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Ear to the Ground

Wal-Mart’s $640 Million Sneeze

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Posted on Dec 23, 2008
Flickr / Brave New Films

Wal-Mart will pay as much as $640 million to settle 63 lawsuits around the country alleging that the retailer had exploited its workers. The payout could add up to less than 0.1 percent of the company’s revenues this year.


Bloomberg:

The agreement comes five weeks before Mike Duke takes over from outgoing Chief Executive Officer H. Lee Scott, who has overseen a sales resurgence and sought to burnish Wal-Mart’s image among environmentalists, politicians and labor groups. Wal-Mart may pay from $352 million to $640 million, potentially less than 0.1 percent of its $378.8 billion in revenue in 2008.

“In terms of money, it doesn’t move the needle at Wal-Mart, but cleaning it up is going to be viewed as a positive by everyone, including Wall Street,” Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates Inc., a New York-based retail consulting and investment banking firm, said in a phone interview. “They don’t want to pass this along to the next CEO.”

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By KDelphi, December 26, 2008 at 7:59 pm Link to this comment

I have been IN a WM ONCE—I was with my friend’s family, and, they live in a rural area. They shop there alot. I went in with them. It made me nauseated, it just went on and on and on and…

I am really broke (like you’ll never know), but, I cannot shop there. I “killed” my keyboard a few weeks ago,and the replacementrs were cheap there. I picked it up, put it down—I just cant do it.

Willpen—If you were a cashier, without benefits, working at WM, youd be angry, too. I’ve been a cashier—-fast food. Plenty of places—until I got fired from every one.
F*ck WM!

Some say that they cannot afford to shop anywhere else (well, neither can I—but I do). HOw do they think we got ourselves into a situation , where workging people must work there, shop there, eat there, etc. Wal Mart nation.


I heard Ted Koppel, of all people, say, one night, “Well, I like those 10 for $10 tube socks, too!”. I thought, “you rich old basterd”!
F*ck WM!

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By Willpen, December 26, 2008 at 2:07 pm Link to this comment

Walmart has always been and will always continue to be a category buster, and since they now encompass almost 100% of all retail categories what does this say for the mom and pop businesses that built the back bone of this country. 

There is no longer any connection between retailer and consumer.  Just an angry person behind a cash register that can barely even count your change if the machine does not tell them what to do.  This problem goes so much further than what is actually happening in regards to the junk that is being sold to us.  This is now starting to create a generation of worker and consumer drones that just walk down aisles selling and buying whatever is put in front of them because they are told to, without pause.  Oh pity us all…

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By Jack, December 26, 2008 at 11:53 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

I could never understand how Americans could ever support a criminal organization like Wal-Mart.

I have never been in a Wal-Mart and never will go to one.

Wal-Mart is responsible for much of the outsourcing that has taken place and the reason our merchandise is coming from China and we are forced to buy inferior junk in place of well made American goods.

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By mike112769, December 24, 2008 at 11:33 am Link to this comment

Let’s teach Wal-Mart a real lesson and buy nothing but American made goods!    Oh wait…there’s no such thing anymore!

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By Back bencher, December 24, 2008 at 7:21 am Link to this comment
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ANYONE who thinks that this is the end of this issue, that Walmart will now become a good corporate citizen is pissing against a hurricane. Walmart is into PROFIT to the exclusion of every other issue,they see their biggest crime as getting caught. Obviously the mediator agrees, OR they would have fined as a precentage of profit, rather than in true dollars.

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By GW=MCHammered, December 23, 2008 at 11:06 pm Link to this comment
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TRAM-LAW

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By KDelphi, December 23, 2008 at 9:45 pm Link to this comment

Its about time…now , they need to unionize.

They have unions at the Wal-Mart in China…

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