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Once again, Walmart’s quarterly report holds bad news: This year’s third quarter profits are down 2.9 percent and fourth quarter estimates aren’t optimistic about gains.

Walmart continues its aggressive push to try to open stores in urban communities across the country, and concerned community members and elected officials are speaking out.

• San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar is calling for a board committee hearing to consider the impact of chain store retailers on San Francisco’s neighborhoods. Mar said, “With two Target stores scheduled to open and now reports of Walmart’s intent to expand here too, I’m calling for a hearing because I want to make sure the public is properly informed about the potential risks so that we can take appropriate action to protect our local businesses, neighborhoods and economy.”
• In response to Somerville, Massachusetts residents’ opposition to Walmart opening in the town, Walmart spokesperson Steve Restivo made the unsubstantiated claim that, “the average full-time worker at one of the company’s 49 locations in the state earns $13.20 an hour.” But according to independent market research group IBISWorld, Walmart sales associates make an average of $8.81 an hour.
• After originally announcing four sites for Walmart stores in the District of Columbia, Walmart held a press conference with Mayor Vince Gray this week to announce that it plans to open six stores in the city. Community groups continue to push for a legally binding community benefits agreement, or CBA, before Walmart is allowed to open.

Meanwhile, The New York Times featured a story this week about companies, including Walmart, charging a health insurance surcharge for smokers.

“Under Wal-Mart’s programs, employees who want to enroll in some of the company’s more generous plans, which offer lower deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums, can pay as much as $178 a month, or more than $2,000, a year more if they smoke.

Many other companies charge smokers a smaller, flat amount, and have kept any financial penalties under the 20 percent threshold set by the federal rules, according to benefits experts. Target, a Wal-Mart competitor, does not charge smokers more for insurance, while Home Depot charges a smoker $20 a month. PepsiCo requires smokers to pay $600 a year more than nonsmokers unless they complete an antismoking program.”

Internationally, Walmart is one step closer to opening retail outlets in India as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Congress party-led coalition government considers opening the country up to foreign-owned companies.

Alice Walton, the heiress to the Walmart fortune, is opening a museum this Friday, November 11th in Bentonville, Arkansas. The museum was funded to the tune of $1.2 billion by the Walton Family Foundation.

At the same time, Walmart, (of which the Walton’s own 48% control) just slashed health care for hundreds of thousands of workers. Many of these workers were already living below the poverty level.

Read Walmart Watch’s new fact sheet on the impact the Walton’s have on our society and the economy through their political, philanthoropic, and cultural giving, financed by low wages and ever-decreasing benefits paid to their Associates.

Last week, Walmart announced plans to roll back health care coverage for part-time workers and raise premiums for full-time employees.

• The New York Times reports that starting in 2012 all future part-time Walmart employees who work less than 24 hours a week on average will no longer qualify for health insurance plans.
• Walmart is also cutting its contributions to employees’ health savings accounts by 50 percent, and premium increases range from 17 to 61 percent.
• The company will also begin charging smokers higher premiums so they can expect premium increases as high as 162 percent.
• This comes days after Walmart held its annual investors meeting setting priorities for the company including goals that pledged to create better jobs situations for all employees.
• Coverage of the cuts included stories on American Public Media’s Marketplace and Gawker.

Members of Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart) – an organization of, by, and for Walmart associates – spoke out in opposition all over the country and expressed their outrage with Walmart’s latest announcement.

• OUR Walmart members joined Wall St. protestors in New York City last week to share stories of their work experiences at the largest retailer in the world.
• OUR Walmart member Girshriela Green appeared on CBS Evening News and ABC Nightly News last Friday addressing the latest healthcare change.

Making Change at Walmart director Dan Schlademan made the following comments regarding the protestors:

“No wonder people are protesting in the streets. This is another example of corporations putting profits ahead of what’s good for everyday Americans. It’s outrageous and damaging to many hard-working families that the biggest corporation in America is increasing health care costs for many employees by 40 percent,” said Dan Schlademan, Making Change at Walmart Director.

Walmart is making a huge push this holiday season in an attempt to reverse the 9-quarter trend of declining U.S. same-store sales.

• Walmart is making a price-match guarantee, according to the Wall Street Journal. The catch is that they won’t let customers simply pay less, but will give back the difference on a Walmart gift card.
• This goes along with Walmart’s revived layaway program, which the company has been advertising aggressively.

Walmart moved its “fashion” office back to Arkansas from New York City.

• 275 New York-based staff are affected by the move (bringing the total number of jobs created by Walmart in New York City this year to -275).
• Walmart says the move is to focus more on “basics.”

Walmart has contributed $5 million to the Washington, D.C. National Museum of African American History and Culture.

• In an opinion column on BET.com, Cord Jackson said:
  

  while a donation to the Smithsonian is certainly generous, one wonders if that money couldn’t have been more helpful to African-Americans if it were put into something else, like higher wages and cheaper health insurance for the thousands of Blacks currently employed at Wal-Mart. Nobody is saying a museum isn’t important, but putting food on the table and working with dignity is more so.

In South Africa, Walmart is still facing opposition to its purchase of Massmart.

• The ruling that Walmart could purchase Massmart so long as no jobs were cut for two years may be re-opened for review.

And the Dukes v. Walmart case takes a new turn.

• This new filing limits the case to plaintiffs in California.
• Lawyers have promised to file cases in other regions as well.
• Making Changed at Walmart released a statement on the filing, saying:
  

  Today, the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart) and its allies, including Making Change at Walmart and the National Organization for Women (NOW), stand in support of the California Plaintiffs in the Dukes v. Wal-mart class action lawsuit who filed an amended complaint in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California. OUR Walmart is an association of current and former Walmart Associates standing together to improve their work environments and their lives.

Walmart loses two top executives in e-commerce.

• Edwardo Castro-Wright, who may be to blame for Walmart’s continued trouble with e-commerce, announced he will “retire” in July.
• One analyst said of the move:
  

  “It’s a serious loss of leadership in the e-commerce business,” Colin McGranahan, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, said in an interview. “Eduardo had the internal firepower to make things happen.”

• Also leaving from the e-commerce division is executive vice president of e-commerce Wan Ling Martello, who is moving to Nestle.

Analysis continues on why Walmart is bringing back layaway

• An MSNBC report points to declining same store sales in the U.S. to explain the return of the program.

Asda, Walmart’s British chain, has entered a bid to purchase Iceland Foods.

• Iceland Foods is an Icelandic owned British small-footprint supermarket/frozen food retailer which has been the subject of an intense bidding war.
• Asda will be competing with bids from Tesco and other large British supermarkets.
• Asda also acquired food retailer Netto last year, another small-footprint brand.

Walmart Canada has a new CEO.

• Shelley Broader will replace David Cheesewright.

And reaction continues to Walmart’s desire to stage a “New York Invasion.”

• The Queens Courier expressed concern about “dozens” of possible Walamrt locations in Queens.
• In Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Paper plotted out possible locations for Walmart Express locations, quoting an elected official:
  

  “Walmart needs Brooklyn, but Brooklyn doesn’t need Walmart,” said Councilman Charles Barron (D–East New York). “We have enough people who do not have living jobs and adequate healthcare, and we have enough discrimination against women, blacks and Latinos, we have enough workers not able organize — and that is what Walmart brings.”

Unlike the top secret Manhattan Project in the 1940s, which produced the first atomic bomb, Walmart has made no attempt to hide its ambition to carpet bomb all five boroughs of Manhattan with its stores. But a new study this week says that for the giant retailer to match the market share it has across America, Walmart would have to open 159 stores in New York City — and nearly 14,000 jobs would be lost at other merchants. This would be the retail equivalent of an atomic bomb dropped on the retail economy in Gotham.

The report released by the Alliance for a Greater New York (ALIGN) and the Murphy Institute at the City University of New York, titled The Walmartization of New York City, projects that to achieve a 21% share of the grocery market in New York City, Walmart would have to open 159 stores — which would result in the loss of nearly 14,000 retail jobs and result in a loss of over $353 million in total wages a year for all remaining retail workers in the city.

Municipal officials rarely comprehend the difference between gross jobs and net jobs. They see a new store going up, and are convinced it means new jobs. But because much of what Walmart sells is already being sold at existing merchants scattered across the city, the net jobs figure is really the bottom line. The ALIGN study estimates that 159 Walmart stores would “create” 9,950 gross jobs — but at the same time “this would result in the loss of 13,930 jobs in the neighborhoods surrounding the Walmart stores,” resulting in a net loss of 3,980 jobs.

But there are other costs as well. If the experience of other states is any guide, as many as 4,200 Walmart workers in Manhattan will end up relying on state and federal tax payers for health care benefits from Medicaid, according to the new report. That figure ought to give New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg pause. Yet three months ago, Hizzoner referred to Walmart as “one of the greatest corporate citizens in the country.”

What we do know is that Citizen Walmart is one of the greatest political spenders in the country. According to the Walmartization study, in the first half of 2011, Walmart spent $2.1 million on lobbying expenses in New York — which is over six times as much as they spent in the past four years combined. Like other Walmart urban forays into Chicago, Boston, and Washington, DC, these campaigns resemble “a full political campaign” the analysis says, with TV and radio spots, newspaper display ads, billboards, polls, and petitions. Walmart has to sell itself before it can sell its Chinese products.

Since the mid 1990s, Walmart has been methodically replacing its ‘old” discount stores in suburban and rural markets (many built as recently as the mid-1990s) with larger supercenters. But this big box format approach will simply not fit into urban areas because it’s hard to assemble 30+ acres of land in densely populated cities. The Walmartization report suggests that almost three out of four (72%) of these projected Walmart stores will be the Express store format that Walmart launched this year, with footprints of only 15,000 square feet each.

The ALIGN/CUNY study estimates Walmart could add 4 million square feet of retail stores in New York City. But 114 of these units would be smaller stores, or a total of 1.7 million square feet — 43% of Walmart’s projected selling space. The 35,000 square foot Walmart Markets would make up 30% of the total square footage. The larger superstore format would be used in only 11 locations, for a total of 1.1 million square feet, or only 27% of the total selling space.

The economic fallout from Walmart’s Manhattan Project should come as no revelation to anyone who has been watching the retail skies. A report released in January of 2011 by the Hunter College Center for Community Planning & Development, and the New York City Public Advocate, concluded that “the opening of a Walmart in New York City would likely eliminate more jobs than it creates, result in the loss of independently owned small businesses, and create an increased burden on taxpayers.” That study referred to Walmart as an “economic Trojan Horse.”

In an email to supporters this week, ALIGN said “the reality behind Walmart’s new hype is excruciating pain for our local economy: shuttered local businesses, depressed wages, and an army of workers dependent on strapped public coffers for basic necessities like food and health care.”

Study authors Josh Kellermann and Stephanie Luce conclude that “Walmart destroys more jobs than it creates, drives out locally-owned competitors, and undermines wages for the rest of the industry.”

Yet there is still hope for New Yorkers. “We need not be forced to choose between Walmart jobs and no jobs,” the study says. “The jobs will be created by other retailers, as long as New Yorkers demand an alternative to Walmart.”

If the political mantra this fall is: “It’s about jobs, stupid,” then Walmart’s Manhattan Project is a total bomb.

Al Norman is the founder of Sprawl-Busters. His new book, “Dancing on Walmart’s Grave,” is due out later this fall. His website is http://www.sprawl-busters.com.

A new study says that to get to national average market share for grocery sales, Walmart would need to build 159 in New York City.

• Read the report here (PDF).
• The report, from the Alliance for a Greater New York and The Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies at CUNY, says Walmart would need to build 11 Supercenters, 34 Walmart Markets, and 114 Walmart Expresses to reach 21% grocery market share in New York City.
• Walmart knows that 159 stores in the Big Apple would “scare residents,” according to Walmart spokesperson Steve Restivo.
• From Gothamist:
  

  NYC Public Advocate Bill de Blasio says, “What you would see with Walmart on a big scale is a net loss of jobs and a reduction in wages and benefit levels.”

• According to the study, if the 159 stores were to be built the estimated impact would be profoundly negative:
  

  A net loss of 3,980 jobs throughout NYC.

  The loss of more than $353 million in wages per year for the retail workers who still have jobs.

  The shuttering of 105 retail businesses in East New York, Brooklyn in the two years following the opening of a Walmart Supercenter at Gateway Center II.

  4,279 new Walmart workers who must rely on social services to make ends meet, costing New York taxpayers over $4 million per year just for health care benefits.

• Other projections of the study include:
  

  Walmart’s entry into New York would lead to net job loss in every borough, including 696 jobs lost in the Bronx; 1,160 in Brooklyn; 770 in Manhattan; 1,074 in Queens and 280 lost in Staten Island.

  Walmart’s entry into the five boroughs would increase the number of workers eligible for state subsidized health care. This will affect 748 workers who work in the Bronx; 1,247 in Brooklyn; 828 in Manhattan; 1,155 in Queens; and 301 workers in Staten Island.

Investigations find Walmart shortchanging customers using gift receipts in California and Texas.

• An investigation in May first uncovered the practice of Walmart giving customers returning items with gift reciepts less than the amount paid at the original purchase.
• Now two seperate TV stations have found that the practice continues.
• Speaking about the practice, California Senator Barbara Boxer said:
  

  “These new reports suggest that Walmart’s practice of not refunding customers the full purchase price is not a one-time thing but part of a disturbing pattern. It looks more and more like it’s the company’s policy and it’s got to stop immediately.”

Bostonians are out in force against the prospect of Walmart moving into the metro area.

• Concerned citizens met for a community meeting on Thursday where residents voiced their opposition:
  

  “Our community is under siege,’’ said Jamarhl Crawford, publisher and editor of Blackstonian, a newspaper catering to communities of color in Boston.

• Representatives of Walmart, though invited, declined to attend the Roxbury meeting.
• In an op-ed in the Boston Globe, leaders of Somerville Local First said that Walmart does not fit into the vision that they have of a healthy, growing community:
  

  We believe that nurturing local enterprises offers the best path to a prosperous and sustainable economy. That’s why Somerville Local First has decided to oppose Wal-Mart’s proposed expansion into our city.

According to The Economist, there are only two larger employers than Walmart in the whole world.

• The US Department of Defense and Chinese Peoples’ Liberation Army.
  
  

Walmart launched a huge public relations offensive this week in an attempt to soften its image as hurtful to female workers.

• Walmart donated $100 million to groups focused on female-driven economic development.
• But Walmart doesn’t actually support working women.
• In its story on the initiative, Forbes quoted Jennifer Stapleton of Making Change at Walmart, who said:
  

  “Wal-Mart causes systematic economic harm to women in the U.S. and around the world, and that is precisely why Wal-Mart is trying to sell us on a new image.”

• And Daily Finance says the initiative
  

  does seem suspiciously like the metaphorical equivalent of bestowing the sparkling Tiffany diamond to say “I’m sorry” after the beat-down.

Walmart’s Healthy Foods Initiative is also coming under closer scrutiny.

• The Nation reports:
  

  Along with better access to food, Walmart emphasizes how it will bring jobs to urban communities in dire need of them. But evidence suggests that Walmart’s expansion into poor urban neighborhoods won’t lift people out of poverty; it may even deepen the crisis by depressing wages and replacing existing jobs with lower-paid ones, as union and independent businesses fold or cut costs to compete with the chain.

  and

  LaDonna Redmond, a longtime food justice advocate who leads the Food and Justice Program at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, puts it bluntly: “Walmart is using the term ‘food desert’ as a Trojan horse to get into our communities and bring about more corporate control of our food system.”

• Donations, like a one million dollar gift to Growing Power, are also turning heads in the good food movement, where such donations are forcing an uncomfortable discussion about the movement’s integrity.
  

  Wal-Mart claims to be changing its operating practices to accommodate our movement’s concerns. They announced that they will start buying produce from local farmers. They’ll discount their produce and reformulate their house brands to reduce sodium. And, they’ll even build more stores in urban food deserts.

  Looking behind Wal-Mart’s press releases, we find significant reason for skepticism—and little transparency—about these claims. It is common knowledge that Wal-Mart demands its suppliers to charge them rock bottom prices, which are not economically viable for family scale farmers. With regards to sodium reduction in their products, one highly placed official at Kraft told me, “Wal-Mart is far behind the competition. Other food manufacturers have been working in this area for years.” With regards to their apparently altruistic intentions to build in food deserts, this is little more than a Trojan horse packaged in shiny PR gift wrap.

In Walmart boycott news, fishermen on the East coast are up in arms about the company’s support of catch shares.

• Fishermen contend that catch share leads to rapid consolidation and job loss within the fishing industry, cutting out smaller operators and recreational fishing operations.
• While the donations are from the Walton Family Foundation, fishermen are targeting Walmart stores, calling for hunters to join them as well.
• And not all environmentalists agree that catch share is a sustainable practice:
  

  “Contrary to arguments by catch share proponents — namely large commercial fishing interests — this management system has exacerbated unsustainable fishing practices,” wrote Food & Water Watch. “In addition, catch shares have drastically consolidated profits, eliminated jobs and decreased crew pay.”

Business Week reports that local government subsidies to big box stores are a bad idea.

• The story highlight Walmart, whose taxpayer subsidies have recently come under greater scutiny.
• The report highlights a study from the East-West Gateway Council of Governments, which finds that in, in the Saint Louis area
  

  Although $2 billion in [tax increment financing] and [transportation development district] investments were for retail development from 1990 to 2007, only 5,400 retail jobs were added to the region, a cost of about $370,000 per job.

  and

  The use of tax incentives has exacerbated economic and racial disparity.

With e-commerce still a mystery to the company, Walmart is favoring aquisition over innovation.

• Walmart acquired OneRiot this week, a company focused on web and social media advertising

And Walmart will be rolling out Christmas merchandise before the end of September.

• Along with other retailers, Walmart will start putting out decorations before the beginning of October.
• The holiday season is the best month for retailers, so with 9 quarters of negative same stores sales in the US, this could be a ploy to reverse that trend.
• With layaway.
• No word on when Walmart will begin playing I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.

Since its founding in 1962, Walmart’s business model has driven one goal, to always have the lowest prices. But the American market has changed dramatically since then, and as its nine straight quarters of negative sales indicate, Walmart is still struggling to adapt. Even before the recession, the middle class was shrinking due to a rising cost of living and incomes that did not keep up. The recession accelerated the growing income gap and pushed consumers to the extremes of the market, with more shoppers seeking discount items and profits being driven by high-end goods.

From The Wall Street Journal

Citigroup calls the phenomenon the “Consumer Hourglass Theory” and since 2009 has urged investors to focus on companies best positioned to cater to the highest-income and lowest-income consumers.

“Companies have thought that if you’re in the middle, you’re safe,” says Citigroup analyst Deborah Weinswig. “But that’s not where the consumer is any more—the consumer hourglass is more pronounced now than ever.”

The trend is so strong that consumer products giant Proctor and Gamble has changed its marketing strategy to target discount customers and high-end buyers, with few mid-range items. Other companies have followed suit and are altering the way they research, develop and market their products. This seems like a smart business response to a disturbing market trend, which helps explain why Walmart’s customer base is increasingly turning to cheaper alternatives.

Yet Walmart’s response to this trend may be missing the larger picture. Rather than evaluate the long term viability of their business model in a changing economy, Walmart’s is trying to boost sales in its next quarter by bringing back lay-away shopping for the holiday season, a program which it ended in 2006 due to high costs. The program (set to run from Oct 17 through Dec 16) will encourage low-income shoppers to purchase higher-end goods.

But as Walmart is losing the price gap, and when its customer base struggles to afford Walmart’s prices for even basic items, this short-term program may not be able to bend the downward trajectory of same store sales. Walmart has also started its holiday season early this year, and will begin pushing Christmas products at the end of September. These strategies seem quaint in comparison to the swift and dramatic changes that P&G implemented back in 2009.

Will Walmart’s old strategies continue to hinder it in the rapidly changing economy? More importantly, why doesn’t Walmart recognize the writing on the wall of these trends? Walmart should begin paying its employees more, to put upward pressure on wages and rebuild the American middle class—its strongest consumer base for the long term.

Yesterday you may have noticed, Walmart made a big announcement about women and small business. Here’s the statement that Jennifer Stapleton put out for Making Change at Walmart:

“Walmart’s latest PR gambit is trying to cover up decades of unjust treatment of women, but women know better. Walmart causes systematic economic harm to women in the U.S. and around the world, and that is precisely why Walmart is trying to sell us on a new image. Walmart keeps millions of women in the U.S. and around the world in poverty, fails to protect women from unacceptable sexual and other forms of workplace harassment and works many women to the bone in sweatshop conditions around the globe. And, according to the women in the Dukes v. Wal-Mart gender discrimination law suit, Walmart pays women less than men.

“The women who work at Walmart and for Walmart’s suppliers know better than to believe the company’s propaganda. In July, Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart) released what is believed to be the first-ever nationwide poll results exclusively of current Walmart employees. The poll, conducted among 501 “Associates,” as Walmart non-salaried employees are known, shows that by nearly every measure, women fare worse at Walmart — whether it’s pay, respect, retirement benefits, training for promotions, job security or fair procedures for disciplining, firing or laying off workers.”

This statement references a poll which revealed the following:

• 65 percent of men said their take home pay is poor or fair, while 75 percent of women responded similarly.
• 48 percent of men said Walmart does a poor or just fair job of providing the training and mentoring that allows them to earn promotions, while 59 percent of women responded similarly.
• The company rates poor or just fair on a number of questions relating to workplace experiences: listening to workers (61 percent of women said that versus 51 percent of men), giving them respect for the work they do (56 percent of women, 50 percent of men), having fair procedures for discipline (57 percent of women to 48 percent of men), fair procedures for termination (56 percent of women, 48 percent of men) and providing dependable work schedules (48 percent of women, 42 percent of men) and sufficient hours (57 percent of women, 53 percent of men).

Another reason to have a skeptical eye at this latest announcement is the company’s record on the ground in countries where they have already undertaken so called “women’s empowerment initiatives,” like in Bangladesh, where Walmart partnered with CARE in 2010 to launch a program providing 2,500 female factory workers with workplace skills. Here’s the truth:

Kalpona Akter is a former Bangladeshi garment worker and a worker’s rights activist who was beaten, tortured and jailed for thirty days because a Walmart subcontractor brought falsified criminal charges against her of fomenting worker unrest. Even after Walmart started its initiative in Bangladesh, Kalpona Akter faces years in prison in Bangladesh for these unsubstantiated charges. She recently traveled to the United States to deliver a proposal to shareholders calling on Walmart to require its suppliers around the globe to publish reports on their compliance with international standards of human and workers’ rights. Accompanying Kalpona Akter was Aleya Akter who has worked at a garment factory that supplied Walmart — where wages are 20 cents per hour—since she was about twelve years old. These stories of sweatshop conditions and low wages are not isolated incidents. Stephanie Luce, Professor at the Murphy Institute, points out that workers at Walmart supplier factories in Bangladesh do not have power to bargain for higher wages. According to an affidavit by Lucie to the Competition Tribunal of South Africa in November 2010:

“Even though workers had jobs, their wages were so low that they were not able to have positive impact on the local economy. Instead, the bulk of wealth generated in the industry left the country and went into profits of the multi-nationals.”

While Walmart’s supply chain oppresses communities, women and children abroad, their practices have bankrupted countless small businesses in the United States. A leading example is Margaret Garner, whom Walmart hired as a lead spokesperson during their fight to break into the Chicago market. Garner was the first black, female contractor Walmart had worked with, and they publicized the hire widely, getting her picture on the front of national publications like Time and taking out a full page ad in Ebony, to signal a commitment to employing minority workers and minority-owned business in Chicago. While the majority of the contracting duties were subcontracted to white-owned firm, Garner provided political cover and connections in a city where minority and labor leaders opposed Walmart’s expansion.

“What happened at the end of the day is that (Wal-Mart) paraded her around the country as its African-American female (general contractor),” says Omar Shareef, founder of the Chicago-based African American Contractors Assn. “And she wound up going down.”

Margaret Garner had built her company from scratch but was forced into bankruptcy due to the crushing $11.9 million in cost overruns on Walmart’s first Chicago store. Walmart took advantage of a system that permitted companies to misrepresent their economic effect on the city, by overstating the numbers of local workers they hired and “gaming the system” by hiring minority-owned businesses, then “passing through” the work to a subcontractor.

For decades, Walmart has shown that when it “invests” in a community, that community can expect lost jobs, depressed wages, bankrupt local business, and lowering of labor standards to follow quickly. Women in the US and around the world would be far better served if Walmart would improve its labor practices, raise its wages, and use its power to stand up for human rights instead of undermining them through its day to day business practices.

Walmart plans on building new stores in numerous California locations, to the outrage of local activists.

• A bill that has moved through the state legislature and has arrived at the desk of Gov. Brown this week. The legislation
  

  “Basically, it makes these super-boxes prove they are a good thing,” said Sen. Juan Vargas (D-San Diego), author of SB 469.

• Walmart may try to use a zoning loophole in Southern california, where they have experienced intense opposition for about a decade, to create up to 15 new locations. The loophole allows for big-boxes to be built in similar buildings which have already been constructed but since vacated by other big-box retailers.
• Local activists in Burbank, CA continue to oppose a Walmart in their town.Click here to read a well-reasoned opinion about the negative impact Walmart would have.

Walmart loses a court case, wins a marketing campaign: may get to settle class action lawsuit with Walmart gift cards.

• In a miscarriage of justice, Walmart may get to settle a class action lawsuit by Netflix subscribers by giving them all Walmart gift cards.
• Netflix is not happy at the prospect of handing over its database of subscribers to Walmart, which owns Vudu, a competing streaming video service.
• The lawsuit arose out of concerns that Walmart and Netflix had conspired in 2005 to divide up the DVD market between the two companies.
• There is some speculation that Walmart may have thrown the fight to get access to Netflix subscriber information.

Walmart might be looking at mergers and acquisitions to shore up declining same store sales in the U.S.

• A leak this week showed that after Walmart’s dealings with BJ’s Wholesale Clubs fell apart Walmart may have looked to purchase Barnes and Noble, possibly to compete with Amazon, which it has had much trouble competing against in ecommerce.

Retailers in general, and Walmart in particular, are trying to make it sound as though sales will be up soon.

• Walmart’s international chief blamed high gas prices for lack of disposable income in the consumer market, but at the same time was “very optimistic” about Walmart U.S.

Even China might be getting too expensive for Walmart manufacturing.

• With China wanting to double wages in the next five years, some Walmart suppliers are looking elsewhere.
• And Walmart has been fined by Chinese authorities for trying to pass off low-quality pork as higher-quality “green pork.”

Anonymous testimonials from both a Walmart store manager and a supplier appear on the website Reddit this week (please note that some other materials on Reddit may be inappropriate for some readers).

• The store manager expressed that the job was depressing, to say the least:
  

  Comment: Every time I leave walmart I’m slightly depressed about humanity. How do you deal with this on a daily basis? I commend you sir. (or ma’am)

  Store manager: You should try working there for 50hrs a week.

• A farm employee was insightful as to how Walmart treats its suppliers:
  

  Wal-Mart screws their suppliers, laughs at lawsuits, and then demands you uphold your end of the contract, all in the name of saving you money.

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© 2011, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.