Free Republic

There are dark clouds on the horizon for cities, which for decades have used eminent domain or its threat as a tool to replace run-down neighborhoods with tax-generating, job-creating businesses. Not only are courts across the nation beginning to side with private-property rights' advocates, the Utah Legislature is cracking open the door to have a look. This is at the behest of educators and Gov. Olene Walker, who note the loss of revenue to schools from some redevelopment projects. Cities also are paying attention to Kelo v. City of New London, a case scheduled for arguments before the U.S. Supreme...

Wal-Mart faces a class-action lawsuit that claims it knew full well its cleaning contractors were hiring illegal immigrants, paying them slave wages and locking them inside the stores at night. All in the name of everyday cheap prices by Brita Brundage - December 23, 2004 Wal-Mart. That boxy behemoth with its neatly stacked rows of toilet paper and DVDs, trampolines and hooded sweatshirts, cheese balls and wrapping paper. With its employees wearing the signature bright-blue smocks emblazoned with sunny yellow smiley faces. Here, shoppers push carts piled high with discount electronics, cookies and XXL T-shirts along endless waxed aisles that...

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, launched a national advertising campaign to counter long-term critics of the company's employment policies. "Wal-Mart is working for all Americans. Some of our critics are working only for themselves," company president Lee Scott said in an open letter that was published as a full page ad in more than 100 newspapers, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Scott said it was time for the public to hear the "unfiltered truth" about Wal-Mart, and time for the company to stand up on behalf of a workforce that includes 1.2 million Americans....

I don't know about you, but I sort of miss the days when Wal-Mart was harmless. You know, back when they were just a mammoth conglomerate putting small retailers out of business and forcing manufacturing jobs overseas, thus helping to cripple the U.S. economy. They were almost lovable then. Now, though, they're downright scary. It's not just that every time you go into one you get this niggling feeling that you might just never come out, like a Roach Motel. It's more that Wal-Marts have become little planets unto themselves, where the citizens all laugh at our silly Earth customs,...

The giant retailer's low prices often come with a high cost. Wal-Mart's relentless pressure can crush the companies it does business with and force them to send jobs overseas. Are we shopping our way straight to the unemployment line? A gallon-sized jar of whole pickles is something to behold. The jar is the size of a small aquarium. The fat green pickles, floating in swampy juice, look reptilian, their shapes exaggerated by the glass. It weighs 12 pounds, too big to carry with one hand. The gallon jar of pickles is a display of abundance and excess; it is entrancing,...

MOORE, Okla. -- Authorities said Tuesday that the Wal-Mart store in Moore was evacuated Monday after three separate fires were set inside the store. About 300 customers were forced to leave the store at about 6:30 p.m. Monday, but no injuries are reported.excerpted - read more at: channel 5's web page.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is expanding the definition of "immediate family" in its employee-ethics policy to account for laws in states that recognize domestic partnerships and civil unions. The change drew quick praise from a major gay-rights lobbying organization. The revised policy, which was disclosed Wednesday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission recognizes that in some states "immediate family" includes an employee's same-sex partner. The revisions deal with sections of the company's ethics code that bar employees from using confidential information to benefit themselves or immediate family members and from approaching Wal-Mart's suppliers about...

By Susan Jones CNSNews.com Morning Editor January 28, 2005 (CNSNews.com) - A homosexual advocacy group is applauding Wal-Mart, a company more often vilified than praised by liberals, for including same-sex couples in its new definition of "immediate family." The Human Rights Campaign said Wal-Mart defined "immediate family" in a conflict-of-interest policy it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week. That policy says Wal-Mart employees may not use confidential information they get on the job for their own benefit or for the benefit of their "immediate family members." According to Wal-Mart's policy, "Immediate family members include (whether by birth,...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, will pay $135,540 to settle federal charges that it broke child labor laws, the Labor Department said Saturday. The 24 violations, which occurred at stores in Arkansas, Connecticut and New Hampshire, had to do with teenage workers who used hazardous equipment such as a chain saw, paper balers and fork lifts. Wal-Mart denied the allegations but agreed to pay the penalty. A spokeswoman for the Bentonville, Ark., company said Wal-Mart was preparing a statement Saturday. Child labor laws prohibit anyone under 18 from operating hazardous equipment. The company also agreed...

RALEIGH --It was only a matter of time. Two owners of a Wal-Mart in Wilson have filed suit in federal court to challenge $2 million in local-government incentives for a planned Target store in the county. "This is a very peculiar thing to have the government decide it wants a particular brand of store, and it's willing to pay it $2 million to come to town," said the plaintiffs' attorney. North Carolina's escalating use of tax subsidies to "close deals" with potential private employers was destined to provoke the state's existing businesses. While there are many different arguments, both legal...

As much as the AFL-CIO would have liked it to happen on US soil, a union finally received certification in Quebec, Canada to open contract talks with Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart Canada will close the store in Jonquiere, Quebec, citing union demands that wouldn't allow the store to operate efficiently and profitably. This is no laughing matter if you are a fan of the free market. Wal-Mart is hated by the unions because they are highly profitable and are non-union. Anytime the unions can take a dig at WM, the liberal media is more than happy to air their greivances. I read...

Last week, Wal-Mart's Canadian division said it would close its first unionized store in North America, making Quebec the latest battleground in the retailer's struggle against unions. Wal-Mart's decision triggered vicious rebukes from leftist Canadian politicians. David Christopherson, a Canadian Member of Parliament, even called Wal-Mart's decision to close the store "economic terrorism." It is difficult to understand how workers are exercising their free choice by banding together to negotiate with their employer, but Wal-Mart is the corporate equivalent of Bin Laden because it is choosing not to stay in business under the union's terms. Putting that aside, there is...

Those low-cost goods at Wal-Mart ultimately come at a high price: lost jobs, lower wages and unsupportable U.S. trade deficits. Wal-Mart is the single largest importer of foreign-produced goods in the United States, and the majority of its private-label clothing is manufactured in at least 48 countries around the world—and almost none in the United States. Wal-Mart’s biggest trading partner is China. The world’s largest retailer bought some $12 billion in merchandise in 2002, from China, nearly 10 percent of all Chinese goods sold in this country that year. Through November 2004, the United States was running a $147 billion...

February 21, 2005 — While some welcome Wal-Mart to the city, others protested the store's long-standing position when it comes to unionized workers. Out goes the old Helene Curtis building. In comes Chicago's first Wal-Mart. "It made god sense to bring jobs to your community. It made sense to take out something old and put in something new," said Ald. Emma Mitts, 37th Ward. Alderman Mitts has led the way in bringing the retail giant to the West Side despite protests from some of her constituents. While a marching band tried to outplay protesters, they continued to have their voices...

OGDEN - The city Redevelopment Agency took the first steps Tuesday toward condemning three properties in a downtown neighborhood to make way for a Super Wal-Mart. The Ogden City Council, acting as the agency board, voted 5-2 to negotiate or, if necessary, exercise its right of eminent domain to condemn two homes and a vacant lot. The owners of one home and the lot have died and heirs could not come to agreement on selling the properties to the city, said City Attorney Norm Ashton. The owners of the second home have moved out of state and have not been...

Jury Awards $7.5 Million in Wal-Mart Case Federal Jury Awards Man With Cerebral Palsy $7.5 Million in Wal-Mart Discrimination Case The Associated Press Feb. 25, 2005 - A federal jury has ordered Wal-Mart Stores to pay a Long Island man $7.5 million after ruling the retail behemoth discriminated against the man because he has cerebral palsy. Patrick Brady, 21, was hired for a job in the Wal-Mart pharmacy department in Centereach, N.Y., during the summer of 2002. After one day in the pharmacy, he was reassigned to other responsibilities, including collecting garbage and shopping carts from the parking lot. The...

MONTREAL - The Quebec Labour Relations Board has ordered Wal-Mart Canada to stop intimidating workers who want to form a union.

SAM Walton, the legendary founder of the Wal-Mart chain of discount stores, had 10 rules for success in business. They served him pretty well because when he died in 1992, only Bill Gates had more personal wealth and Wal-Mart – which began in 1962 as a single store in the backwoods of Arkansas – was well on the road to becoming the world's biggest retailer. In the US today, Wal-Mart has more than 3600 retail outlets, employs more than 1.2 million people and is responsible for more than 2 per cent of US gross domestic product. In 2005, the company...

H. Lee Scott Jr., the chief executive officer of Wal-Mart, argued in a speech yesterday in Los Angeles that Wal-Mart is a force for good in the economy. Scott is hardly the first corporate chairman to echo "Engine" Charlie Wilson's claim that what's good for General Motors is good for America. And many independent observers have noted that Wal-Mart's relentless downward pressure on overhead has been a boon to American consumers. (In a recent New Yorker column, James Surowiecki took this further, arguing that the retail economy has become a sort of dictatorship of the consumer, and that Wal-Mart, which...

BOWING to intense pressure from neighborhood and labor groups, a real estate developer has just given up plans to include a Wal-Mart store in a mall in Queens, thereby blocking Wal-Mart's plan to open its first store in New York City. In the eyes of Wal-Mart's detractors, the Arkansas-based chain embodies the worst kind of economic exploitation: it pays its 1.2 million American workers an average of only $9.68 an hour, doesn't provide most of them with health insurance, keeps out unions, has a checkered history on labor law and turns main streets into ghost towns by sucking business away...