Wal-Mart roundup

AP photo by Rick Bowmer. Wal-mart, Portland, Oregon.

1. "A Wal-Mart Grows in Wyoming" is the story of a young woman writing about the impact of Wal-Mart on the business community in her town, and how the closure of many small businesses threatens to put her family's printing shop out of business. (Thanks to Bird from the North for this link.) From the article: "I don't know how long my family's printing company can survive, since Wal-Mart moved into my town and displaced most of the local businesses."

2. Many people criticize organizing, thinking it's futile, but clearly Wal-Mart's recent response to improve employee health benefits and access to health insurance comes as a result of Maryland's recent legislation requiring large companies to provide health insurance benefits to their employees, and the introduction of similar bills in legislatures across the country, as well as continued organizing by groups such as Wal-Mart Watch. (See "Wal-Mart to Expand Health Coverage, Add Store Clinics")

3. Relatedly, this weekend Wal-Mart Chairman Lee Scott spoke to the National Governors Association winter meeting in Washington, and "urged the attendees not to adopt state laws requiring a specific level of health benefit spending by large companies, and said that such moves were driven more by short-term political interests than long-term concerns about the nation’s health care crisis."

4. Last week, the Washington Business Journal reported, in "Wal-Mart bank plan set for D.C. hearing," that "the much-anticipated public hearings to consider Wal-Mart's application for federal deposit insurance are set for April 10 to 11 in D.C., the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced Thursday."

Sounds like an organizing opportunity... I won't put this event in my calendar until the venue is set.

Candorville, 2/20/2006. Used by permission from www.candorville.com, Darrin Bell, and the Washington Post Writers Group.

5. And this article, "Andrew Young to Head Pro-Wal-Mart Group," proves everything that people like Manning Marable and the publishers of the e-journal Black Commentator write about co-optation, and how capitalism intensifies "a growing class stratification within the Black community and had bought off a social layer, a privileged, middle-class group of African Americans to go along with the system." (See these articles from the Black Commentator, "Wal Mart and the Economic Destruction of Black Communities" and "Why Black Leaders are Stone Silent on Wal-Mart Abuses" by Earl Ofari Hutchinson.)

Note that I am not arguing against capitalism here, merely making a point about how the structure of the system works. From the article:

Former United Nations ambassador and Atlanta mayor Andrew Young will be the public spokesman for a group organized with backing from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. that defends the world's largest retailer against mounting attacks from its critics.

Working Families for Wal-Mart, a group of community leaders from across the country, was set to announce Monday that Young will be the chairman of its 16 member steering committee formed in December to counter charges from two union-backed groups that are pressuring Wal-Mart to improve wages and benefits.

Young said he will be a public face for the group, giving interviews and publishing opinion articles defending the company. "They are some of the best entry level jobs that are available to poor people. And they also make products available to the working poor," Young said in a phone interview from Atlanta.

Former U.S. United Nations ambassador and Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young speaks during a funeral service for Coretta Scott King at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia February 7, 2006. Coretta Scott King was the wife of Martin Luther King Jr. REUTERS/Renee Hannans Henry/Pool

Index Keywords: wal-mart