And Wal-Mart makes 10: the worst of 2004
By ROBERT TRIGAUX
Published January 26, 2005
Hard to say what Americans nationwide are more likely to protest these days. The Iraq war? How about another Wal-Mart store?
There is clear and present passion by many neighborhood organizations and small businesses to fight almost any effort by Wal-Mart to open stores, especially the giant supercenters whose grocery section tends to snuff out nearby supermarket competitors.
That's just one of many reasons Wal-Mart - the planet's highest-profile company - appeared this week on an annual list of the "10 worst corporations" of 2004 published by the Multinational Monitor newsletter. The monthly publication tracks corporate activity here and abroad and focuses on corruption and legal problems.
Only last week, hundreds of Tarpon Springs residents in northern Pinellas County kept a City Commission meeting going all night while they debated whether the world's superpower of retailing could build a supercenter on a 74-acre site on U.S. 19 next to the Anclote River. Wal-Mart got its approval.
In Colorado, at recent public hearings in towns around Boulder, dozens of people waited their turns to tell city leaders why their little piece of the Rocky Mountains would be a better place without Wal-Mart. In Pennsylvania east of Harrisburg, and in New York south of Albany, groups this month gathered to organize against Wal-Mart or criticize its reputation for poor wages and how it treats many of its 1.2-million U.S. employees.
Wal-Mart has lost more than 200 site fights, including one seven years ago to build a supercenter on St. Petersburg's 54th Avenue S and 31st Street.
With such devoted, coast-to-coast grass roots opposition, Wal-Mart must be especially proud today to be opening a 207,000-square-foot supercenter on U.S. 19 and 35th Avenue S in St. Petersburg.
Wal-Mart is the retailer people love to hate, yet love to shop.
The megaretailer earned its dubious ranking on Multinational Monitor's "10 worst" corporations of 2004 because of a seemingly endless parade of labor problems. In June, Wal-Mart became the target of the biggest civil rights class-action case in U.S. history when a federal judge in California said a lawsuit charging that it discriminated against female employees could proceed as a class action. As many as 1.5-million women (past and present workers) could join the suit. Wal-Mart is appealing.
Allegations of Wal-Mart's poor treatment of its workers have inspired the unions. The Service Employees International Union plans to spend $25-million a year with the ultimate goal of unionizing Wal-Mart, the largest private U.S. employer. Wal-Mart also faces allegations that it extracts off-the-clock work and provides inadequate and unaffordable healthcare packages for employees.
In response to the growing tide of criticism and legal challenges, Wal-Mart on Jan. 13 launched a national public relations campaign, running full-page ads in 100 newspapers defending its way of doing business. In an ad appearing in the St. Petersburg Times, Wal-Mart said it employed 13,669 people in this five-county region, paid area workers an average of $9.32 an hour (36 cents less than its national average) and locally contributed $890,000 to charities.
Is Wal-Mart too big to be controlled? Will we forsake all other shopping experiences in the coming years? Analysts at Moody's note Wal-Mart's annual sales are near $250-billion and should double - to a half-trillion dollars - in just five years.
And what of the other nine "worst" corporations of 2004? Multinational Monitor makes it a rule not to name the same company two years in a row. So, in addition to Wal-Mart, the newsletter authors picked three drug companies, a bank, a fast food chain, an insurance company, a soft drink maker, a chemical company and a pipemaker to round out its "10 worst" of 2004.
The other nine are:
Abbott Laboratories, for raising the U.S. price of its anti-AIDS drug Norvir by 400 percent.
AIG, for financial insurance shenanigans. It quickly cut a deal with the Justice Department to end a criminal inquiry by accepting responsibility, not contesting the charges, agreeing to cooperate, paying a fine and making changes to prevent future wrongdoing.
Coca-Cola, for failing to protect its work force in Colombia from paramilitary violence.
Dow Chemical, for buying Union Carbide but denying it had responsibility for the 1984 chemical leak at Carbide's plant in Bhopal, India, that remains one of largest industrial disasters.
GlaxoSmithKline, for marketing antidepressant Paxil to children and allegedly suppressing evidence of the drug's harm to children, and misleading physicians.
Hardee's, for introducing the 1,420-calorie Monster Thickburger - it's like eating two Big Macs or five McDonald's hamburgers - to a population fighting obesity and heart disease.
Merck, for allegedly ignoring evidence of the cardiovascular risks of the arthritis drug Vioxx four years before the drug was withdrawn from the market.
McWane, an Alabama sewer and water pipe manufacturer, for a history of workplace injuries.
Riggs Bank, for illegally operating bank accounts for former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
With Wal-Mart, that makes 10 from 2004. Many other corporate candidates for the annual "worst" list come to mind. But as the authors say: "There are always more deserving nominees than we can possibly recognize."