[Corporations] FW: Wal-Mart Shops for Voters

[Mike Spears]

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17118

Wal-Mart Shops for Voters

By Ruth Rosen, San Francisco Chronicle November 5, 2003

Imagine that you earn $8 an hour working for Wal-Mart. Then, you
learn that the store is recruiting workers, at $10 an hour, to
convince neighbors and shoppers to vote against a law that would
limit the size of "big- box'' stores in unincorporated areas of
Contra Costa County, in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Great, you think. I'll apply. But Wal-Mart won't hire its own workers
because the corporation isn't sure it's legal to use them to promote
a political campaign.

When you realize that Wal-Mart will pay higher wages to those
campaigning to keep your wages low, you get angry - which is how
I've learned about the Arkansas retailer's countywide plans to
repeal the ordinance.

Last June, the Contra Costa Country Board of Supervisors passed the
ban when it recognized that Wal-Mart's seductive low prices come
with hidden costs to residents. The retailer's subsistence wages
drive down the pay of other workers; its huge super-centers undermine
local small businesses and create more traffic congestion. Taxpayers,
moreover, end up paying for workers' health care because they can't
afford costly benefits on such low pay.

In response, Wal-Mart - which never takes no for an answer -
immediately parachuted in paid workers to gather 27,000 signatures
to force supervisors to either rescind the ban or place the issue
before the voters. Supervisors have put the question on the March
2 ballot.

To fight off these restrictions, Wal-Mart has just launched a
campaign to convince the community to vote "no." At its Martinez,
Pittsburg and Antioch stores, Wal-Mart has hung banners and posters
advertising its new "Consumer Action Network (CAN)," a rather
transparent effort to persuade shoppers to vote against the limiting
ordinance.

Last week, workers at Wal-Mart handed out flyers that describe CAN
as a "good government" program. (Many low-income shoppers, who
receive some form of government assistance, might mistakenly think
CAN is a government-sponsored program.)

In exchange for signing a membership card (and providing your
personal information), you get "a personal membership card, free
newsletters, important bulletins and an invitation to special
events."

You also get a chance to fill out a voter registration application,
which is conveniently mailed to Wal-Mart's CAN, rather than to the
registrar of voters.

If you want more information, you are referred to an 800 telephone
number.

But 20 calls to the number elicited the same response: "Only 'Kathy'
knows about the program, she's on the other line, so just leave
your name and number." Is it conceivable that Wal-Mart has hired
only one person who is familiar with CAN? Or is this just a ploy
to gather names and phone numbers to enlist shoppers in its political
campaign?

Meanwhile, a coalition of community activists is gearing up to
support the ordinance. They include the nonprofit group ACORN, which
promotes affordable housing and open space; union members; and
religious, environmental and "smart growth" organizations. But they
face a formidable enemy - the largest corporation in the world,
which has unlimited funds to reach their intended goal of building
40 new super-centers in California.

Supervisor John Gioia knows that "Wal-Mart will have a great
advantage. It will also turn it into an anti-union campaign. So we
need to appeal to the good sense of Contra Costa County voters and
explain that this is about losing open space and taxpayers subsidizing
Wal-Mart. It's also about Contra Costa County - not Wal-Mart
executives in Bentonville, Ark. - having the right to make its own
decisions about local planning. "

Now, the challenge is to convince Contra Costa County voters that
the lowest possible prices come at a steep price for the entire
community.