My Continuing War Against Wal-Mart

Here's some good news from the Pensacola (FL) Journal, which was being bullied by Wal-Mart to dump a columnist who made disparaging remarks about Wal-Mart. Here's an excerpt from the executive editor (who really sounds like a morning drive-time DJ), Randy Hammer, looking back on the offending column:

"I like Wal-Mart prices the same as the next shopper, but there's a downside, too. Many Wal-Mart employees lack the fringe benefits and insurance that makes the difference between existence and a good quality of life. Yet, we customers pay a surcharge from a different pocket — subsidizing health care for Wal-Mart employees who can't afford it." Mark then described how Friedman's book pointed out that more than 10,000 children of Wal-Mart employees are in a Georgia health-care program, which costs the state's taxpayers nearly $10 million a year. Mark also pointed out that a New York Times report found that 31 percent of the patients at a North Carolina hospital were Wal-Mart employees on Medicaid. Mark's column really wasn't about Mr. Walton's store, but about Pensacola and how we're becoming a Wal-Mart kind of town, "cheap and comfy on the surface, lots of unhappiness and hidden costs underneath." That was the point Mark was trying to make. Bob Hart, one of the upper managers for the Wal-Marts in the area, called me and said he didn't like Mark's column, didn't like a lot of Mark's columns. I told Mr. Hart that I don't particularly like some of Mark's columns either. Like the one he wrote about charter government, which Escambia County had put on the ballot for voters to consider last year. Mark said the charter-government proposal was a mess and that people would be fools to vote for it. [...] Mr. Hart, however, said he and his stores couldn't tolerate a newspaper that would print the opinions of someone who was as mean and negative as Mark O'Brien. But, you know, Mark's not nearly as ornery as that left-wing rabble-rouser Molly Ivins, whose column the newspaper also publishes. At any rate, Mr. Hart said he wanted the newspaper to get its racks off his lots. But he also said that if I fired Mark, we could talk about continuing to sell the newspaper at his stores.

As that column went out into the ether, Wal-Mart in Pensacola had removed the newspaper's sales boxes from the premises. But here's some good news from a local TV news station:

Wal-Mart is lifting a local manager's ban on selling the Pensacola News Journal at area stores. A company spokeswoman says the ban was imposed in response to a column he considered derogatory to the retailer.

Speaking of Wal-Mart, seems that they've ramped up their DC lobbying efforts. From an article in The New Republic (subscription required) that details this increased activity, here's some of what we can look forward to in the next election cycle with Wal-Mart as a bit of a bullseye:

With both sides pursuing Washington strategies--and with Washington politicos starting to take notice--it's almost a foregone conclusion that Wal-Mart will become an issue in the next elections. For one thing, as Kerry found last year, the company makes a great stand-in for the issues that many Democrats want to focus on: Health care, wages, and offshore outsourcing. "They will be held up as bad guys in '06 on particular issues," says Jennifer Palmieri, a 2004 presidential campaign veteran now with the Center for American Progress. "They're Democrats' best talking point on why we need more progressive policy."  Indeed, the attacks have already begun. In May, 51 Democratic members of Congress signed a letter calling on Wal-Mart to address accusations of gender discrimination. And, late last month, Senators Ted Kennedy and Jon Corzine and Representative Anthony Weiner held a press conference--organized by the ufcw--to introduce a bill requiring states to make public the number of employees at large companies who are on government health care. "Part of the plan," said Weiner, "is to embarrass companies like Wal-Mart." Added Kennedy, "This is the first step, but it certainly will not be the last."  Actually, it's not the first--similar legislation has already been introduced in several states, seeding the sort of negative publicity that Democrats can draw on when going after the company next year. This spring, Maryland passed a bill requiring the company to spend more on employee health care, which Republican Governor Bob Ehrlich then vetoed. Baltimore's Democratic Mayor Martin O'Malley is running against Ehrlich in the 2006 election, and there are signs that the Wal-Mart bill will be a central part of his campaign.  Then there's the fact that so many of the people currently working for Wake Up Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart Watch, as perennial campaign vets, are likely to sign up with candidates over the next six months; in doing so, they will naturally push their bosses to take a strong line against the company. "I do think a lot of the values embodied in our fight are values you see in important campaigns," says one such staffer. And Wal-Mart's emergence on the national political scene is a silver lining to the unions' frustrated organizing efforts. "I'm not sure anyone believed we were going to organize in that way, but we were learning what the company was like," says one union veteran. That experience, in turn, will make it easier when the ufcw, the seiu, and other groups push for anti-Wal-Mart tickets next year.  Finally, the company's newfound Washington presence, ironically, could end up hurting it politically. With most of Wal-Mart's lobbyists coming from Republican ranks--and more than 80 percent of its contributions going to the GOP--Democrats will have an easy time linking their opponents to Wal-Mart's misdeeds. "All the money in the world isn't going to change the facts," says Blank. "It's their business decisions that are coming back to haunt them."