Wal-Mart

Last edited by lenazun on November 25, 2009 - 1:18pm

Company Snapshot:

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is an American public corporation that runs a chain of large, discount department stores. It was founded by Sam Walton in 1962, incorporated on October 31, 1969, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972. It is the largest private employer in the world and the fourth largest utility or commercial employer, trailing the People's Liberation Army of China, the National Health Service of the United Kingdom, and the Indian Railways. Wal-Mart is the largest grocery retailer in the United States, with an estimated 20% of the retail grocery and consumables business, as well as the largest toy seller in the U.S., with an estimated 22% share of the toy market.

Ownership status:

Publicly traded

Number of employees worldwide:

1,900,000

Chief executive officer:

H. Lee Scott

Website:

http://www.wal-mart.com

Global Fortune 500 rank:

Net Income:

12.7 billion

Total revenue:

over 378 billion

Corporate accountability

Tax issues:

Corporate tax loopholes are having a profound effect on state revenue collections, and mounting evidence demonstrates that for many years Wal-Mart has aggressively pursued them in order to avoid paying state taxes. The legality of certain tax schemes differs state to state and certain strategies are extremely complex, but the underlying results are the same: they have saved Wal-Mart from paying hundreds of millions of dollars in state taxes.

To learn more, check out this fact sheet from Wal-Mart Watch.

Labor:

Wal-Mart has been criticized for sourcing from international suppliers who violate workers' rights. The International Labor Rights Forum has claimed that Wal-Mart sources from suppliers who used forced labor, violate minimum wage and overtime laws, deny maternity leave, deny health care and bathroom breaks and deny workers' rights to form independent unions. As a result, the company was sued in 2005 by the International Rights Advocates on behalf of workers from China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Swaziland, and Nicaragua. Wal-Mart's purchasing and auditing policies have been blamed for their continued sourcing from factories which violate workers' rights.

For more information: sourcing fact sheet from Wal-Mart Watch

Not only does Wal-Mart fail to protect their international workers' rights, but it does so in the national level as well. According to the Associated Press, the last time a U.S. union was about to be formed was in 2000, at a store in Jacksonville, Texas. 11 workers from the store's meatpacking department voted "to join and be represented by the UFCW". Wal-Mart denied this effort by eliminating all in-store meat cutting jobs to stocking only pre-wrapped meat.

Environment and product safety:

Wal-Mart has made a name for itself over the past year by highlighting various environmental initiatives, which is sees as an easy way to improve its image. While reducing packaging on food products and selling more energy efficient light bulbs are important steps that Wal-Mart should be applauded for, they must do much more to make amends for an environmentally unfriendly past. In the past, Wal-Mart has been guilty of air pollution, storm water violations, and improper storage of hazardous materials. With millions in fines resulting from these violations, Wal-Mart’s environmental record has been blemished.

Human rights:

Wal-Mart is currently facing the largest workplace-bias lawsuit in U.S. history for widespread discrimination against women employees; a class action lawsuit filed by African-American truck drivers; numerous wage and hour cases ;and many other cases involving discrimination against workers with disabilities. For example, in 2001, Wal-Mart paid $6 million dollars to settle 13 lawsuits, which alleged widespread discrimination and violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Human rights violations at Wal-Mart are immense that Norway had pull out its stocks from Wal-Mart. In 2006, Norway sold its 2.5 billion kroner ($415 million) worth of Wal-Mart, citing "serious" and "systematic" human rights violations in Wal-Mart's supply chain. Norway's federal pension fund - valued at almost $300 billion - is one of the world's largest.

A year ago, a confidential corporate memo from Wal-Mart HQ outlined a shocking strategy to control its employee health care costs. With chilling precision, then-VP of Employee Benefits Susan Chambers detailed cutthroat measures to maximize savings -- at terrible costs to their front line workers.

A Report on the change since Susan Chamber's memo.

Political influence (national and international):

Prior to 1998, Wal-Mart failed to grasp the power of a Washington-based lobbying army. With enormous wealth and a friendly legislature, Wal-Mart and the Walton family came to the realization that they could advance goals such as school vouchers, restricting tariff protections, limiting port security, the elimination of the estate tax, and obtaining lucrative subsidies. Wal-Mart Subsidy Watch by Good Jobs First documented that Wal-Mart has received more than $1.2 billion from over 244 taxpayer-funded subsidies status, job training/recruiting funds, and general grants.

Wal-Mart, using tax avoidance schemes provided to it by the accounting firm Ernst & Young, has short-changed many states out of millions of dollars of state tax money. Click here to read more about the tax avoidance schemes. Wal-Mart Subsidy Watch

CrocTail subsidiary information

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Financial information

Stock ticker symbol:

WMT

Fiscal year:

2008

Fiscal year:

2008

Link to annual report:

http://finance.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3AWMT

Additional descriptive data

Investor website:

http://investor.walmartstores.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=112761&p=irol-irhome

Attachment	Size
WalMartComplaint091305.pdf	89.44 KB
ILRF Critique of Wal-Mart's Sourcing Policies	125.17 KB
Standards for Suppliers (2005)	88.41 KB

Wal-Mart

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