Wal-Mart's low-road model

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The Wal-Mart Watch campaign, a labor-environmental group highly critical of America's mega-mega retailer, recently launched more than 1,000 events nationwide for its "Higher Expectations Week."

A scathing documentary by independent filmmaker Robert Greenwald with a focus on Wal-Mart's business tactics and treatment of workers began to play to audiences across the country.

Wal-Mart is fighting its critics with waves of television ads celebrating happy workers and the company's gifts to local charities.

But the action goes much further. Across state capitals, legislators are into spirited debates over whether Wal-Mart should be forced to pay adequate health benefits or leave it to the states to subsidize its low-paid workers through Medicaid and other public benefits.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002650489_peirce28.html