Wal-Mart Hires Former Bush Aide as Chief Image Maker

[ProSense]

Wal-Mart Hires Former Bush Aide as Chief Image Maker

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD

To continue burnishing its image, Wal-Mart has replaced a former Clinton White House aide with a former Bush White House staff member

The company, the nation’s largest retailer, announced on Wednesday that Dan Bartlett, an adviser to President George W. Bush, would be its new executive vice president for corporate affairs, starting in late June.

The vague-sounding role in fact has a wide mandate, overseeing corporate communications, government relations, sustainability and the Wal-Mart Foundation. It is in essence Wal-Mart’s chief image maker.

Mr. Bartlett replaces Leslie Dach, who announced his resignation in March. Mr. Dach, an ex-Clinton aide, helped create Wal-Mart’s sustainability effort, its $4 generic drug program and its healthy food program after years in which Wal-Mart had been battered by politicians and the media.

- more -

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/business/wal-mart-hires-a-new-chief-image-maker.html

Wal-Mart ordered to provide more documents

WILMINGTON, Delaware (AP) — A U.S. judge ordered attorneys for Wal-Mart Stores to turn over more information to shareholders seeking records on how the company responded to allegations of bribery involving its operations in Mexico.

The judge on Monday suggested that Wal-Mart attorneys had taken a "persnickety and narrow" approach to turning over documents requested by attorneys for large pension funds trying to find out what, and when, company directors knew of the payments.

<...>

After initially denying that company directors knew of the bribes paid to Mexican officials, e-mails released earlier this year by U.S. lawmakers appeared to show that Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke learned about the payments as early as 2005. The Times found that after starting an internal investigation into the corruption allegations, senior Wal-Mart officials halted the investigation in 2006 despite having found a wealth of evidence supporting the allegations.

Wal-Mart has been under investigation by the U.S. government for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which forbids American companies from bribing foreign officials.

- more -

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/05/20/walmart-mexico-bribery-charges-shareholders-lawsuit/2343243/

Vast Mexico Bribery Case Hushed Up by Wal-Mart After Top-Level Struggle
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/business/at-wal-mart-in-mexico-a-bribe-inquiry-silenced.html

[Vinnie From Indy]

1. Wal-Mart is gonna choke on a pretzel and fall off a Segway

I just know it!

[rurallib]

2. Dress up in a codpiece outfit, stand on the roof of one of their stores

and declare themselves the most American company EVER!

[ProSense]

9. Maybe they can

"Dress up in a codpiece outfit, stand on the roof of one of their stores and declare themselves the most American company EVER!"

...do that standing on the rubble in Bangladesh.

Walmart meeting to be protested by Bangladeshi factory workers

Lobby group raises money to bring former child worker and factory fire survivor for protest of retail giant's annual meeting

Dominic Rushe

A survivor of a deadly Bangladeshi garment factory fire and a former child labourer will make their way to Bentonville, Arkansas, next week to protest at the annual meeting of retail giant Walmart.

<...>

Sumi Abedin, a survivor of the deadly fire that killed at least 112 garment workers at the Tazreen Fashion factory on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2012, and Kalpona Akter, a former child worker, will join a growing protest against the retailer's work practices and buying policies.

Pressure for change has been mounting on retailers worldwide since the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Savar, Bangladesh, in April that claimed 1,127 lives and left thousands more injured.

Walmart has fired suppliers in the wake of the tragedy and announced independent factory inspections. But the company, and Gap, have refused to sign a legally binding safety agreement known as accord on fire and building safety in Bangladesh, that has the support of other retailers including H&M, Primark and Tesco.

- more -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/may/31/walmart-meeting-bangladesh-workers

[ProSense]

3. It's going to take a lot more

than a Bushie to clean up Walmart's image, if that's even possible.

Walmart fined $82 million for dumping poisons

By John Upton

<...>

On Tuesday, Walmart pled guilty to violations of federal environmental laws and agreed to pay $81.6 million in fines and penalties for improper hazardous waste disposal.

From an EPA press release:

(U)ntil January 2006, Wal-Mart did not have a program in place and failed to train its employees on proper hazardous waste management and disposal practices at the store level. As a result, hazardous wastes were either discarded improperly at the store level — including being put into municipal trash bins or, if a liquid, poured into the local sewer system — or they were improperly transported without proper safety documentation to one of six product return centers located throughout the United States.

“By improperly handling hazardous waste, pesticides and other materials in violation of federal laws, Wal-Mart put the public and the environment at risk and gained an unfair economic advantage over other companies,” said Ignacia S. Moreno, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.

Some of the $81.6 million will be invested in community projects, such as a new $6 million center that will help retailers learn how to properly handle hazardous waste.

But fear not for the company’s solvency in the wake of its reckless handling of solvents. From The New York Times:

The guilty plea comes after settlements that Wal-Mart reached with California and Missouri in 2010 and 2012 on the same charges. Tuesday’s fines include $60 million for violations of the Clean Water Act in California; $14 million for a violation of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act in Missouri; and a $7.6 million civil penalty to the E.P.A.

In total, Wal-Mart will have paid more than $110 million to resolve all these related cases. Wal-Mart, which had $128 billion in revenues last year, said the payments should not have a material effect on its business.

http://grist.org/news/walmart-fined-82-million-for-dumping-poisons/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022918317

[Bluenorthwest]

4. Wow, a Bushie got a job and it's not in the Obama administation

how'd they let this one slip by?

[ProSense]

5. Maybe

"Wow, a Bushie got a job and it's not in the Obama administation how'd they let this one slip by?"

...he didn't get the memo that Obama = Bush

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022933401

[Bluenorthwest]

6. Obama and Bush are not the same, of course.

Bush would never appoint a Democrat.

[ProSense]

8. Which

"Bush would never appoint a Democrat."

...clearly makes him a better person, right?

Then again, maybe you should check the facts.

[Thor_MN]

7. Well, when you need to put lipstick on a pig

you hire someone with experience.