Lovely lovely story….seems Wal-Mart does not pay any of its teenage baggers in Mexico any money to work there, they work for tips only. Sure, it’s legal down there, but still…from MSNBC:

“Wal-Mart prides itself on cutting costs at home and abroad, and its Mexican operations are no exception. That approach has helped the Arkansas-based retail giant set a track record of spectacular success in the 16 years since it entered Mexico as a partner of the country’s then-leading retail-store chain. But some of the company’s practices have aroused concern among some officials and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that Wal-Mart is taking advantage of local customs to pinch pennies at a time when its Mexican operations have never been more profitable.”

For a multi-billion dollar company to exploit a loophole like this is a travesty. This company makes more than enough money in Mexico to pay it’s employees and really make a difference in their lives. But instead they are after the almighty dollar, which is just one more reason I have never and never will shop there.

Wal-Mart = Injustice.

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On Friday, you might remember that I linked to a story about how Wal-Mart was rethinking its strategy on selling organic food. The author of the article said that Wal-Mart was going to stop selling organics because…no one was buying them. Well, Wal-Mart released a letter yesterday “fighting back” against this article, and it is floating around on the internet. While they are saying they still are going to sell organic food, maybe they might want to look into actually selling organic food.

Here is the letter floating around out there, take from it what you will:

April 13, 2007

Dear Editor,

Pallavi Gogoiâ’s article, posted April 12, 2007, on Businessweek.com, is an erroneous and inaccurate representation of Wal-Mart’s commitment to providing our customers with affordable access to organic products.

We have been selling organic products in our Supercenters and Neighborhood Markets for many years and, due to customer demand, announced plans to double the organic food offerings in those locations in March of 2006. We quickly met that goal and even exceeded it in communities where there is an exceptionally high demand for organic offerings. We continue to see steady customer interest in buying quality organics at great prices.

We realize that the customer base in each of our communities is unique, so we tailor the assortment in each of our stores to meet our customers needs. This is part of our long-standing “store of the community” philosophy of matching the mix of merchandise with the customer base and demand in each specific community. At a Bear Stearns investors conference on March 8, 2006, Wal-Mart executive Stephen Quinn announced, “We’re soon going to have over 400 SKUs (stock keeping units) of both fresh and brand name superior organic foods available at the Wal-Mart price.” Today we’re proud to offer significantly more than that company-wide, which is completely in line with our plans. This enables specific locations to customize their assortment of organics to fit the consumers in their community. This simply makes good business sense. We’ve used this same philosophy of tailoring our merchandise mix for each store for various categories for more than 10 years.

As a company that’s always working to provide our customers with the best products at the best value, we determine what we’ll buy based on ongoing assessments of quality, price, customer feedback and other factors. Organic apples are one of the top selling organic produce items at Wal-Mart, along with carrots, citrus, lettuce and packaged salads. Far from “backing off,” sales for Wal-Mart’s organic produce for 2006 were at a growth rate well above the industry average of 13.7 percent, based on data from the Organic Trade Association.

Bottom line, Wal-Marts growth in the organics category will continue to be reflective of the demand and we will continue providing our customers with the organic products they desire at low prices.

Sincerely,

Karen Burk
Wal-Mart Corporate Communications

Thoughts?

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And workers still get nothing but crap. From Wal-Mart Watch:

Let me get this straight. In 2006, Wal-Mart tallied its worst same-store sales growth in 27 years. The company’s stock price has remained stagnant for years. And, public opinion has taken a serious turn for the worse.

The company has slashed labor costs by capping the salary if its employees, reduced the number of its employees receiving company health care and implemented a series of additional business practices to cut labor costs.

Given all that, the company’s board rewards Scott with a $22 million bonus? Something is seriously wrong with this picture.

And then from the “real” news…

From The AP:

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has awarded it chief executive officer a stock bonus worth $22 million for reaching revenue targets, the retail giant disclosed Friday in a regulatory filing.

The compensation committee of Wal-Mart’s board voted Wednesday to make the award to Scott and also grant shares to other executives.

Scott’s salary and bonus for 2006 was $5.23 million. His total compensation for that year was, excluding restricted stock awards, was $15.7 million. The $22 million bonus was for Wal-Mart’s 2007 fiscal year.

This really bothers me on so many levels. Here they have all their employees doing all the hard work and they are having hours cut and health care taken away, and they all get nothing at all. The head honcho gets TWENTY TWO MILLION DOLLARS? Not $1 million, not $500,000…but TWENTY TWO MILLION dollars? Meanwhile most of his employees are living on what amounts to minimum wage, working part time, trying to survive, and he has the balls to accept 22 million in bonus?

It’s a sick world sometimes.

technorati tags: Wal-Mart, Bonus, Scott

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As I mentioned the other day, Wal-Mart might have been exposed for labeling and selling non-organic foods as organic. Well, now the USDA is getting involved and it looks like they are going to investigate the fact that Wal-Mart sells products with the word organic on the sign…that are not organic. See anything weird about these pictures?

Yep, they are labeled as organic….with big signs and everything…but they are not organic. Thanks Wal-Mart, for doing exactly what we knew you would do: Lower organic standards to save the company money. However, we didn’t know you would just change the labels out to do so! So sneaky and clever!

More pictures and more story over at The Cornucopia Institute

technorati tags:Wal-Mart, Organic, USDA

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Oh say it isn’t so Wal-Mart! Please prove to us all that you really are a decent, fun loving, environmentally friendly store!

Seems that Wal-Mart might be in some deep trouble after the Cornucopia Institute discovered that they were placing “natural” produce in the organic section, and mislabeling non-organic food as organic.

From The Independent : “It has been accused of using misleading labelling that is “tantamount to consumer fraud” by an organic farming watchdog, the Cornucopia Institute. The body has handed its complaints to the US Department of Agriculture (Usda).”

Hee hee haa haa. Somehow, I just knew it could not be true that they would do something good for everyone and that they would cheapen organic standards for the benefit of all its customers!

I cannot stand that company, seriously. Labeling non-organic food to save some bucks and mislead their customers. Only Wal-Mart could try to pull off something so brazen.

technorati tags: Wal-Mart, Organic, Fraud

Comments on this post: 5

Well, it looks like my opinion on Wal-Mart going organic has turned out to be true. A new white paper by the Cornucopia Institute accuses Wal-Mart of lessening organic standards in their food products by sourcing the products from industrial farms and even foreign countries such as China. Somehow, I knew that Wal-Mart going organic was NOT a good idea, and that it would strip away the standards for organic foods. I had mentioned that the people that shop at Wal-Mart would think they were doing something good by buying organic, but in fact, it is having a negative effect on organic standards.

From NaturalNewsWire:

“CORNUCOPIA, WISCONSIN: A report released today by The Cornucopia Institute, the nation’s most aggressive organic farming watchdog, accuses Wal-Mart of cheapening the value of the organic label by sourcing products from industrial-scale factory farms and Third World countries, such as China.

Wal-Mart announced earlier this year that they would greatly increase the number of organic products they offered and price them at a target of 10% above the cost for conventional food.

“We have received scores of press inquiries over the past few months asking us if Wal-Mart’s organic expansion was Ogood news or bad news’ for the industry,” stated Mark Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst for the Wisconsin-based farm policy research group. “My stock answer has been: If Wal-Mart lends their logistical prowess to organic food both farmers and consumers will be big winners by virtue of a more competitive marketplace. However, if Wal-Mart applies their standard business model, and in essence Wal-Marts organics, then everyone will lose.”

The Institute’s white paper, Wal-Mart Rolls Out Organic Products Expansion or Market Delusion?, makes the argument that Wal-Mart is indeed poised to drive down the price of organic food in the marketplace by inventing a “new” organic and cheap imports of questionable quality. “Organic family farmers in this country could see their livelihoods disintegrate the same way so many industrial workers saw their family-supporting wages evaporate as Wal-Mart and other big-box retailers put the screws to manufacturers production shift to China and other low-wage countries,” Kastel added.”

You can read more about this at NaturalNewsWire and The Cornucopia Institute.

I juse KNEW this was a bad idea!

technorati tags:Wal-Mart organic farming

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