Wal-Mart
Beneficial To So Many-Still Being Attacked

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Reuters

Wal-Mart reports better-than-expected February sales

Thursday March 5, 8:59 am ET

Full article Yahoo!Finance

Excerpts:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc (NYSE:WMT - News) reported a higher-than-expected 5.1 percent rise in February sales at U.S. stores open at least a year, saying lower gas prices meant shoppers had more money to spend in its discount stores.

Analysts on average were expecting the company's same-store sales to increase 2.4 percent, according to Thomson Reuters Estimates.

"We believe falling gas prices significantly boosted household disposable income in February and therefore allowed for both more trips and more spending toward discretionary categories," Vice Chairman Eduardo Castro-Wright said in a statement on Thursday.

WALL STREET JOURNAL

FEBRUARY 11, 2009

Wal-Mart Figures Time Is Ripe for Chicago Push

By MIGUEL BUSTILLO

Full article Miguel Bustillo WALL STREET JOURNAL

Excerpts:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mounting a new push to expand in Chicago, hoping that its promises of jobs and sales-tax dollars will prove more tempting in the recession than when city leaders first rebuffed the discount chain earlier this decade.

The world's largest retailer, which so far has been able to build only one store in the nation's third-largest city, hopes to open a half-dozen more in the coming years, according to the company and politicians familiar with its plans. It has been heavily courting Chicago leaders and is studying a dozen potential sites.

Wal-Mart, whose stores are largely concentrated in rural and suburban markets, has long struggled to penetrate the largest American cities amid fierce opposition from politicians sympathetic to organized labor and small business groups concerned the discounter would steal sales from smaller retailers

WALL STREET JOURNAL

Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win By ANN ZIMMERMAN and KRIS MAHER

August 1, 2008; Page A1

Full article ANN ZIMMERMAN and KRIS MAHER WSJ

Excerpts:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they'll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies -- including Wal-Mart.

In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized.

According to about a dozen Wal-Mart employees who attended such meetings in seven states, Wal-Mart executives claim that employees at unionized stores would have to pay hefty union dues while getting nothing in return, and may have to go on strike without compensation. Also, unionization could mean fewer jobs as labor costs rise.

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The following article is from LaborPains.Org

SEIU stands for Service Employees International Union

The Blog from The Center For Union Facts.

SEIU Has Little Love for the Taxpayers

A large chunk of dues money for SEIU leaders comes from the paychecks of government employees — which means it’s actually the public paying those bills. Union officials are thus put in the position of holding up the public for greater and greater sums (precipitating, among other things, a vast entitlements crisis). Today’s episode comes from the Ventura County Star in California.

Currently the county and the union are about $15 million apart in their demands — with each percent increase in salary the union seeks costing the taxpayers an additional $3 million. County chief executive Johnny Johnston rightly says: “This is a zero-sum game … There isn’t any more money. To spend more in one area is to spend less in another.” Yet, the Star reports, “[u]nion officials say Johnston is painting too bleak a picture of the budget and could easily allocate a few million dollars more toward salaries.”

You might expect some “we’re all in this together” rhetoric, but the SEIU bunch out there is not even hiding their money grab. The paper reports:

Union members are unswayed. Tinker Kingman, a clerical supervisor in the Probation Department, said before the meeting that the county could find more money for SEIU salaries if the board makes it a priority.

“I don’t think it’s my job to figure out where the money comes from,” she said. “If they need the money for something like a new jail, it always comes out of the hat somehow.”

Big Labor wants Wal-Mart unionized. It has formed 2 attack groups to bring Wal-Mart to its knees.

Union leaders could add $300 million in new dues each year, if its attack plan were successful.

Big Labor also would not have to expend as much energy keeping Wal-Mart out of cities. Union shops in big cities have very little competition from non union shops. Big Labor intends to keep it that way.

Wal-Mart saves American households an average of $2,300 a year through lower prices.

Who benefits the most from such a truly meaningful amount? Those who need to benefit the most.

In 2004, that per family savings added up to a total savings of $263 billion, according to the economic consulting firm Global Insight.

Compare that to the $33 billion that families receive from the federal food stamp program, which of course has to take that $33 billion from other hard working families, to redistribute to the recipients.

This entire get-Wal-Mart campaign is a political operation led and funded by organized labor.

The two attack groups the unions have funded are:

1. Wal-Mart Watch

2. Wake Up Wal-Mart

The Wall Street Journal reported:

"Wal-Mart Watch, was created by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), probably the most powerful union in America after the National Education Association. Wal-Mart Watch is backed by Five Stones, a 501(c)3 organization that received $2,775,000 in 2005 from the SEIU, or 56% of its $5 million budget. According to financial records, SEIU also gave Five Stones $1 million in 2004 to launch the anti-Wal-Mart group…" Andy Stern who is the SEIU President is also the Wal-Mart Watch chairman.

The Second attack group is Wake Up Wal-Mart. This group is very cozy with the Democratic Party. Its union funded campaign director is Paul Blank, who was the political director of Howard Dean's failed Presidential campaign.

On this group, The WSJ reports:

…Wake Up Wal-Mart, is more or less a subsidiary of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW). Wake Up Wal-Mart refuses to divulge its funding sources, but here is what we do know: The group was founded by the UFCW, is housed at UFCW headquarters, and its campaign director's $135,000 salary is paid by the UFCW…

A great irony of all this is that Wal-Mart, which pays an average of $10 an hour, pays a higher wage than many of these unions with whom it competes.

Typically when Wal-Mart opens a new store, thousands apply for the several hundred new jobs it creates. Why not. Entry level jobs start at $7 and go to $12 an hour, to go along with serious career potential.

For all the attacks on Wal-Mart’s health care policy, a spokesperson for the company said “ that more than half its 1.3 million U.S. employees are full time, enjoying higher coverage rates, and that 75 percent of all workers have some coverage through the company, the government or spouses' plans.”

Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson reminds us

“America's political culture routinely demands at least one hideous corporate villain. In recent decades that role has fallen to General Motors, IBM, Exxon Mobil and Microsoft; now Wal-Mart has assumed the mantle. “

As General Motors and Ford are now discovering, companies that pay above-market labor costs ultimately shrink and destroy jobs.

For that very reason, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, earlier this year, vetoed an attempt by the Chicago City Council to mandate higher labor costs.

In his veto message, Mayor Daley, a pro-union Democrat, declared that the wage law would "drive jobs and businesses from our city, penalizing neighborhoods that need additional economic activity the most."

Democrats and Unions are powerful allies. Each makes constant claims to be helping “working families” and “middle class families.”

What a pity that even in the Information Age, words and rhetoric, can still deceive so many.

Wal-Mart To Robert Samuelson