Think of the British Petroleum gusher at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, that’s what Chicagoans can expect now that Walmart and Chicago Walmart politicians have busted the cap. Like the oil in the gulf, we won’t know the full extent of damage for years.

From The Chicago Tribune:

Another Wal-Mart is on its way to Chicago, with the City Council today approving a store for the South Side’s Chatham neighborhood.

Aldermen voted 45-4 without discussion to approve the store at 83rd Street and Stewart Avenue. That comes on the heels of the council’s unanimous vote last month to allow a Wal-Mart to be built in the far Southeast Side Pullman neighborhood. Prior to that, no Wal-Marts had opened in the city since 2006.

The Chatham Wal-Mart sailed through the council relatively easily compared to the Pullman proposal, which was marked by a protracted battle between the retail giant and pro-union aldermen who wanted wage guarantees for employees at Chicago stores.

Several aldermen said the Pullman fight paved the way for approval in Chatham. Wal-Mart has said it hopes to open dozens of stores in Chicago, though no specific sites for future stores have been identified, according to company officials.

And the race to the bottom continues.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

[Update @ 1534 -- I forwarded this story to a friend who is very involved in the chemical end of environmental concern and she just emailed me back to say that:

I called Whole Foods HQ in Austin. Most of their stores are bpa-free (re: the receipts) and the rest will be converted within the next 2 months.

My guess is that now that the big name stores have been named on national news, they'll all convert.

I have to wonder if that includes Walmart.]

Strictly speaking, this is not a Walmart story but, because of Walmart’s ubiquitous place in retailing, I have to think that Walmart produces more of this particular health hazard than a large number of the others guilty of ignorance.

The solution could be devastatingly expensive.

From the Environmental Working Group:

The plastic component bisphenol A has been in the headlines nonstop as scientists, health experts and consumers press for a federal ban on food packaging made with this synthetic estrogen, shown to leach readily into infant formula, beverages and canned food. But most Americans are probably unaware that they are regularly exposed to the same endocrine-disrupting chemical in cash register receipts.

Two-fifths of the paper receipts tested by a major laboratory commissioned by Environmental Working Group were on heat-activated paper that was between 0.8 to nearly 3 percent pure BPA by weight. Wipe tests conducted with a damp laboratory paper easily picked up a portion of the receipts’ BPA coating, indicating that the chemical would likely stick to the skin of anyone who handled them. The receipts came from major retailers, grocery stores, convenience stores, gas stations, fast-food restaurants, post offices and automatic teller machines.

Major retailers using BPA-containing receipts in at least some outlets included McDonald’s, CVS, KFC, Whole Foods, Walmart, Safeway and the U.S. Postal Service. Receipts from some major chains, including Target, Starbucks and Bank of America ATMs, [emphasis mine, JH] issued receipts that were BPA-free or contained only trace amounts.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

How do you really feel about Walmart? Here’s your chance to express your true feelings — pro and con — about the world’s largest retailer. Write whatever you like in the comments section and engage your fellow readers in the conversation.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

While I was away in the mountains of North Carolina, the Walmart news never stopped just because I wasn’t reading it. One interesting note, locals refer to the Walmart in Spruce Pine (No. 2749) as the Macy’s of the Blue Ridge Parkway; it is that nice.

Placed just off the Blue Ridge Parkway, the store effectively halts traffic not familiar with the area and strangles the life blood out of businesses actually in Spruce Pine. But that’s the way Walmart works.

Here are a few of the headlines I missed:

Wal-Mart Shakes Up Executive Suite;
Wal-Mart Promotes… to Fill E-commerce Leadership Spot;
Scary (But True) Facts About Wal-Mart;
Wal-Mart merchandising chief leaves;
What Else You Should Know About Walmart;
Wal-Mart pops onto scene, makes its mark;
Protestors Tell Wal-Mart to “FUHGEDDABOUD”;
Wal-Mart in negotiations to open D.C. store;
Wal-Mart Contemplates Locating Right Next to New Costco;
Wal-Mart moms on politics and the economy;
How comfy: Daley helps Wal-Mart… Wal-Mart recognizes Daley;
Wal-Mart Latest to Step Away From Sinar Mas;
Another Billionaire Bailout for Wal-Mart Developer;
Putting Screws To Suppliers Means Big Cash For Wal-Mart;
Max Books… Wal-Mart and it’s overall impact in Chicago and;
Wal-Mart & Its Possibly Criminal Bad Business Practices.

And now back to my regularly scheduled rants.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

So we know Walmart wants to tag individual items of clothing, even if it means they could track you with it after you leave the store. The RFID Journal Blog asks, “Why isn’t Walmart killing the tags:”

A member of my staff told me it didn’t makes sense for Wal-Mart Stores to tag clothing and not take advantage of the kill command that would permanently disable the EPC RIFID tag, or to utilize some of the privacy features built into the new chips from Impinj and NXP Semiconductors. But actually, it makes good business sense. Here’s why:

Wal-Mart is currently tracking men’s jeans and basics, plus some cases of consumer packaged goods (see Wal-Mart Relaunches EPC RFID Effort, Starting With Men’s Jeans and Basics, Wal-Mart Takes a New Approach to RFID and Privacy Nonsense Sweeps the Internet). I would guess that less than 1 percent of the items the retailer will sell this year will have an EPC RFID transponder on it. In order to kill those tags, Wal-Mart would need to install readers at every checkout counter.

Many stores have 40 or more checkout counters. Let’s examine the cost, using round numbers and some rough estimates. If you multiply 4,000 stores by 40 checkout stands, Wal-Mart would need roughly 160,000 readers to kill the tags. At $3,000 apiece, that would amount to $480,000,000. Clearly, it doesn’t make sense to spend half a billion dollars to kill tags on such a small percentage of products.

So Walmart cares more about money than privacy? I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!

Rightly or wrongly, Illinois and Louisiana are always serious contenders for the top slot in the Best Bought Politicians race, but Illinois GOP gubernatorial nominee Bill Brady has given his state an edge thanks to the good citizens of Walmart.

From Crain’s Chicago Business:

In an under-noticed development last week, GOP gubernatorial nominee Bill Brady reported receiving a $50,000 donation from the Arkansas-based discount retailer on June 1 — right around the time Mr. Brady was loudly urging the Chicago City Council to approve plans for Chicago’s second Wal-Mart outlet.

And lest anyone think Walmart is not fair:

Equally interesting, Gov. Pat Quinn’s campaign doesn’t want to say anything about the donation. Perhaps that’s because Team Quinn, despite its close ties to organized labor, has been chatting with the Wal-Mart folks and maybe hopes for a little campaign booty itself.

Corporate power, the end in of itself.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

Have you ever wondered what’s in a chicken nugget? Even if you’re not eating a chicken nugget from Walmart — now new and improved with blue plastic — you might find this cooking demonstration from Jamie Oliver instructive.

If I don’t see the bone, I’m not eating it.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

Haven’t done one of these posts in a while, but thanks to the American Prospect I have the impetus:

Most organic consumers know premiums for cleaner food are 10, 20, 50 percent — and can reach 500 percent or more — but this produce is also demanding for farmers to grow. It’s so expensive because the caretaking of natural systems is more labor-intensive than industrial agriculture, which engineers its way to productivity. Many organic farmers must rely on hand labor to bring in crops and keep fields free of weeds and bugs without using sprays; more workers mean costly payroll taxes and unemployment and workers’ compensation insurance. What’s more, these growers are typically located in areas near urban markets, where high real-estate values mean hefty mortgages and taxes.

You got two choices to explain how there can possibly be organic food at a Walmart price: 1) It’s not really organic. 2) They balance the cost off the back of the farmer.

I don’t like either possibility.

Now that the Wall Street engineered recession has workers panicked, Walmart is pushing harder to storm the barricades of urban workers. Washington, D.C. and Baltimore are likely targets, but residents are learning some of the tricks.

From The Motown Shank:

A few years ago, we were dealing with the prospect of a large development coming into our neighborhood. Shortly after it was announced, we were surprised to see unquestioning cheerleading from the members of a local board of an organization whose mission was to encourage the growth of small, independent, locally owned businesses.

Later it was discovered that the developer had spread around support seed money to select community organization leaders in the form of several thousand dollars per person.

When you’re talking multi-million dollar investments, what’s a few thousand dollars here or there? Better yet, if you can get away with paying folks a hundred bucks here or there, even better – especially for a retailer known for its supposed discount prices.

The most recent warning comes from Chicago were protesters were paid $50 a day to agitate in favor of Walmart.

From The Chicago Reader:

“Let me just first thank each and every one of the residents that are here today—I’d like to really acknowledge them,” said Ninth Ward alderman Anthony Beale, speaking in the chamber of Chicago’s City Council on Thursday, June 24. “It’s residents like this who really give me the energy and drive to fight on their behalf.”

Beale gestured toward the sea of white filling the spectators’ gallery, men and women all wearing T-shirts sporting slogans that championed the project the council’s zoning committee was about to approve: construction of a Walmart Supercenter in Pullman.

But it’s possible not everyone felt as strongly about the project as their T-shirts did. Around 7:30 that morning, about a hundred Walmart supporters had filed onto two yellow school buses in front of the 63rd and Harper headquarters of the Woodlawn Organization (TWO). A south-side fixture, this social services organization is run, at least nominally, by president Georgette Greenlee-Finney, but it’s heavily influenced by her husband, Leon Finney Jr., the City Hall insider who became TWO’s executive director in 1969. He no longer holds a formal office at TWO, but he remains chief executive officer of its sister organization, the Woodlawn Community Development Corporation, which manages projects for the Chicago Housing Authority and develops real estate throughout the south side.

Many of the TWO partisans might sincerely have desired more jobs and retail options in Pullman. But they were also motivated by the promise of $100.

No regular reader here will be surprised by the astroturfing tactics of Walmart, but as the battle for a living wage and an economic future for Americans that reaches beyond Wall Street, we can’t afford to make any assumptions.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

Our co-blogger Robert Feinman passed in July 2009. Jonathan has already posted a best of series taken from Robert’s more than 600 posts to The Writing On The Wal. But Robert wrote elsewhere as well and, for some time, I’ve enjoyed a Sunday morning tradition of reading the essays he posted to his personal blog.

Beginning on 18 October I began to cross post Robert’s essays to share his thoughts. Strictly speaking, Walmart was not specifically the subject of Robert’s writings, but Walmart was certainly always a player in the universe he explored.

Prejudice and the Golden Rule

“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” is an easy to understand precept. If you wouldn’t like it happening to you don’t do it yourself. Many moral issues can be clarified by thinking through the consequences of actions in this light.

A similar formulation as applied to the forms of government was outlined by philosopher John Rawls in his book “A Theory of Justice”. You postulate any form of government you wish: Monarchy, Oligarchy, Democracy, Theocracy, etc. The limitation in this model is that you are not allowed to choose the role in society that is assigned to you. You might be king or you might be a slave. Obviously, to maximize your life’s prospects the best society for you to be in is an egalitarian democracy. Another variant on the Golden Rule.

So if equality is the best possible outcome for the greatest number of people how do we explain prejudice? Most forms of prejudice are directed against inherent characteristics of people such as race or ethnicity. They didn’t pick their parents. So despising a person for being a member of a certain group violates the Golden Rule. As a practical matter it is also counter-productive. Putting people into an inferior social or economic position narrows their options in life. It makes them less able to earn a living and thus more likely to turn to crime or become a burden on society.

People in weakened economic positions have less spending power. So it would be better for society if these people were more able buy the products and services produced by society. So business and citizens benefit from removing prejudices against people.

OK, so bigots believe the discriminated class is “inferior.” What do they want these people to do about it, disappear? What’s the motivation for this type of behavior? One can only speculate, but it would seem that those who are least tolerant are those most insecure about their own status in society. They must secretly believe that there is something so inferior about themselves that the only way they can disguise it is to push some others down below them.

Hating doesn’t work. It raises the stress level of the bigots, wastes their energies and damages everyone’s economic outlook. Shame on them and the societies that tolerate or condone this behavior. (You know who you are).

Copyright © 2004 Robert D Feinman
Feel free to use the ideas, but the words are mine.

We have one Walmart in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and it’s the eastern anchor of a strip mall at Severance Center. But that is not where Walmart really wanted to build. It wanted a main thoroughfare location where the Oakwood golf course now sits.

Why didn’t Walmart get its way? Because the residents who now have a golf course in their back yards, did not want to be looking on the loading docks of a Walmart. Residents of the Montrose neighborhood of Houston, Texas, are fighting the same battle.

From the Montrose Land Defense Coalition:

We want to take a moment to further clarify our position on the issue of potential development on the Dunlavy and West Alabama lot. The aim of our campaign is not to alienate or place our Coalition in direct opposition to any one entity seeking to develop the land. We are concerned with the degree to which communities have a say in the development of land directly adjacent to their places of residence. An autocentric development would be of less use and value to the immediate community and the city of Houston at large than would a progressive development that encourages ambulatory traffic, combines retail space with green space, and bears in mind the future growth and change that is inevitable in the Montrose and Houston generally. We are aware of the shifts in population and economy that will occur with the advent of the 2012 light rail, and seek a development solution for this valuable tract that will best benefit businesses and the communities that surround it.

The key part of the statement for me is: An autocentric development would be of less use and value to the immediate community… Living across the street from a Walmart is bad enough if you have to consider how long you might have to wait to turn into your driveway, but just imagine the sounds, lights and smells coming from those loading docks when you’re trying to enjoy a little peace and quiet in your backyard.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

Yes, as a matter of fact, that is the scariest headline ever. It’s discussing Walmart’s new plans to put RFID tags on individual items of clothing rather than just pallets of items. Here’s the potential privacy problem:

“This is a first piece of a very large and very frightening tracking system,” said Katherine Albrecht, director of a group called Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering.

Albrecht worries that Wal-Mart and others would be able to track movements of customers who in some border states like Michigan and Washington are carrying new driver’s licenses that contain RFID tags to make it easier for them to cross borders.

Albrecht fears that retailers could scan data from such licenses and their purchases and combine that data with other personal information. She also says that even though the smart tags can be removed from clothing, they can’t be turned off and can be tracked even after you throw them in the garbage, for example.

Let’s follow the logic here for a second:

To placate privacy concerns, Wal-Mart, which is financing some of the suppliers’ costs, is asking vendors to embed the smart tags in removable labels and not embed them in clothing.

So what happens if it’s cheaper for the vendor embeds the tag in the clothing rather than making it removable?

Leslie Patton and Matthew Boyl at Bloomberg nail the story on Walmart’s breach in the urban wall protecting workers from race-to-the-bottom wages in Chicago. The head on their story reads: Wal-Mart Cracks Chicago by Splitting Union, Non-Union Workers. That says it all.

From Bloomberg:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s divide-and- conquer strategy prevailed in Chicago by pitting construction workers against employees who will stock shelves and ring registers.

The biggest U.S. retailer reached a deal with the building trades union two weeks before the city council unanimously approved Chicago’s second store. Those workers will erect all Wal-Mart facilities in northern Illinois during the next three years, according to a labor agreement signed by Patrick Hamilton, Wal-Mart’s vice president of construction.

The non-union employees who will staff the stores in the nation’s third-largest city have no such agreement.

“Wal-Mart played on the whims of the building trade unions, and the rest gave in,” Reverend Booker Vance, a spokesman for Good Jobs Chicago, a coalition of local unions, congregations and community groups, said in a telephone interview. “You have a lot of smoke and mirrors, and Wal-Mart would like to give the impression that they acted in good faith, but they have not.”

When you’re struggling to catch a breath, throwing a life ring to someone drowning is hard.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

Mark Perry is all over a post by Vikas Bajaja on the New York Times Economic Blog titled Garment Factories, Changing Women’s Roles in Poor Countries. Not surprisingly, Vikas doesn’t mention Walmart.

He writes:

What struck me, however, was how their journeys had changed them and their views about life. Take Maasuda Akthar, who moved to Gazipur, a town 30 miles outside Dhaka, when she was 16 with her sister. (I wrote about her in this article about how the Bangladesh garment industry was benefiting from increased labor costs in China.) She married a man whom she met at the factory. As an experienced seamstress, she now makes more money than him. Ms. Akthar, 21, told me that her husband had offered to become the sole breadwinner in the home so that she could stay at home and “be comfortable,” but she refused because she enjoys working. Not only that, she told me she did not plan to have children for a few years.

That young women given access to an independent income would seek additional education and delay childbearing is on surprise. To give Walmart’s rapacious exploitation credit for this phenomenon, however, is disingenuous. Vikas earlier story of how rising labor costs in China was sending capitalists into even less developed nations in search of the lowest cost labor possible is instructive in this case.

There was a time when young women in rural America came to the cities to weave cloth and make clothing. How many garment workers are there left in the United States today. Not many, for the sole reason that they did become better educated, realized that their labor was being stolen from them and they demanded that the bosses pay them for what they were really worth.

Young women in China today are feeling that shift and there will come a time when the young women of Bangladesh may feel it as well, although corporations are running out of undeveloped countries to exploit.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

If you do, you’re part of the problem and not part of the solution. When I first say the above graph I was going to link it to my staycation post, but after consideration, I realized that the chart and Lane Kenworty’s post demanded separate treatment.

From Consider The Evidence:

The chart shows average inflation-adjusted incomes of the poorest 20%, middle 60%, and top 1% of households since the 1970s. The incomes include government transfers and subtract taxes. For the bulk of American households, incomes have increased moderately or minimally. For those at the top, by contrast, they have soared.

Why This Chart?

Here are what I think should be the principal considerations. Some are obvious, others perhaps not.

Oh how the American Dream has tarnished.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.