18 Aug 2005 @ 23:37, by Raymond Powers
Wal-Mart hit with $1.15 Million for Environmental Violations in CT
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New Haven Register
08/16/2005
Wal-Mart will pay $1.15 million fine Gregory B. Hladky , Capitol Bureau Chief HARTFORD < Wal-Mart has agreed to pay a $1.15 million fine and correct a slew of environmental violations at 22 of its Connecticut stores, violations that state officials said showed a systematic disregard for the law.
The violations primarily involved pollution that flowed into storm drains on Wal-Mart properties from construction work, improperly stored or handled fertilizer, pesticides, waste oils and other potentially hazardous products. Advertisement "There is a pattern of national disregard by Wal-Mart in this area," said state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. He said that, in Connecticut, state officials found no documentable damage from Wal-Mart¹s violations, but that "there was a high potential for harm."
Last year, Wal-Mart officials paid a $3.1 million fine to settle a federal lawsuit concerning storm-drain pollution from the company¹s construction sites in Tennessee, Utah and several other states.
State Environmental Protection Commissioner Gina McCarthy said the comprehensive Connecticut settlement announced Monday is the first of its kind in the nation.
"Today¹s settlement sends, we hope, a very strong message," McCarthy said. "The message is that it doesn¹t matter how big you are, you can¹t break the law."
Marty Heires, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said the world¹s largest retailer has already corrected most of the environmental problems cited in the settlement.
"We wanted S to get this thing behind us and move forward," said Heires. "We are pledging our compliance at every level."
The Wal-Mart-owned stores cited by the state for violations included operations in all parts of Connecticut. The state found violations at 22 of the company¹s 33 Connecticut stores, including two Sam¹s Club stores, which are owned by Wal-Mart.
In the New Haven region, violations occurred at stores in Orange, Shelton, Branford, Wallingford, and Derby.
"As big as it was, Wal-Mart failed to get it right," said Blumenthal. "Its failure was one of corporate culture, going to the upper levels of this corporationS The violations were widespread, systematic, repeated," he said. "No corporation, no one, no matter how powerful or big, is above the law," said Blumenthal. "Wal-Mart¹s competitors have a right to know that Wal-Mart is not above the law."
McCarthy said the state¹s efforts to get Wal-Mart to comply with state environmental regulations began in 1999 but that officials at the company "refused to take it seriously."
She said the violations included fertilizer and pesticides that were washed into storm drains by rain and snow melt. Several Wal-Marts also sold a root killer that has been banned by the federal government.
The $1.15 million settlement will result in a direct payment to the state of $600,000, while $500,000 will go to various municipalities to help them with local compliance with state stormwater regulations.
McCarthy said $50,000 of Wal-Mart¹s fine will be used to help protect the Mattabesett River in Cromwell, which she said was one of the potential victims of Wal-Mart pollution.
"Wal-Mart pledges to cooperate fully with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection to avoid issues of this type in the future," Del Sloneker, senior vice president of operations, Wal-Mart Stores Division, said in a prepared statement.
"We have made a major effort to address environmental concerns at our stores in Connecticut," Sloneker said. "We will continue to do all we can to assure that our associates in these stores not only know the environmental laws of the state but comply with them consistently and actively."
The Connecticut settlement will also require Wal-Mart to submit plans for managing stormwater on its properties. The company will also have to hire a consultant to conduct seven bi-annual audits to make sure that its stores are complying with all environmental regulations.
In addition, the company will be required to hire a consultant on stormwater management for all its Connecticut construction sites for the next five years.
Blumenthal said a 2003 court order obtained by the state required Wal-Mart to correct many if not all of the violations cited by the state.
"We¹re listening, we¹re cooperating, we¹re taking steps to be sure these types of things don¹t recur," said Heires.
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Fact Sheet on Wal-Mart: The Death Star of American Commerce
Wal-Mart's True Cost to Taxpayers
"Because Wal-Mart fails to pay sufficient wages, U.S. taxpayers are forced to pick up the tab. In this sense, Wal-Mart's profits are not only made only on the backs of its employees-but on the [back] of every U.S. taxpayer." Representative George Miller (CA)
The cost of a single Wal-Mart
" $36,000 a year for free and reduced lunches for just 50 qualifying Wal-Mart families
" $42,000 a year for Section 8 housing assistance, assuming 3 percent of the store employees qualify for such assistance, at 6,700 per family
" 125,000 a year for federal tax credits and deductions for low-income families, assuming 50 employees are heads of household with a child and 50 are married with two children
" 100,000 a year for additional Title I expenses, assuming fifty Wal-Mart families qualify with an average of two children
" $108,000 a year for the additional federal health care costs of moving into state children's health insurance…assuming 30 employees with an average of two children qualifying
" 9,750 a year for the additional costs for low income energy assistance
(1) Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart," a report by the Democratic staff of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, U.S. House of Representatives, February 16, 2004, [link]
What Wal-Mart gets from your local, state, and federal tax dollars
" Free or reduced-price land
" Infrastructure assistance
" Tax-increment financing
" Property tax breaks
" State corporate income tax credits
" Sales tax rebates
" Enterprise-zone (and other zone) status
Good Jobs First, Walmarts' U.S. Expansion has Benefited from More Than $1 Billion in Economic Development Subsidies [link]
Wal-Mart and food
" Wal-Mart started selling groceries in 1988 and 15 years later it is now the largest distributor of food in the world.
" Wal-Mart gets 68 cents of every food dollar spend in the United States, with 30 cents going to marketing, transportation and packaging. Farmers get 2 cents of every food dollar.
" For every one Supercenter that will open, two supermarkets will close.
Since 1992, the supermarket industry has experienced a net loss of 13,500 stores.
Fickes, Michael. "Big Boxers have big expansion plans." Retail Traffic. 1 December 2002.
Wal-Mart and labor abuses
" Wal-Mart has racked up huge fines for child labor law violations. The rich company reportedly makes children younger than 18 work through their meal breaks, work very late and even work during school hours. Several states have found Wal-Mart workers younger than 18 are operating dangerous equipment, like chainsaws, and working in such dangerous areas as around trash compactors. (The New York Times, 1/13/04; The Associated Press, 2/18/05; The Hartford Courant, 6/18/05)
" By demanding impossibly low prices, Wal-Mart forces its suppliers to produce goods in low-wage countries that don't protect workers. A worker in a Honduran clothing factory whose main customer is Wal-Mart, for example, sews sleeves onto 1,200 shirts a day for only $35 a week. (Los Angeles Times, 11/24/03)
" Wal-Mart has a shameful record of paying women less than men. Wal-Mart pays women workers nearly $5,000 less yearly than men. Some 1.6 million women are eligible to join a class-action lawsuit charging Wal-Mart with discrimination. (Richard Drogin, Ph.D., 2/03; Los Angeles Times, 12/30/04)
Wal-Mart and the environment
" In October 2004, the United States sued Wal-mart for violating the Clean Water Act in 9 states, calling for penalties of over $3 million and changes to W-M building codes. [U.S. v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 2004 WL 2370700]
" The United States Environmental Protection agency fined Wal-Mart $1 million, settling allegations that Wal-Mart violated the Clean Water Act with dirt discharges while building stores in Massachusetts, New Mexico, Okalahoma, and Texas. [Wal-MartLitigation.com]
" Wal-Mart was fined $765,000 for violating Florida's petroleum storage tank laws at its automobile service centers. Wal-Mart failed to register its fuel tanks, failed to install devices that prevent overflow, did not perform monthly monitoring, lacked current technologies, and blocked state inspectors. [Associated Press, 11/18/04]
" The average supercenter attracts 3,315 car trips a day (Terrain magazine)
" A 250,000-square-foot supercenter with a 16-acre parking lot will produce 413,000 gallons of storm runoff for every inch of rain. Each year, such a lot would dump 240 pounds of nitrogen, 32 pounds of phosphorus, and 5 pounds of zinc into local watersheds while creating heat islands. (Terrain magazine)
Wal-Mart general facts
" Of the 100 most powerful economies in the world, Wal-Mart ranks #19
" In 2003, sales associates, the most common job in Wal-Mart, earned on average $8.23 an hour for annual wages of $13,861.The 2003 poverty line for a family of three was $15,260. ["Is Wal-Mart Too Powerful?", Business Week, 10/6/03]
" Wal-Mart employs 1.2 million Americans. It is the largest employer in the United States.
This fact sheet was put together by the Organic Consumers Association
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The Wal-Mart Thought Police
The Wal-Mart Thought Police
By Amy Schiller, Campus Progress Posted on August 16, 2005, Printed on August 16, 2005
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Wal-Mart, America's largest retailer, prides itself on being a "family-friendly" store, with smiley faces guiding stressed-out breadwinners to a land of low-cost, guilt-free consumption.
Indeed, there are mega Wal-Marts that inhabit spaces the size of five football fields, and the total square footage of all of the Wal-Mart stores nationwide tops 25 million square feet.
As you have probably heard, the "everyday low prices" at these concrete boxes of utopian consumption have tremendous costs for our environment, our workers, our wages, our communities, and the public coffers. But they also come at the expense of free speech and artistic expression, as the corporation targets items that often include progressive criticism of conservative values.
Based in Bentonville, AR, the brand behemoth has become the self-appointed culture police by screening the music, books and magazines that many Americans will be able to access -- in a number of communities, Wal-Mart is the only convenient store in the area stocking culture products.
Take, for example, Wal-Mart's refusal to sell Sheryl Crow's self-titled album in 1996, citing objections to a lyric that criticized Wal-Mart for selling handguns (a practice that the chain has since discontinued), which they felt was "unfair and irresponsible."
Much as Crow probably appreciated the paternalistic advice, as the No. 1 CD retailer in the world (yes, the world) with sales accounting for 10% of total domestic CD sales, a Wal-Mart boycott can result in hundreds of thousands in lost album sales.
The record industry, never too proud to bend over for sales, has started issuing two versions of the same album, one "sanitized." Sometimes this entails altering the cover art, as John Mellencamp was asked to do for his album Mr. Happy Go Lucky, whose cover featured an angel and devil in the background. Nirvana actually changed its song title from "Rape Me" to "Waif Me" for the Wal-Mart version. Both they and the Goo Goo Dolls came under fire for portraying babies in their cover art as well. The cover of the Goo Goo Dolls album titled "A Boy Named Goo" featured a baby covered in blackberry juice; Wal-Mart banned it and only reversed its decision under pressure from the media.
Wal-Mart's official statement on music is as follows: "Wal-Mart will not stock music with parental guidance stickers. While Wal-Mart sets high standards, it would not be possible to eliminate every image, word or topic that an individual might find objectionable. And the goal is not to eliminate the need for parents to review the merchandise their children buy. The policy simply helps eliminate the most objectionable material from Wal-Mart's shelves."
Objectionable material like a book cover with a comedian posing with an American flag and a bald eagle? Actually, yes. The huge bestseller, America: the Book, featuring Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and the rest of the Daily Show crew, was banned from Wal-Mart in 2004. Granted, the company objected to the infamous page 99 featuring obviously photoshopped naked pictures of Supreme Court justices (just think, now we can all look at Justice O'Connor's wrinkled, saggy flesh with great nostalgia.)
Stewart is not the only comedian with a book banned by Wal-Mart, though; a shipment of George Carlin's When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops was returned, citing a mistake in ordering the book in the first place. A mistake which probably had nothing to do with Carlin's cover of himself inserted into the Last Supper.
Perhaps there is some legitimacy (however hysterical) to their objections to irreverent images. Yet the political bias inherent in Wal-Mart's criteria became clearer when Wal-Mart's merchandiser for films found Robert Greenwald's acclaimed documentary, "Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War," (produced with the support of the Center for American Progress) inappropriate for Wal-Mart. For no conceivable reason could a documentary involving no gratuitous violence, expletives, or sex be inappropriate, other than its criticism of a conservative political administration.
Pathetically, the rationale for these items is that they "would not appeal to the majority of our customers" or would offend those proverbial family
values. Fine, if they know their designated market and have complaints pouring in from their consumers. Except that those two books were both fixtures on the bestseller list for months and Sheryl Crow, Nirvana and the Goo Goo Dolls are top selling entertainers. And those items that are not religiously objectionable demonstrate the degree of hypocrisy within the "family values" standards.
Even something as potentially broadly appealing, positive, and utterly non-offensive as a T-shirt reading "Someday a woman will be president" was pulled from the sales floor because "the message goes against Wal-Mart family values." So old school patriarchy and sexism are Wal-Mart values? Seems a little retrograde and moot in the age of "take your daughter to work day."
Frighteningly and hypocritically, the family-values red flag was absent for the notorious anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, which describes a vast Jewish conspiracy to rule the world.
Booksellers like Amazon.com that do offer it at least include a disclaimer that describes it as a "pernicious fraud," and "one of the most infamous, and tragically influential, examples of racist propaganda ever written." Wal-Mart's site, in contrast, says "If S The Protocols are genuine (which can never be proven conclusively), it might cause some of us to keep a wary eye on world affairs." Yet another example of the cloak of "family values" serving as a euphemism for a more sinister ideology. (If the book actually featured a cover image of Jews milking children for blood, then would Wal-Mart ban it?)
Furthermore, ever wonder who is buying those oversize drink coasters also known as Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly's perniciously partisan publications? Their publishers readily admit that Wal-Mart's merchandising and promotion basically fueled their bestselling runs.
The crown jewel of Wal-Mart's commercial triumph is the dystopic end-of-days series Left Behind. As reported in the New York Times, Tyndale House, publisher of the Left Behind series, credits Wal-Mart with a pivotal role in turning the evangelical thriller "Armageddon" (No. 11 in the Left Behind series) into the best-selling novel in the country.
As Melani McAllister wrote in The Nation, "these novels work [because] they seamlessly integrate an apocalyptic religious view with a strongly conservative political vision, and locate both in a universe of supernatural action adventure in which good and evil are fully and finally revealed."
Left Behind books do not include any actual sex, except for when the faithful rail against abortion and immorality, though they include plenty of violence between good (evangelical warriors complete with fighter planes) and evil (the Antichrist fronting as a smooth-talking UN ambassador.) Granted, the Left Behind series is hardly comparable to Maxim magazine, but really, it could be considered the equivalent of evangelical porn. Not to beat a dead metaphor, but they're all about self-gratification and ultimate rapture. As many have noted, a lot of purchasers for right-wing screeds probably buy them for the element of fantasy and self-affirmation, particularly those who believe that the war in Iraq and conflict in Israel herald the impending end times.
In all seriousness, the most self-defeating attitude for progressives would be to give an elitist sneer to those who shop at Wal-Mart, shrugging our shoulders not only at Wal-Mart's censorship but at its union busting, sex discrimination, and reprehensibly stingy health plans for already underpaid workers. To Wal-Mart shoppers: There's nothing wrong with wanting religious or G-rated entertainment material in your own home, and wanting to shield children from materials that you find offensive. But it is a problem when the biggest retailer in the country -- a staple for millions of people -- only offers up a sanitized world of culture that is comprised primarily of "Veggie Tales" videos and Toby Keith albums (wonder if they include the "gonna put a boot in your ass" lyric).
Still, this bleak picture seems to be changing, as anti-Wal-Mart groups gain strength and actually win some victories. In early August, Salon.com reported on the increasingly successful anti-Wal-Mart publicity efforts from organizations like Wal-Mart Watch and Wake Up Wal-Mart. These organizations have been particularly successful in mobilizing union members while making the public aware of the costs of sustaining Wal-Marts, including the millions and millions spent providing public health care assistance to the thousands of Wal-Mart employees who do not receive company health care. Political change is happening too on the state and local level. Legislative efforts are underway to prevent more Wal-Marts from moving into communities like Inglewood, CA, and to enforce stricter labor laws for those that already do exist. And far from being restricted to perceived "liberal, anti-corporate" enclaves, even conservatives such as the Republican speaker of the Idaho House of Representatives have started to address the financial burden Wal-Mart's health care negligence places on states.
Crucial, and hopefully successful, as these campaigns are, another lesson to take from Wal-Mart's censorship policy is the danger of corporate conglomizoration that stifles free media under the misleading name of radically conservative "family values."
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