Who would you say is the most repugnant corporation in American corporate history?  Is it Enron, who gave record amounts to the Bush-Cheney machine and bankrupt millions of investors?  Halliburton, the shameless war profiteer?  Or Wal-Mart, the company that has done more than any other to drive down wages in America and has set a new low for how it treats its employees?

It’s a tough choice.  The competition is fierce.  But lately I think Wal-Mart has been giving the others a run for their money, especially when it comes to cooking the books, deceiving the public with smoke-and-mirror statistics, and generally screwing over citizens and taxpayers.  It’s no secret that Wal-Mart treats its employees horribly, but Progress Ohio has uncovered troublesome data showing that the retailer is costing the Buckeye State taxpayers tens of millions on health care and welfare.  

You see, Wal-Mart claims that only 2.6% of their workforce and their dependents rely on Medicaid – that appears to be a flat-out lie. If Wal-Mart’s figure is correct, we would expect only 1,385 Ohio employees to be on Medicaid.  However, more than 15,000 of Wal-Mart’s Ohio employees and their dependents are on the program.  Unless Wal-Mart’s Medicaid enrollees have 10 dependents each, Wal-Mart’s official number is suspect beyond reasonable doubt.

That’s a lot of dough in a state that is under a lot of economic stress.  Wal-Mart makes billions each year and Ohio is suffering mightily, yet Wal-Mart would rather enrich executives (4 out of 10 of the richest Americans are Waltons) and send billions to China rather than provide decent benefits to hard working Americans in Ohio.  What is wrong with this picture?

If this concerns you as much as it does me, please join me at WakeUpWalmart.com  to help get our priorities straight in Ohio and America once again.  

The Ohio Benefits Report has been altered from the original publication. Appropriate changes were made to this diary to reflect those changes on Oct. 6, 2009.

This Labor Day, Wake Up Walmart, along with a large coalition of labor, environmental and community groups, are challenging Walmart to live up to their PR promises and join us in supporting the American Values Agenda for Change at Walmart.

To help with the effort, Wake Up Wal-Mart is airing two TV ads in major cities.  Check out the first here and the second below the fold:

The coalition includes: AFL-CIO, Change to Win, Sierra Club, Campaign for America’s Future, National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, National Consumers League, AFSCME, American Rights at Work, Communications Workers of America, Interfaith Worker Justice, LIUNA, National Labor Coordinating Committee, Service Employees International Union, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, United Auto Workers, United Farmer Workers and United Steel Workers.

The American Values Agenda for Change at Walmart issues a direct challenge to Walmart in five key areas: worker rights, quality jobs, equal opportunity, corporate responsibility and a healthy environment and lays out the next steps for how the coalition, led by the UFCW, will hold Walmart accountable for those challenges.

Last week Virginia’s Orange County Board of Supervisors vote to approve the building of a new Wal-Mart Supercenter within the historic boundaries of the

Wilderness Battlefield – and one of the most significant battlefields of the Civil War.  The Civil War Preservation Trust has been fighting Wal-Mart on this location for over a year – seeking an alternative location and compromoise – and after last week they desperately need everyones help to stop Wal-Mart from moving forward and opening the door to further destructive development.  

Even State Senator Creigh Deeds, the Democratic candidate for Virginia Governor, has written a letter to the president and CEO of Wal-Mart pleading with him to move the location off the historic battlefield.  Wake-Up Wal-Mart is helping in this fight and you can too by also writing a letter on the Civil War Preservation Trust’s website and also help spread the word yourself.

More from Blue Virginia and the Washington Post below:

Lowell at Blue Virginia has reasonably asked on the location:

Maybe I’m missing something here, like the (supposedly) urgent need to build retail right on top of a battlefield where 145,000 Union and Confederate soldiers fought and more than 29,000 were killed or injured. Can’t this store be located a mile down the road or something? What do you think?

Seems like a sensible question – just not to Wal-Mart.  The Washington Post further reports that:

[Civil War Preservation] Trust president Jim Lighthizer called on Wal-Mart to reconsider its decision to build within the footprint of the Wilderness Battlefield, near Fredericksburg, pointing to what he called, “nationwide anger generated by its proposal.”

“The ball is now in Wal-mart’s court,” he said. “It’s in the corporation’s best interest to work with the preservation community to find an alternative site. …We are optimistic that company officials will see the wisdom of moving somewhere else.”

That doesn’t sound likely, according to Wal-Mart regional spokesman Keith Morris. In an interview he said, “Two years ago, the county decided this site was one where growth should occur. We have looked at alternative sites and there are other sites but they require rezoning. There is no guarantee the county would approve another site.”

Morris pointed to the county planning commission’s second and little-noticed Aug. 20 4-3 vote that reversed a decision of the night before, when that commission deadlocked on the issue. A deadlock is considered a negative vote. Morris said that second vote was an indication of the county’s strong interest in seeing the store built at the proposed site.

There is a possibility that the Trust, as the lead organization of the Wilderness Coalition, will turn to the courts and appeal the board’s decision. Officials are debating their next step now.

Again, please help by writing a letter on the Civil War Preservation Trust’s website and spreading the word online.  

Thank you.

When we look back on The Steroids Era in baseball, we’re going to see a bunch of players who broke the rules and grew to an unnatural behemoth size, and how the people who were supposed to provide oversight either turned a blind eye or even encouraged it.

Well, if you think about it, wasn’t our economy in sort of a similar Steroids Era?  Real estate prices were pushed to unsustainable levels, Wall Street raked in unhealthy and astronomical profits, and our SUV’s looked like they had a case of elephantitis.  

The poster child for the Excess Economy was Wal-Mart, the king of suburbia that built Big Box Supercenters anywhere it could find cheap land, introduced oversize shopping carts for its Canyero-driving customers, bought cheap goods in bulk from China, and was the darling of Wall Street.

Like in MLB, the oversight into Wal-Mart’s unprecedented behavior didn’t exist.  Bush was Bud Selig.  So while Wal-Mart may have broken records, it left an ugly legacy on the American economy by destroying small towns, short-changing workers, and selling out American vendors in favor of China.

I’ve had enough with The Steroids Era, and so that’s why I’m doing some work with Wake Up Wal-Mart this summer.  Like in baseball, it’s time to reform the system and restore American tradition in our economy.  Join us if you’re sick and tired another so-called “record breaker” juicing the system.  

In a new investigation from the China Labor Watch (CLW), “Wal-Mart’s Road to Sustainability: Paved with False Promises?”, the CLW reports on the Wal-Mart’s extreme exploitation of foreign factory workers – amongst many other egregious acts they’ve detailed.  

The CLW has found, as a result of investigations from April to June of this year, that violations at one of Wal-Mart’s suppliers, the Huasheng Packaging Factory, include:

• Elaborate system to cheat Wal-Mart audits.

• Some workers make only $0.51/hour, 60% of the minimum wage.

• Poor working conditions: workers inhale large amounts of paper particles and other debris.

• Twelve workers live together in cramped dorms

• Workers not paid overtime wages.

• During busy period, workday is 11 hours or 77 hours per week, and overtime is mandatory

Please help us by taking action and voicing your concern about Wal-Mart, and please continue reading for more from CLW’s press release.

This is merely the latest, and one of the most grievous, examples of Wal-Mart saying one thing and doing another, in their long running anti-labor track record.  Americans cannot continue to support the world’s largest retailer while it remains in support of some of the world’s worst labor standards.

CLW has also written a letter (pdf) to Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke, and you can read their full report here (pdf).  

CLW also reports that recent violations at another facility, the Hantai Shoe Factory – who they began investigating in July of 2008, also include:

• Overtime only paid up to Wal-Mart’s limits. When overtime surpasses the limit, extra wages are not paid until the following month.

• Workers forced to lie to Wal-Mart inspectors.

• 5 hours overtime daily. If workers request not to work overtime once, they will be denied any overtime for a month.

• Disguised layoffs to avoid paying severance payments to workers. Workers are abused by management or switched to undesirable jobs until they quit voluntarily.

The CLW’s press release goes on to conclude:

“These issues represent only a portion of the problems CLW has discovered in these two factories. In nearly 10 years of investigating Wal-Mart’s Chinese supply chain, CLW has identified these same violations at the majority of Wal-Mart’s suppliers. In terms of labor violations, Hantai is one of Wal-Mart’s better factories and Huasheng is one of its worse, yet no where are Wal-Mart’s standards actually met.

The China-U.S. Economic and Strategic Dialogue, which opened in Washington today, will focus on economic, environmental and security cooperation. CLW calls on senior officials of both governments to encourage multinational companies to improve labor conditions in their supply chains and promote effective implementation of China ‘s Labor Contract Law.”

Walmart, in one of their worst ways of prioritizing prices above qualities to date, turns to a foreign drug supplier, Ranbaxy Laboratories, LTD, who has repeatedly been investigated by the FDA and the DoJ for “inadequate” safeguards against contamination, falsification of records and submitting false information to the FDA.  

On top of that, just eight months before the FDA inspected Ranbaxy’s Paonta Sahib plant and found significant violations, Walmart awarded the company a “Supplier Award” for improving shipping times and performance.

In a new report on our website, we detail their multi-year spanning violations, DoJ investigation, Congressional Investigation, and list out all of the drugs made at the facility in questions.  Additionally, we detail their recent violations below.  

2009 Violations

In Feb 2009, the FDA halted a review of importation applications for generic drugs manufactured at Ranbaxy’s Paonta Sahib plant owned by Ranbaxy Laboratories, LTD, the Indian generic drug manufacturer, “due to evidence of falsified data.” According to the FDA press release, Ranbaxy “falsified data and test results in approved and pending drug applications.” Not only were seven different examples of false statements made by Ranbaxy to the FDA in their warning letter – this was the third time the facility had run afould of fed Food and Drug laws.  

The FDA did include a caveat in its release, stating that the agency “has no evidence that these drugs do not meet their quality specifications and has not identified any health risks associated with currently marketed Ranbaxy products.”  But just a week after the FDA announced it was halting review of Paonta Sahib applications, Canada announced it was “quarantining” all drugs produced at the Paonta Sahib plant.

2008 Violations

Previously, in September 2008, the FDA issued warning letters to Ranbaxy regarding “significant deviations” from FDA standards for the manufacture of drugs sold in the United States. According to an FDA press release, the agency also banned the importation of any Ranbaxy drugs produced at the company’s Dewas and Paonta Sahib plants.

According to the release, the Dewas plant’s cross-contamination prevention program was “insufficient.” These programs are designed to prevent cross-contamination between different types of drugs. The plant also used “inadequate” sterilization procedures and performed “inadequate failure investigations.” According to the FDA release, failure investigations are performed “to address any manufacturing control or product rejection to determine the root cause and prevent recurrence.” The Paonta Sahib plant had “inaccurate” records regarding cleaning and maintaining of its equipment and “incomplete” records.

Deborah Autor, director of the Office of Compliance at the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, announced that the “severe violations” had led the FDA to ban importation of drugs from these plants and to deny any new drug import applications for drugs manufactured at these plants.

Before the warning letters were sent and the sanctions put in place, Ranbaxy had the opportunity to rectify the problems at the Dewas and Paonta Sahib plants; however, the company’s “response failed to adequately address multiple, serious deficiencies.”

Again – please read our full report at Wake-Up Wal-Mart.

This December, Wake Up Wal-Mart is going all out with our annual Holiday Campaign to awaken America’s largest retailer to its responsibilities. Here is a peek at our second TV ad for 2008’s holiday season:

Titled Wal-Mart: America Just Can’t Afford It Any Longer, the ad focuses on the hidden costs of shopping at Wal-Mart:

1) The tax burden Wal-Mart imposes on Americans by forcing its employees to rely on state resources for healthcare,

2) The lost wages of the legions of women who have had to take the company to court in order to receive equal pay, and

3) The devastating loss of American jobs as the retailer relocates its supply base to China.

What did we miss?

Is this ad going to convince your co-workers and neighbors not to patronize Wal-Mart this holiday season?

Have you seen this ad airing in Vermont?

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If you are, I’m sure the Chinese will be psyched.

Wake Up Walmart, who I’m working with, has a great new video up highlighting the perils of supporting the Bentonville behemoth.

In their quest to cut costs, Walmort outsources more and more jobs overseas. It’s come to the point where 70% of Walmart products are now made in communist China. “In the race to the bottom, Walmart gets ahead and the middle class falls behind,” the ad warns.

I know I’m just kind of preaching to the choir about how ugly Walmart’s business practices. But in the spirit of the holiday season, I’d like to invite you to do one of three things:

1. Send this ad to your friends and family. Walmart’s low prices are deceiving and in this struggling economy, a lot of good people might be fooled. It’s important that we get the word out about the high cost of these low prices.

2. Visit WakeUpWalmart.com today and learn how you can help. With the election over, if you have time to join the good fight, we could always use your support.

3. Blog about how the Obama administration should have a say in curbing Walmart’s ugly business practices. This isn’t only a case of a corporation out of control; it’s a case of worker abuse, shoddy environmental practices and an active union-busting agenda.

We’re fighting for more than just winning elections. We are fighting for a more progressive America.

In this time of economic peril, it’s more important now than ever. I urge you all to join the fight and send a strong message to Walmart!

Walmart is notorious for pulling all kinds of schemes and shady tricks, but in Connecticut, their fleecing consumers and getting away with it in plain sight.  

According to the Hartford Courant, Walmart is taxing people who buy products and then taxing them again if they want to return it.  A surprisingly large number of consumers do return items, especially around holiday season when they exchange gifts, so this is costing consumers a lot.

Courant writer George Gombossy notes that “A spokesman for Gov. M. Jodi Rell said she believes that consumers shouldn’t needlessly pay double taxes and would have the tax department review the issue.”  But in the meantime, Walmart is essentially double-dipping and getting away with it for the time being.

I know this isn’t a back-breaking issue but it’s just another example of how Walmart screws over consumers.  The Bentonville behemoth boasts about a “low-prices” but ends up costing consumers just as much if not more by luring them into buying more stuff that they don’t need or pulling under-the-radar tricks like double-taxing.

So what can we do about it?  I do some work with WakeUpWalmart.com that I find tremendously rewarding and I would encourage all of you to join.  But in the meantime, buy local, boycott Walmart!

Walmart is notorious for pulling all kinds of schemes and shady tricks, but in Connecticut, their fleecing consumers and getting away with it in plain sight.  

According to the Hartford Courant, Walmart is taxing people who buy products and then taxing them again if they want to return it.  A surprisingly large number of consumers do return items, especially around holiday season when they exchange gifts, so this is costing consumers a lot.

Courant writer George Gombossy notes that “A spokesman for Gov. M. Jodi Rell said she believes that consumers shouldn’t needlessly pay double taxes and would have the tax department review the issue.”  But in the meantime, Walmart is essentially double-dipping and getting away with it for the time being.

I know this isn’t a back-breaking issue but it’s just another example of how Walmart screws over consumers.  The Bentonville behemoth boasts about a “low-prices” but ends up costing consumers just as much if not more by luring them into buying more stuff that they don’t need or pulling under-the-radar tricks like double-taxing.

So what can we do about it?  I do some work with WakeUpWalmart.com that I find tremendously rewarding and I would encourage all of you to join.  But in the meantime, buy local, boycott Walmart!