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National Websites Fighting Wal-Mart
Books
DVDs
Websites Dedicated to Fighting Wal-Mart Nationally
www.WalmartWatch.com
The Nation’s Premiere Online Resource Center for Wal-Mart Educational Tools
In spring 2005, Wal-Mart Watch began its nationwide public education campaign to challenge the world’s largest retailer to become a better employer, neighbor and corporate citizen. By connecting and supporting the myriad efforts already underway across the country, Wal-Mart Watch serves as a catalyst for coordinated action, a fact-based presence on the truths about Wal-Mart’s business model. Wal-Mart Watch is a joint project of The Center for Community & Corporate Ethics, a 501c3 organization devoted to studying the impact of large corporations on society, and its advocacy arm, Five Stones.
www.Sprawl-Busters.com
An International Clearinghouse on Big Box Anti-Sprawl Information
No matter what the logo on the building says—Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Target, Lowe's, Kohls, CVS—if it’s unwanted development, Sprawl-Busters can help you stop it. In hundreds of communities, Sprawl-Busters has helped citizens groups strategize and carry out a plan to stop the superstores. The Newsflash page contains the latest on big box battles from around the globe, and the book "Slam Dunking Wal-Mart" has become a citizen’s classic for hands-on combat with Sprawl-Marts. If a big box store is causing you a big problem, call on Sprawl-Busters! Local visits can be arranged. Your quality of life is worth more than a cheap pair of underwear.
www.WakeUpWalmart.com
Join America’s Campaign to Change Wal-Mart
A huge resource center for information and research, how to take action, breaking news, workers’ stories, campaigns for change, consumer alerts, and much more. Sponsored by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.
www.NewRules.org/retail/walmartstudies.html#4
Wal-Mart and Big Box Retail Economic Impact Studies
Includes summaries and links to key studies that examine the impact of Wal-Mart and other large retail chains and, in some cases, the benefits of locally owned businesses. For ease of use, they've organized these studies into the following categories (though they do not all fit neatly into one category): City Costs, State Costs, Economic Impact of Local Businesses vs. Chains, Existing Businesses & Jobs, Wages & Benefits, Poverty Rates, Subsidies, and Consumers.
Books
The Case Against Wal-Mart
by Al Norman
 Al Norman, calling for a national consumer boycott of the giant retailer, presents his book as a legal brief against Wal-Mart — with "counts" against the company such as:
• Forces its own workers to labor “off the clock” without pay
• Uses overseas sweatshop labor to manufacture its corporate brand clothing
• Sells knock-off and counterfeit merchandise that misleads and confuses its customers
• Destroys acres of environmentally sensitive lands to build new Wal-Marts, close to existing Wal-Marts that will be closed
• Has eliminated all competition in many towns across the U.S. by illegally lowering prices below wholesale
• Has forced the movement of thousands of manufacturing jobs out of the U.S.
• Calls “full-time” 28 hours per week and pays wages so low that many of its employees qualify — and accept — welfare payments
• Demands millions of dollars in tax breaks to locate in communities all over the U.S., while it earns billions of dollars in profits
This is a book every American shopper should read before making another trip to Wal-Mart.
How Wal-Mart Is Destroying America (and the World) and What You Can Do About It
by Bill Quinn
 After carving up the once lovingly cared-for downtowns of Small Town America, Wal-Mart launched a frontal assault on mom-and-pop businesses all over the globe. With 1.5 million employees operating more than 3,500 stores, Wal-Mart is now the world’s largest private employer. In this third edition of “How Wal-Mart Is Destroying America (and the World),” Texas newspaperman Bill Quinn continues the fight. Featuring detailed accounts of Wal-Mart’s questionable business practices and the latest information on Wal-Mart lawsuits, vendor issues, and efforts to stop expansion, Quinn shows why Wal-Mart Stores Inc., is arguably the most feared and despised corporation in the world. Whether you’re a customer fed up with Wal-Mart’s false claims, a vendor squeezed by strong-arm tactics, a worker pushed to increase the Waltons’ bottom line, or a concerned citizen trying to save your hometown, this book will show you how to get Wal-Mart off your back and out of your backyard.
Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers' Rights at Wal-Mart
by Liza Featherstone
 "Fortune magazine's 'Most Admired Company' for two years running, Wal-Mart offers its customers low prices and its shareholders big profits, but as freelance journalist Featherstone argues, this comes at great cost. Wal-Mart's success is based not only on its inexpensive merchandise or its popularity but on bad labor practices. Using a close investigation of the class action suit Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and extensive interviews with female workers, Featherstone indicts Wal-Mart for low wages, discriminatory policies and sexist practices. '[Our] district manager sometimes held lunch meetings at Hooters restaurants,' one female employee explains; another recalls being asked to work 'off the clock.' Failure to post open positions, exclusively male social gatherings, pay discrimination, 'persistent segregation of departments' — all are part, she argues, of Wal-Mart's deep-rooted culture of sexism. Many women employed full-time at Wal-Mart make so little that they are dependent on public assistance: 'It is curious that Wal-Mart — the icon of American free enterprise and self-sufficiency... — turns out to be one of the biggest 'welfare queens' of our time.'” — Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)
The United States of Wal-Mart
by John Dicker
 Called a "lively and insightful profile of the big-box retail leviathan" by Publishers Weekly. Author John Dicker is a Colorado Springs Independent staff writer who outlines the well known complaints against Wal-Mart, the poverty-level wages, skimpy benefits, anti-union policies, shuttered small town Main Streets, suburban sprawl, and international outsourcing. Dicker pulls back the curtain to reveal the “global despot” behind the folksy down home founder Sam Walton. He cautions opponents to comprehend the appeal of the company's cheap convenience to low wage customers and underserved communities, while sympathizing and strategizing along with them. He argues that Wal-Mart's sins are our own: America's national religion of consumer entitlement always puts low prices ahead of any social consequences. Dicker delivers referenced facts with wit and style, providing the reader with the backup information to present a more solid argument against shopping at the Wal-Mart behemoth.
The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works — and How It's Transforming the American Economy
by Charles Fishman
 An award-winning journalist breaks through the wall of secrecy to reveal the many astonishing ways Wal-Mart's power affects our lives and reaches all around the world.
The Wal-Mart Effect: The overwhelming impact of the world's largest company — due to its relentless pursuit of low prices — on retailers and manufacturers, wages and jobs, the culture of shopping, the shape of our communities, and the environment; a global force of unprecedented nature.
Though 70 percent of Americans now live within a 15-minute drive of a Wal-Mart store, we have not even begun to understand the true power of the company and the many ways it is shaping American life. We know about the lawsuits and the labor protests, but what we don't know is how profoundly the "Wal-Mart effect" is shaping our lives.
Fast Company senior editor Fishman reveals the radical ways in which the company is transforming America's economy, our workforce, our communities, and our environment. Fishman penetrated the secrecy of Wal-Mart headquarters, interviewing 25 high-level ex-executives; he journeyed into the world of a host of Wal-Mart's suppliers to uncover how the company strong-arms even the most established brands; and journeyed to the ports and factories, the fields and forests where Wal-Mart's power is warping the very structure of the world's market for goods. Wal-Mart is not just a retailer anymore, Fishman argues. It has become a kind of economic ecosystem, and anyone who wants to understand the forces shaping our world today must understand the company's hidden reach.
In Sam We Trust: The Untold Story of Sam Walton and How Wal-Mart Is Devouring America
by Bob Ortega
 Attention Wal-Mart shoppers — and anyone interested in the history of retailing in America. Here's the tale of the late Sam Walton, once the richest man in the country, and of the marketing juggernaut he fashioned. With "big box" stores at every crossroads, Wal-Mart, together with affiliated outlets like Sam's Clubs, is the largest retailer in the world; Mr. Sam's enterprise is second only to Uncle Sam's in number of employees. As reporter Ortega, who followed the firm for the Wall Street Journal, demonstrates, it was all done with a heavy dose of down-home bunkum and a monomaniacal devotion to business by cunning country boy Walton. Single-minded Mr. Sam, driving an old truck, used to pay folksy visits to his expanding domain. As it grew to become a ravenous retailing force and he became a billionaire, he remained the same canny tightwad, charming his "associates" even as he underpaid them. "Satisfaction guaranteed" and "low prices" were the watchwords, and if that eliminated the small-town merchant, so be it. But Mr. Sam died, and times have become a little more difficult. Many communities have successfully resisted heavy-handed Wal-Mart incursions. Concurrent with a "Buy American" campaign, the firm was shown to be buying lots of jeans and tchotchkes made in Chinese gulags and shirts and bras made by Third World children. (The Kathy Lee Gifford child-labor flap is a case study in mismanagement.) All in all, Ortega provides a vivid analysis of Wal-Mart and competitors like Sears, PriceClubs, and, notably, K-Mart, with many anecdotes that are emblematic of a new way of business. Here is well-researched, high-end business reportage, readable and informative. — Kirkus Reviews
Wal-Mart: The Face of Twenty-First Century Capitalism
by Nelson Lichtenstein
 Wal-Mart saves consumers money, the contributors argue, but only by externalizing many social and economic costs, including benefits for its workers. One provocative chapter, based on anonymous worker sources, describes a workplace atmosphere of relentless stress and understaffing. Some interesting tidbits: Wal-Mart hit a wall trying to expand in Mexico and never gained traction in Germany, in both cases because of the countries' different socioeconomic structures. A final chapter, by a union organizer, proposes a "Wal-Mart Workers Association" for this infamously antiunion company. The association would gain 13,000 members if only 1% of the Wal-Mart workforce joined. — Reed Business Information.
The Bully of Bentonville
by Anthony Bianco
 The definitive portrait of the juggernaut that is reshaping American, “The Bully of Bentonville” exposes the zealous, secretive, small-town mentality that rules Wal-Mart and chronicles its far-reaching consequences. In a gripping, richly textured narrative, Anthony Bianco shows how Wal-Mart has driven down retail wages throughout the country, even as their substandard pay and meager health-care policy have led to a double-digit employee turnover; why their aggressive expansion inevitably puts locally owned stores out of business; and how their pricing policies have forced suppliers to outsource work and move thousands of jobs overseas. Their power even influences what Americans can read, watch, and listen to; in the name of protecting its customers, Wal-Mart bans "racy" magazines and insists on sanitized versions of popular DVDs and CDs.
Based on countless interviews with Wal-Mart employees, managers, executives, competitors, suppliers, customers, and community leaders, “The Bully of Bentonville” illuminates the story-behind-the-headlines and brings the truths about Wal-Mart into sharp focus.
Wal-Mart World
by Stanley D. Brunn
 Now that Wal-Mart has conquered the US, can it conquer the world? As “Wal-Mart World” shows, the corporation is certainly trying. For a number of years, Wal-Mart has been the largest company in the United States. Now, though, it is the largest company in the world. Its global labor practices and outsourcing strategies represent for many what contemporary economic globalization is all about. But Wal-Mart is not standing still, and is opening up stores everywhere. From Germany to Beijing to Mexico City to Tokyo, more than a billion shoppers can now hunt for bargains at a Wal-Mart superstore. “Wal-Mart World” is the first book to look at this incredibly important phenomenon in global perspective, with chapters that range from its growth in the US and impact on labor relations here to its fortunes overseas. How Wal-Mart manages this transition in the near future will play a significant role in the determining the character of the global economy. Wal-Mart World’s impressively broad scope makes it necessary reading for anyone interested in the global impact of this economic colossus.
DVDs
Frontline: Is Wal-Mart Good for America?
 "...’Frontline: Is Wal-Mart Good for America?' is a serious and subtly scathing report... [Reporter Hedrick] Smith takes an unusual tack in his TV work. He's low-key, methodical and, even when he's asking provocative questions, he does it in an offhand manner. His reports are all the more compelling for the low-key approach. ..." — The Globe and Mail, John Doyle
"... a first-class course in how the U.S. economy works and doesn't work in the best interests of this country. The hour is not so much about Wal-Mart, although it is a fascinating look at how one of the world's biggest companies operates. It's a snapshot of why so many jobs have gone somewhere else and why so many American businesses are unable to compete in the global scheme of things. It's also about the drastic things businesses are doing to survive…” — Courier-Journal (Louisville, Ky.), Tom Dorsey
Watch the full program online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/ or purchase for $29.99.
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
Director: Robert Greenwald
 A feature length documentary that uncovers the retail giant's assault on families and American values. The film dives into the deeply personal stories and everyday lives of families and communities struggling to fight a goliath. A working mother is forced to turn to public assistance to provide healthcare for her two small children. A Missouri family loses its business after Wal-Mart is given over $2 million to open its doors down the road. A mayor struggles to equip his first responders after Wal-Mart pulls out and relocates just outside the city limits. A community in California unites, takes on the giant, and wins! Producer/Director Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films take you on an extraordinary journey that will change the way you think, feel — and shop.
Buy it for $12.95 at http://www.walmartmovie.com/watch.php
Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town
Director: Micha Peled
 “Store Wars” follows the events in Ashland, Va. from the first public hearing that galvanizes residents' opposition until the town council takes a final vote one year later. Arguments for the store include increased tax revenues, low prices for shoppers and new jobs. Franklin Jackson, a town councilman, wants to bring in those jobs and some of the old timers don't believe government should stand in the way of progress. Those adamantly opposed, including local business owners and transplants who came to Ashland for its quality of life, feel the store will destroy the small-town atmosphere, increase traffic and provide only low-end minimum-wage jobs. Hot debates ensue in churches, on sidewalks and in the local coffee shop. Says town historian Rosie Shalff, who narrates the film: "The town has never faced an issue that has stirred up as much emotion as this one." “Store Wars” is about the right of a community to determine its own future.
Read about it here: http://www.pbs.org/itvs/storewars/story.html
The Corporation
Directors: Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott
 Though not specifically about Wal-Mart, this profoundly disturbing and revealing documentary looks at the concept of the corporation throughout recent history up to its present-day dominance. Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behavior, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also what the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it. Along with the 145-minute theatrical version, the extensive two-disc set has over five hours of never-before-seen footage. Interview clips, including 165 new, are sorted by person and by topic.
$25.49 at http://www.thecorporation.com/
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