By Don Hazen, June 3, 2005
With its stock gone flat and bad publicity in virtually every news cycle, Wal-Mart is feeling pretty defensive these days. Among recent company missteps are fines and monetary settlements for hiring illegal immigrants and allowing underage employees to operate heavy machinery.
According to a recent article by AlterNet reporter Kelly Hearn, a more complete list of Wal-Mart's myriad transgressions includes "union busting, labor law violations, shipping jobs overseas, artificially suppressing wages, financial improprieties by a top corporate officer and links to a powerful Chinese businessman allegedly involved in the weapons-trading arm of the People's Liberation Army."
In the face of a steady drumbeat of bad publicity, the company has recently started spinning its PR wheels to cover its tracks. First, Wal-Mart broke a long-held tradition and invited the media to its Bentonville, Arkansas headquarters. The company has set up a new Web site that emphasizes its "positive impact on business." It has also shown sudden support for journalism schools, minority scholarships, and even -- gasp -- funding for NPR programming.
But Wal-Mart should prepare to dig much deeper into its PR budget, because its image is about to get much more tarnished.
[...]
Perhaps more insidious is that by building new stores as quickly as possible in as many communities as possible, and engaging in its trademark predatory pricing, Wal-Mart is rapidly destroying the small businesses that make up the fabric of rural and exurban life. And many of those businesses -- small newspapers, grocery stores, gas stations and more -- are hopping mad.
[...]
Read the full article here.
© 2005 - 2014 Weber County Forum™ -- All Rights Reserved
6 comments:
It was said best by our dear Dorothy to channel 13 in the hall way in the court house after the judge threw her case out of court: - "I hate WalMart!"
Sounds like Bill Glasman knows what's going on in Ogden and throughout Utah with this RDA - sales tax distribution set up that Utah is operating under.
It is an old sales tax distribution scheme that was set up in another time to deal with the shopping patterns of the people of that time. This is a new and different time. People are infinately more mobile and it is very easy to leave their own city to shop in a neighboring one. ie - Ogden and Riverdale. They may use the item they buy in Ogden but they give a chunk of sales tax money to Riverday because that is where the store is that they bought it from. This is fundamentaly flawed in a day and age where we get in the car and drive to riverday instead of going to the local store in Ogden like the 1950's when the current system was implemented.
The RDA laws and the Sales Tax distribution system must be changed by the state legislature if this maddness is to stop. It has one city competing with other cities with their respective RDA deals where they can mint free money so they can chase more free money.
All these city RDA boards - which are also the city councils - dance to the tune of the fidlers at WalMart, Cosco, Home Depot, etc. They slavishly do the necessary sucking up that it takes to get their very own big box store so they can get their hands on that sales tax revenue so they can have a bigger city government! It's kind of a vicious circle with the big guy on 9 and his pals on 3 running around using public money to lure a gigantis super store to town so they can get the extra sales tax so they can get a bigger government so they can get bigger stores. Where does it end? What good does it ultimately do the public whose money is gambled on all this BS? What do we really get but bigger city government and more and bigger big box stores? What exactyl do the patriarch's in city hall mean when they claim they are doing it for the common good? Who's common good other than their own and some of their rich developer buddies?
Maybe this Glasman dude has enough juice in this town to educate the public on what is really going on with all this funny business and with all these RDA projects everywhere you look. A lot of them look like they could be a little shaky. What's goling to happen if they start to fail? Will the whole town go down in a domino effect?
So what's the deal Glasman, do you have the connections, inclination, ways and means to get the truth about all this funny stuff at city hall and translate it and put it out to the real folks in town so that they can understand what is really going on? Your power buddies on the inside of city hall sure don't seem to want to let us know the real story.
Maybe you and some of your uptown buddies can get behind some competent candidates, with decency and hearts, to run for council this summer and bring a little common sense back to city hall. It sure doesn;t seem to have a lick of it these days.
It might be nice to see someone from one of those old, native families, the former "Movers & Shakers" of Ogden, the people who know how to get things done, understand the public, and have grown up watching and learning "how to serve," toss their hat into the ring. Where are those Eccles, Brownings, Glasmanns, Lindquists, Scocrofts? Have they moved? Have they forgotten us? Comon people, let's see your stuff!
The Scions of Ogden's old royal families are all in Palm Springs clipping coupons and checking on tee times.
Some of them are also in prison or on house arrest.
There might still be a Lindquist, Glasmann or Feeny around town that could help, but why would they want to get involved in such a mess as Ogden is in?
Because they're needed....
I would like to comment on something a little bit different. I was reading an article in a Miami newspaper that talked about how one of Wally-World's biggerst problems is that they haven't gotten the point that people don't like to wait in line. This article talked about how Target is gaining on Walliston's because customer's aren't waiting in line for 10 to 20 mins. This happened to me just yesterday. I went to get some pictures developed and found 8-10 people in line. I simply left and went to Walgreen's where I was basically the only person in the store. Until Wal-Mart gets that point, they will continue to lose business.
New comments are not allowed.