Group targets Wal-Mart

LITTLE ROCK — A newly formed, union-backed anti-Wal-Mart group, which draws support from environmentalists, political activists, and women’s rights groups, launched its first media campaign Wednesday to call for the world’s largest retailer to reform its business practices.

In its campaign called Wal-Mart Watch, Five Stones, formed in December 2004 along with its larger umbrella The Center for Community and Corporate Ethics, took out an ad in Wednesday’s New York Times. The ad accuses Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of low pay and meager employee benefits that force their workers to rely on Medicaid, food stamps, and federal housing to survive.

Wal-Mart accused the group of engaging in a partisan attack, and questioned the group’s information.

Andrew Grossman, Wal-Mart Watch director, who is also the president of Service Employees International Union, said it wants “to provoke a national debate.” He hopes the group will help improve Wal-Mart as a neighbor, employer and corporate citizen.

The moves follow stepped-up campaigns against Wal-Mart by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which is trying to organize workers at the discounter. Earlier this month, the UFCW announced it was funding a new Web site called wakeupwalmart.com, a grass roots movement to rally Americans to change practices at Wal-Mart.

Unlike other anti-Wal-Mart groups, the Center for Community and Corporate Ethics, based in Washington, D.C., encompasses a wide network of members on its board including the Sierra Club, National Partnership for Women & Families and Common Cause. The non-profit group plans to distribute Wal-Mart-related data and draw on hundreds of other anti-Wal-Mart organizations through its Web site called walmartwatch.com and offline efforts.

“This is just one more example of labor unions playing fast and loose with the facts in an attempt to discredit Wal-Mart,” Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams said. “We don’t know where they got these numbers. And most sources they cite are from dubious studies they commissioned.”

Wal-Mart Watch claims in the New York Times ad that Wal-Mart’s pay and benefits structure costs taxpayers $1.5 billion per year in government assistance that some of its 1.2 million domestic workers receive.