Full-page New York Times ad calls out Wal-Mart


Calling Wal-Mart's "moral responsibilities" in question, a critic of the global retailer took out a full-page advertisement today in the New York Times. The ad, which called on Wal-Mart to increase wages and provide better health insurance options to employees, asked Wal-Mart to "handshake with Sam" (a reference to Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton). Included in the handshake was seven voluntary commitments that, most likely, Sam would have agreed on for the world's largest retailer.

Wal-Mart, which apparently dismissed the ad -- stating that it mentioned nothing new -- said that is already has commitments in many areas that full-page spread specifically points out. Wal-Mart's response to the key commitments -- health care and employee wages/career paths -- was standard fare, as it cited a few loose examples of what it has supported in those realms. Ok, the examples in the response weren't that loose, but we've seen these retorts before. Recently, Wal-Mart has said that is provides "above-average pay and benefits for the retail sector". Without complete qualification and open specifics, I'm not sure this is 100% accurate -- are you?

If we really want to get to the meat of this issue, take this quote: "I don't think there is a disconnect between what Mr. Sam said and where our company is today. We're proud of our heritage and we're proud of what we do today," a Wal-Mart spokesperson quoted in the article said. Well, that's great -- what we need is a bona-fide set of Sam's values and an unbiased and factual comparison of those values to Wal-Mart's movements in those areas -- and then we'll see how that quote stacks up.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA-89.2312,801.23
NASDAQ-23.352,903.88
S&P 500-9.311,342.64

Last updated: February 13, 2012: 04:51 AM

Hot Stocks

General Electric

18.875-0.255(-1.33)

Alcoa

10.29-0.35(-3.29)

Apple Inc

493.42+0.25(+0.05)

Google Inc 'A'

605.91-5.55(-0.91)

Bank of America

8.07-0.11(-1.34)

Wal-Mart Stores

61.90-0.06(-0.10)

Exxon Mobil Corp

83.80-1.08(-1.27)

Ford

12.44-0.25(-1.97)

Citigroup

32.925-0.735(-2.18)

IBM

192.42-0.71(-0.37)

Yahoo

16.14+0.14(+0.88)

Starbucks

48.82-0.38(-0.77)

Microsoft

30.495-0.275(-0.89)

Home Depot

45.33+0.06(+0.13)

DailyFinance Headlines

Benzinga Headlines

TheFlyOnTheWall.com Headlines

    BioHealth Investor Headlines

    WalletPop Headlines

    DailyFinance BlackBerry App

    My Portfolios

    Track your stocks here!

    Find out why more people track their portfolios on AOL Money & Finance then anywhere else.

    BloggingStocks Partners

    More from AOL Money & Finance

    BioHealth Investor Headlines

    Page Loaded in 1329126701730 ms.