walmrt

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===<pre class="what" style="padding: 0px; border-radius: 4px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 25px; line-height: 22px; word-break: normal; word-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); font-style: italic; background: rgb(249, 247, 246);">House Committee on Financial Services, hold a congressional hearing and help businesses eradicate human trafficking and modern slavery in supply chains.</pre><h3 class="subtitle" style="margin: 10px 0px 15px; line-height: 10pt; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; font-stretch: normal; background-color: rgb(249, 247, 246);">Why Important</h3><pre class="why" style="padding: 0px; border-radius: 4px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 25px; line-height: 22px; word-break: normal; word-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); background: rgb(249, 247, 246);">"We were sold for $430 per person. I felt very depressed when I ended up on the boat. I felt I was in hell." - Myo Zaw Do*, a migrant from Burma who was sold on Thai fishing ships.(1)

Myo Zaw Do, a migrant from Burma, describes how he was sold into slavery on Thai fishing boats for only $430. He was forced to work without pay and suffered brutal beatings by the captain, including one in which his head was slammed so violently into the ice on the deck that he is now partially deaf. Trafficked workers endure regular beatings, torture, and execution-style killings. Some are even driven to suicide, all to support the flow of cheap, farmed shrimp distributed throughout the world.(2)

Two big global retailers -- Walmart and Costco -- are named as customers of a seafood supplier in Thailand with proven links to slavery.(3) Which means that shrimp farmed with slave labor is ending up on your plate.

You can help change this! Members of the U.S. House of Representatives are considering the Business Supply Chain Transparency on Trafficking and Slavery Act of 2014 that encourages businesses to disclose what efforts they take to identify human trafficking in supply chains. You can tell the House of Representatives to hold companies accountable for the millions of children, men, and women trapped in the everyday nightmare of forced labor.

The business supply chain transparency bill would require large companies to say if they are taking any steps to address slavery in supply chains and what those steps are. These disclosures allow consumers to make informed decisions about what products they buy and which companies they invest in. Myo Zaw Do is just one of the millions of trafficked workers who are held in slavery in order to produce goods we purchase everyday.

Tell the House of Representatives to take the first step to passing the Business Supply Chain Transparency on Trafficking and Slavery Act of 2014 (H.R. 4842) by holding a hearing. Together we can shine a light on this hidden crime.

*Myo Zaw Do is a pseudonym.

(1) Felicity Lawrence, Thai seafood industry censored over Burmese migrant’s trafficking ordeal, The Guardian, March 4, 2014.

(2) Felicity Lawrence, Thai seafood industry censored over Burmese migrant’s trafficking ordeal, The Guardian, March 4, 2014.

(3) Kate Hodal, Chris Kelly in Songkhla and Felicity Lawrence, Revealed: Asian slave labour producing prawns for supermarkets in US, UK, The Guardian, June 10, 2014.</pre>BS vs below<div class="bio" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div id="gs-person-8116-biography" class="gs-person-biography-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> Walton became a member of the Wal-Mart (Walmart) board in 1978 and chairman of the board in 1992. Mr. Walton is a Wooster College Trustee. He serves as a member of Conservation International’s Board of Directors; sits on its Executive Committee, Campaign Advisory Committee, and Program Committee; chairs its Corporate Partnership Committee, and serves as business chairman of its Center for Environmental Leadership.Walmart has more than 1.9 million sales associates worldwide and nearly 6,500 stores and wholesale clubs across 13 countries. Under Mr. Walton’s leadership, Walmart has set ambitious goals: to be supplied 100% by renewable energy, create zero waste, and sell products that sustain natural resources and the environment. To accomplish these goals, Walmart established 14 Sustainable Value Networks made up of associates, suppliers, nonprofits, and other organizations.These 14 value networks research renewable and alternative fuels, work with transportation networks to develop the first electric-diesel hybrid, heavy-duty truck, and streamlining trailers for increased fuel efficiency, collaborate with fishing suppliers to ensure that products sold in stores meet the Marine Stewardship Council and the Aquaculture Certification Council accreditations, partner with China’s sourcing network to improve the education of workers and areas such as toxic materials waste, energy, waste, air, and water, implement high-efficiency stores that save energy through heating, cooling, and refrigeration, reduce waste by recycling plastics, generating 57 million pounds of recycled plastic, and promoting products with extended roll life cutting down on paper usage. Together with its suppliers, Walmart is moving industries and consumers toward more sustainable materials through supply networks, lowering carbon dioxide emissions and transportation of products, creating scoring systems for companies to enter into Walmart’s sustainable systems, and encouraging patrons of Walmart to ask for sustainable products through promotion and price breaks.</div></div><div class="gs-person-awards" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px solid green; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div class="gs-person-education" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px solid green; line-height: 18px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 5px; font-weight: normal; cursor: default; line-height: 24px;">Education</h3><div id="gs-person-8116-education" class="gs-person-education-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">BA, Business Administration, University of ArkansasJD, Columbia Law School, Columbia University</div></div>

<a href="http://ecowatch.com/2014/10/15/walmart-walton-renewable-energy">http://ecowatch.com/2014/10/15/walmart-walton-renewable-energy</a>

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The report, How The Walton Family Is Threatening Our Clean Energy Future, resolves the contradiction by pointing to the multibillionaires’ main motivation: profit.

According to the report, “The Walton family—majority owners of Walmart—are <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2014/03/19/alec-legislator-renewable-standard/" onclick="gaq.push(['trackEvent', 'outbound-article-int', 'http://ecowatch.com/2014/03/19/alec-legislator-renewable-standard/', 'impeding America’s transition to a clean energy future']);" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">impeding America’s transition to a clean energy future</a>. At a time when more than 500,000 households and businesses are generating their own solar electricity, and the U.S. solar industry is employing 143,000 people, the Waltons are funding nearly two dozen organizations working to roll back renewable energy policies, while a Walton-owned company is pushing for regulations aimed at hindering the growth of rooftop solar power.”

As solar energy generation has spread across the country, traditional fossil fuel-based utilities have been campaigning to weaken state policies that encourage the growth of clean energy, including solar. They’ve especially taken aim at anything that would bolster the spread of rooftop solar installations, which threatens their profits. They’ve been backed by anti-environment groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (<a href="http://ecowatch.com/search/?q=ALEC" onclick="gaq.push(['trackEvent', 'outbound-article-int', 'http://ecowatch.com/search/?q=ALEC', 'ALEC']);" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">ALEC</a>), Americans for Prosperity and American Enterprise Institute. The Waltons have donated more than $4.5 million to more than 20 such groups, including all three of those. The study also found that the bulk of Walmart’s and the Waltons’ contributions to individual politicians favor those who oppose legislation reducing energy pollution to address <a href="http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/" onclick="gaq.push(['trackEvent', 'outbound-article-int', 'http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/', 'climate change']);" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">climate change</a>.

The anti-renewables groups have had some successes in rolling back the energy future in Ohio and Arizona. Arizona, for instance, gave the state’s largest utility, APS, the right to <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2013/11/19/arizona-imposes-unprecedented-fee-on-solar-energy-users/" onclick="gaq.push(['trackEvent', 'outbound-article-int', 'http://ecowatch.com/2013/11/19/arizona-imposes-unprecedented-fee-on-solar-energy-users/', 'charge a fee']);" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(67, 146, 65); transition: color 0.2s linear; -webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; background: transparent;">charge a fee</a>to homes with rooftop solar. Since then, according to the ILSO study, rooftop solar installations are declining, and so is the number of jobs in the solar industry.

What’s Walmart’s dog in this fight? Let the report explain:

“A Walton-owned solar company, First Solar, was instrumental in helping APS win in Arizona, backing the utility even as the rest of the solar industry joined environmental and consumer groups in opposing the new fees. First Solar builds solar arrays for utilities and, as such, stands to benefit if households are blocked from generating their own electricity, even if it means slowing the overall growth of solar.”

First Solar instigated a proceeding at the World Health Organization that could force several states to repeal solar incentives that encourage job creation there. First Solar does most of its manufacturing in Malaysia, minimizing its contribution to U.S. job creation.

The report tears the veil off the corporate sleight of hand known as “greenwashing,” where a company publicly touts its environmentally friendly initiatives while acting against environmental interests behind the scenes.

“The Waltons claim to have a deep commitment to sustainability, but their support for anti-solar initiatives tells a different story,” said Stacy Mitchell, a senior researcher at ILSR and author of the new report. “The Waltons are investing in efforts that both undercut clean energy and prevent average Americans from benefitting economically from solar power.”

In addition to highlighting the extent of the Waltons’ campaign against rooftop and small solar installations to protect their own investment in utility-scale arrays, ISLR found that since Walmart began its environmental public relations campaign in 2005, its self-reported greenhouse gas emissions have grown 14 percent. The company pledged to go 100 percent renewable but it’s going in the wrong direction. The share of its energy generated by wind and solar has actually dropped and now stands at three percent.

“Rooftop solar offers an enormous opportunity to accelerate the transition to renewable power, broaden the ownership of electricity generation and create tens of thousands of good jobs,” says the report. “We can’t let the Waltons snatch that future from us.”

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$16B profit last year; largest pvt employer in world; walmart moms protest at shareholder mtg; most make less than 25K

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100 million: The number of people who shop at Wal-Mart's 3400 American stores every week.

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50 million: The amount of square footage Wal-Mart plans to add this year, including 50-55 new Wal-Mart stores, 220-230 new Supercenters, 35-40 new Sam's Club and 130-140 new international stores. [View <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/secrets/where.html" style=" color: rgb(176, 101, 44);">a chart</a> of Wal-Mart locations worldwide, as of Jan. 31, 2004.]

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1.2 million: The number of Wal-Mart associates in the U.S. Any full- or part-time Wal-Mart employee, up to and including the CEO, is considered an "associate," in Wal-Mart parlance. Internationally, Wal-Mart employs an additional 330,000 associates.

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600,000: The number of new employees Wal-Mart hires each year. The company's turnover rate is 44 percent -- close to the retail industry average.

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1979: The year Wal-Mart's sales first top $1 billion.

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$256 billion : Wal-Mart's sales in 2003. In the words of Wal-Mart CFO Tom Schoewe, Wal-Mart's sales are equal to "one IBM, one Hewlett Packard, one Dell computer, one Microsoft and one Cisco System -- and oh, by the way, after that we got $2 billion left over."

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35: The number of Wal-Mart Supercenters in China.

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$15 billion: The amount of Chinese products Wal-Mart estimates it imports each year; others suggest the number may be higher.

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$120 billion: The U.S. trade deficit with China in 2003.

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8 percent: The amount of total U.S. retail sales, excluding automobiles, accounted for by Wal-Mart.

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$9.98: The average full-time hourly wage for a Wal-Mart employee. The average full-time hourly wage in metro areas (defined as areas with a population of 50,000 or more) is $10.38. In some urban areas it is higher: $11.03 in Chicago, $11.08 in San Francisco, and $11.20 in Austin.

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