2008 presidential contender Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and declared 2008 candidate John Edwards.

WakeUpWalMart.com, a union-funded campaign group, said the ad campaign proves Wal-Mart is seeing damage to its bottom line from a worsening reputation. The retailer had its worst holiday sales season in years, WakeUpWalMart.com spokesman Chris Kofinis said.

“Wal-Mart is living in a bizarre state of denial, where no matter how bad their public reputation is, they still believe that a tired ad campaign can fool the American public into believing it is OK to exploit millions of working families,†Mr. Kofinis said.

WakeUpWalMart.com and another union-backed group, Wal-Mart Watch, claim Wal-Mart pays poverty wages, runs small businesses out of town and pushes employees onto tax-funded public health care. Wal-Mart denies those allegations.

The union groups have repeatedly run newspaper and television ads.

Wal-Mart said its ads are part of a continuing effort to show it is good for its employees and customers.

“This campaign is part of a long-term effort to inform the public about the company's positive impact on communities, including some of our core values like affordable health care, customer savings and charitable contributions,†Mr. Tovar said.

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"Sam's dream, you're neighbourhood WalMart." In far too many small towns, WalMart has taken over the neighbourhood.

 

[spmarshall]

Sam Walton was a ruthless son-of-a-bitch. Any attempt to turn him into some sort of folk hero is dishonest. I highly recommend "In Sam We Trust" by Bob Ortega. A bit dated, it is an excellent history of the company. The author is a critic, but he does explain why Wal-Mart was able to do so well so quickly, and beat out K-Mart, for example.

 

[roch5220]

Sam Walton:

 

[building babel]

Alice Walton recently tried to get her mitts on Thomas Eakins' great painting The Gross Clinic for her museum in Arkansas. But last month two Philadelphia art institutions passed the hat and raised $68 million ( U.S. ) to block her: they'll buy it from Thomas Jefferson University and exhibit it locally. Walton's museum, designed by Moshe Safdie, opens in 2009. She's been vacuuming up prominent American art for some time, paying top dollar in a bid to turn the Ozarks into the centre of world culture.

 

[bizorky]

^To be located next the Museum of Moonshine?

 

[building babel]

www.crystalbridges.org/bu.../index.asp

 

[Bogtrotter]

Looks really nice from the renderings. A bit out of the way however.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

U.S. court strikes blow to Wal-Mart in sex bias suit

From Reuters:

More than 1 million women could be included in the class, after the 6-5 ruling by the Ninth Circuit court on Monday.

Wal-Mart said it would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The original lawsuit, hailed by lawyers as the largest sex discrimination class-action in U.S. history when it was filed in 2001, claimed that Wal-Mart paid female workers less than male colleagues and gave them fewer promotions.

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer and largest private U.S. employer, had asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to undo class-action certification in the case that alleged discrimination in its more than 3,000 stores.

"It's a huge win for the plaintiffs, and a tremendous loss for Wal-Mart," said Paul Secunda, an associate professor of law at Marquette University Law School. Given the number of employees involved and many years of pay at issue, he said "the amount of liability can be many billions of dollars."

The lawsuit's reemergence follows years of work by Wal-Mart to improve its image, from efforts to become more eco-friendly to mobilizing resources for disaster relief.

Wal-Mart shares closed down 0.9 percent at $54.04 on the New York Stock Exchange. Analysts said the small decline may reflect that fact that investors know the case still faces years of litigation.

NOT TOO BIG

The class action will now cover claims made by women who have worked at Wal-Mart since June 2001.

"Although the size of this class action is large, mere size does not render a case unmanageable," Judge Michael Daly Hawkins wrote for the majority.

A lower court will decide whether the claims of those who worked between 1998 and 2001 can join the class.

Both sides squabbled over the new size of the class in light of the court's ruling.

Theodore Boutrous, who argued the case for Wal-Mart in front of the Ninth Circuit, said the ruling in effect whittled the size of the class down from roughly 1.6 million to 500,000. Seligman disagreed, saying claims from only about 20 percent of the class had been remanded to the lower court.

Boutrous said the ruling contradicted "numerous" decisions by other federal appeals courts, as well as the Supreme Court.

"We do not believe the claims alleged by the six individuals who brought this suit are representative of the experiences of our female associates," Wal-Mart General Counsel Jeff Gearhart said in a statement.

The Ninth Circuit court also ordered the lower court to consider whether to certify the class for claims of punitive damages.

The six judges in the majority were appointed to the court by Democratic presidents, while four of the five dissenting judges were appointed by Republican presidents.

"No court has ever certified a class like this one, until now. And with good reason," Judge Sandra Ikuta wrote in the lead dissent. Absent evidence of companywide discrimination, she said "there is nothing to bind these purported 1.5 million claims together in a single action."

Also dissenting was Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, a leading conservative whose view could carry weight if Wal-Mart appeals. He wrote that the plaintiffs who make up the approved class "have little in common but their sex and this lawsuit."

NOT UNMANAGEABLE

Class-action lawsuits generally make it easier for groups of plaintiffs to sue well-heeled corporations and have led to large payouts by tobacco makers, and oil and food companies.

The suit originated with Wal-Mart worker Betty Dukes who sued for sexual discrimination in 2001 with six other plaintiffs. A trial judge certified the case as a class-action in 2004.

According to plaintiffs, female workers were routinely steered away from management positions and into such jobs as cashiers, with little chance for promotion. Court documents cite one woman who was told she was not qualified to manage because she could not stack 50-pound bags of dog food.

Charles Sullivan, a professor at Seton Hall University School of Law, who specializes in employment law, said Wal-Mart would face "huge economic pressure" to settle the case if the Ninth Circuit ruling was allowed to stand.

"Even if there is only a small chance it could lose at trial, the risk of having tens of billions of dollars of potential liability is too great," said Sullivan.

But he noted that the Supreme Court has been unsympathetic to large class-actions of late.