Wal-Mart is fueling political furnace

[Judi Lynn]

Wal-Mart is fueling political furnace
BY RON FOURNIER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Posted on Monday, April 24, 2006


WASHINGTON — There is no candidate. There are no ballots. There won’t be an Election Day. And yet it may be the hottest, highest-stakes political contest in America today.

It’s the campaign against Wal-Mart.

A year-old effort to force the nation’s No. 1 private employer to change its business practices has evolved into a Washingtonstyle brawl: tens of millions of dollars spent by Republican and Democratic political consultants using polling, micro-targeting, ads, e-mails, direct mail, grassroots organizing and strategic “war rooms.”

Their fight centers on some of society’s most vexing trends, including the rising cost of health care, the painful realities of globalization and the waning relevance of organized labor.

“Our opponents have organized the likes of a political campaign against us,” said Bob McAdam, vice president of corporate affairs at Wal-Mart. “It would be nonsense for us not to respond in a similar fashion.”
(snip/...)

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/152709/

[Binka]

1. What A Sad Commentary On America That A Shit Hole Is The #1 Employer

Fuck WalMart. I hope a plague hits the Walton family and all their minions.

[Doctor_J]

6. Yup, welcome to the 3rd world

Pretty soon we'll all be working for $7.50/hr with no insurance, pension, or job security. The American Dream is something for the history books.

[sarcasmo]

7. That time is here. Come to Michigan and try and get a job making

over ten dollars an hour. The companies that are still here and have not yet gone to Mexico are hiring through temp agencies. The average wage to start is $7.50-$9.50 am an hour. Try to support a family of four on that salary.

[shoelace414]

2. maybe they should lobby for single payer health insurance

[DUHandle]

4. Wal Mart lobbied long and hard

To increase the maximum hours that truckers could lawfully be on the road.

[Fierce]

3. "Waning relevance of organized labor"?

FUCK YOU, Ron Fournier.

Organized labor is pretty goddamn relevant in a world of outsourcing, no health care, and unsafe work places. God, I hate that "irrelevant" shit.

[Doctor_J]

8. I tend to agree

It's a lynchpin of the 3rd world-ization of the US. Heartbreaking, but true. Also, another similarity between Rove and Hitler - depressing the labor market is key to getting working folks to focus their animosity on irrelevant foes (immigrants) instead of the real problem (CEO's and a corporatist government).

[callous taoboy]

9. What Fierce said!

Welcome to DU, by the way.

:hi:

[Fierce]

10. Thanks.

nt

[MrPrax]

5. "painful realities" and

"waning relevence" "rising costs" are pretty vexing trends...trends the subject of the article has nothing to do with...it's just the 'business climate'...

Right...and note the swipe at Hillary at the end...priceless

[Democrats_win]

11. Those poor poor billionaires.