Obamacare is putting a big crimp in Wal-Mart’s lucrative pharmacy business

It was not an especially good quarter for Wal-Mart, and one pain point that will continue to hurt the company is a downturn in its large in-store pharmacy business in the US. On a media call yesterday (Aug. 18), executives in part blamed the company’s reduced profit outlook on a change in the way Americans are paying for drugs.

“We are seeing less cash and more reimbursements from insurers,” CFO Charles Holley said.

In other words, the rapid fall in uninsured Americans after passage of the Affordable Care Act has led to more drugs being paid for by insurers, and fewer being paid out of pocket. That squeezes profit margins, particularly for a company like Wal-Mart with one of the biggest drug stores in the country (it brings in about $19 billion in annual revenue).

In the US, full retail prices paid by the uninsured are substantially inflated compared to what private insurers reimburse. Unlike the average healthcare consumer, private insurers know the market, whether generic or cheaper options are available, and they have the leverage of scale to negotiate prices.

Government programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which cover many Wal-Mart customers, are prohibited from negotiating on price with drug makers. But they are also legally required to only reimburse the drug maker a certain percentage over the average wholesale price.

Pharmacy benefit managers, which administer drug benefits for employers and insurers, have also consolidated (pdf), leaving three firms (ExpressScripts, CVS, and UnitedHealth) to cover most Americans. The bump in scale has boosted their negotiating power on drug prices.

Formerly uninsured Wal-Mart customers are also likely to be entering into lower-tier health insurance plans that don’t cover an ever-growing list of expensive drugs, instead favoring cheaper, clinically-equivalent alternatives.

Pharmacies that have overcome these changes, like CVS, have tended to focus on offering expensive and often high-margin specialty drugs that require extra service to administer (such as chemotherapy drugs and arthritis drugs).

Wal-Mart says it has no intention of selling off its pharmacy business. As for solutions, on its Aug. 18 earnings call it offered up only that it is taking a “number of actions to lessen the impact.”

Via: Quartz.com

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Gun Lies

My town, New York City, enforces rigid gun laws. Police refused to assign me a gun permit. The law doesn’t even let me hold a fake gun on TV to demonstrate something.

But New York politicians are so eager to vilify gun ownership that they granted an exception to the anti-gun group States United to Prevent Gun Violence. New York allowed States United to set up a fake gun store, where cameras filmed potential gun customers being spoofed by an actor pretending to be a gun-seller.

“This a nine-millimeter semi-automatic. It’s a very handy gun. It’s easy to use,” he says. “You can carry it in a purse like that gal from Wal-Mart. Her two-year-old son reaches into her pocketbook, pulls it out, shoots her. Dead, gone, no Mom!”

States United then made that footage into an anti-gun public service announcement. “Over 60 percent of Americans think owning a gun will make them safer. In fact, owning a gun increases the risk of homicide, suicide and unintentional death,” says the video.

It’s a powerful message. But it’s a lie, says John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center. He says that gun control advocates lie all the time.

Lott acknowledges the tragedies. Sometimes a gun in the home is used in a homicide or suicide, or leads to accidental death, but he adds, “It also makes it easier for people to defend themselves — women and the elderly in particular.”

Lott says, “Every place in the world that’s tried to ban guns … has seen big increases in murder rates. You’d think at least one time, some place, when they banned guns, murder rates would go down. But that hasn’t been the case.”

I pushed back: what about people harming themselves?

“There are lots of different ways for people to commit suicide,” Lott said, and researchers have looked at how those tragedies are affected by access to guns. “We find that people commit suicide in other ways if they don’t have guns.”

What about accidents? Lott replies that accidental shooting deaths are relatively rare: “about 500 a year.” That sounds bad, but about 400 Americans are killed by overdosing on acetaminophen each year (most of them suicides), and almost as many Americans drown in swimming pools.

“It would be nice if it was zero (but) consider that 120 million Americans own guns,” Lott says.

Often those guns are used to prevent crime. The homeowner pulls out the gun and the attacker flees. No one knows how often this happens because these prevented crimes don’t become news and don’t get reported to the government, but an estimate from the Violence Policy Center suggests crimes may be prevented by guns tens of thousands of times per year.

Add politics to the mix and the anti-gun statistics get even more misleading. Gang members in their late teens or early adulthood killing each other get called “children.” Fights between gangs near schools get called school “mass shootings.”

The number of mass shootings in America has been roughly level over the past 40 years, but the New York Times still runs headlines like, “FBI Confirms a Sharp Rise in Mass Shootings Since 2000.” That headline is absolutely true, but only because they deceitfully picked the year 2000 as their start point, and that was a year with unusually few mass shootings. It’s as if the paper wants to make it seem as if mass shootings are always on the rise, even as crime keeps going down.

It all helps stoke paranoia about guns. Some people respond by calling for more controls. Others, fearing the government may ban gun sales, respond by buying more weapons. The number of people holding permits to carry concealed weapons has skyrocketed to 12.8 million, up from 4.6 million just before President Obama took office. Since 40 percent of American households now own guns, anyone who wants to take them away will have a fight on his hands.

Has the increased gun ownership and carrying of guns led to more violence? Not at all. “Violent crime across the board has plummeted,” says Lott. “In 1991, the murder rate was about 9.8 (people) per 100,000. (Now) it’s down to about 4.2.”

I can’t convince my friends in New York City, but it’s just a fact: More guns — less crime.

Via: Human Events

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WALMART COMMITS TO PLACE COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE BEHIND BLINDERS IN STORES NATIONWIDE

Walmart has joined several other major supermarket chains with its own commitment to enforce its policy of placing Cosmopolitan magazine behind blinders in their stores across the nation.

The retailer’s decision to enforce its 10-year policy of wrapping the regularly sexually explicit publication cover comes on the heels of a joint campaign by Victoria Hearst, granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst, founder of the corporation that publishesCosmo, and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCSE).

As Breitbart News reported in late July, supermarket chains Rite Aid and Delhaize America – which owns Food Lion and Hannaford Stores – also made a commitment to place Cosmo behind blinders in their stores as a result of the Cosmo Harms Minorscampaign which was launched in April to protect young children and adolescents from the blatant sexual material on the magazine’s covers.

NCSE executive director Dawn Hawkins states that while Walmart has had a policy of placing Cosmo behind blinders for 10 years, “the enforcement became increasingly lax in recent years.”

“I applaud Walmart for its decision to place Cosmopolitan behind blockers in order to protect minors from being targeted by a magazine that prides itself in promoting a pornified culture through its explicit articles and images,” she said in a statement. “Cosmopolitan regularly targets children, yet continues to print adult content which children should not see or read.”

Hawkins said an example is that the current issue of Cosmopolitan features both a drawing by a 6th grade Girl Scout reader and a detailed description of sexual acts that are purported to please a man.

In response to a request for comment about Walmart agreeing to place the magazine behind blinders, a spokesperson from Cosmopolitan said in an email statement to Breitbart News, “Walmart’s approach to Cosmo’s newsstand presence in their stores has been consistent for more than a decade, there is no new information to share. Any indication otherwise, by the NCSE or other, is simply untrue.”

Hawkins, nevertheless, forwarded a letter to Breitbart News from Michelle Malashock, of Walmart Executive Communications, who wrote, “We are in the process of reemphasizing the blinder policy and the importance of following it with the appropriate people. Thank you for flagging this.”

NCSE, explains Hawkins, received a commitment from Walmart to adopt the policy of covering up Cosmo in the early 2000s during a campaign at that time. In nearly every Walmart, however, that NCSE checked recently, the magazine was uncovered. Hawkins said the organization followed up and sent Walmart photos from their stores around the country where it was not covered, resulting in the company’s executives assuring the group they would enforce the policy.

“NCSE claims another victory as the editorial content of the magazine seems to be shifting, at least in the next issue,” Hawkins added. “The September issue, featuring yet again another Disney teen star, has removed the usual graphic sexual headlines from the cover. This is a significant departure from Cosmopolitan’s norm, as over 85 of Cosmopolitan’s recent issues were found to feature explicit headlines.”

In an interview with Breitbart News in April, Hearst, who operates a Christian ministry, said she had tried for years to talk to fellow family members on the board of directors of the Hearst Corporation about the fact that Cosmo is harmful to young people, but to no avail.

“Minors shouldn’t be able to buy Cosmo, it’s adult content and minors shouldn’t be exposed to it,” Hearst said. “Apparently, my family members in authority in the Hearst Corporation don’t care about corrupting and harming children. They only care about money.”

On its website, the Hearst Corporation states, “Cosmopolitan is the best-selling young women’s magazine in the U.S., a bible for fun, fearless females that reaches more than 18 million readers a month.”

Hearst, however, begs to disagree.

“Cosmo is anti-God, anti-Christian, anti-marriage, and promotes a deviant lifestyle centered on sex,” she said. “It promotes promiscuity – with its risks of getting STDs, being raped or murdered, and its promise of emotional and psychological damage, including suicide.”

Hearst stated her campaign has no intention of limiting the First Amendment rights of the Hearst Corporation, but warned most states have “harm to minors” laws that should prevent the display of such blatant sexual content at the checkouts of stores where children can readily be exposed to it.

“If they want to put sexually explicit materials and words on the covers of Cosmo, and if they want to fill their magazine with photos of sexual positions and articles about how to enjoy anal sex, knock themselves out,” Hearst said, “but have it where other adult material like Playboy and Penthouse is sold – not where children and adolescents can be exposed to it.”

According to a report in the New York Post, Cosmo editor-in-chief Joanna Coles has called Cosmo Harms Minors a “sexist” campaign with a “double standard,” since men’s publications such as GQ and Men’s Health run stories on sex that are regularly highlighted on their covers.

Hearst said she would be happy to debate Coles on the subject, but Coles has refused.

“I have no time for a debate,” Coles reportedly said. “I am too busy putting out a magazine and encouraging American women to have more and better orgasms.”

Coles added she believes the notion of having a debate is a publicity stunt, observing that young kids can use their smartphones to easily look up the topics seen on Cosmo’s covers. She said the magazine’s legendary editor – Helen Gurley Brown – who started Cosmo on the road to its sexually explicit content, was key in putting a stop to censorship, and that placing blinders on the cover “sends a signal to young women that their sexuality is shameful.”

“We’re not just about sex, we’re about empowering women in all aspects of their lives,” Coles said, adding, however, that “to assume that everyone has a vanilla sex life is absurd.”

Walmart has over 5,000 stores across all 50 states.

Via: Breitbart

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When a raise angers workers

When Wal-Mart Stores chief Doug McMillon announced plans to boost store workers’ minimum wage earlier this year, he said the move was intended to improve morale and retain employees.

Yet for some of the hundreds of thousands of workers getting no raise, the policy is having the opposite effect.

In interviews and in hundreds of comments on Facebook, Wal-Mart employees are calling the move unfair to senior workers who got no increase and now make the same or close to what newer, less experienced colleagues earn. New workers started making a minimum of $9 an hour in April and will get at least $10 an hour in February.

“It is pitting people against each other,” said Charmaine Givens-Thomas, a 10-year veteran who makes $12 an hour at a store near Chicago and belongs to OUR Walmart, a union-backed group that has lobbied for better working conditions. “It hurts morale when people feel like they aren’t being appreciated. I hear people every day talking about looking for other jobs and wanting to remove themselves from Wal-Mart and a job that will make them feel like that.”

Some workers also said they suspect their hours are being cut and annual raises reduced to cover the cost of the wage increase for newer workers. Wal-Mart denies that and says it’s taking steps to ensure all employees have an opportunity to move into higher-paying jobs. Along with bumping up the minimum wage, it increased the amount workers receive when promoted, boosted pay for some managers and raised the maximum pay for all hourly positions.

A broader issue

Several U.S. retailers have raised the minimum wage for their workers in recent months, among them Gap, TJX and Target. The moves were widely hailed amid calls to combat wage inequality — an issue that even reached the Securities and Exchange Commission, which on Wednesday voted to force companies to reveal the pay gap between the chief executive officer and their typical worker.

However, if Wal-Mart and other retailers don’t also adjust pay for veteran hourly workers, they could face rising dissent, said David Cooper, an economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute. Typically, when employers boost their base pay, they also give raises to those making within $1 to $2 of the new minimum to preserve a type of wage hierarchy and keep their longer-time workers happy, studies show.

“Companies want to preserve some type of internal wage ladder, so to do that they have to adjust wages of folks above the new minimum,” Cooper said. If Wal-Mart doesn’t raise wages for these workers, “folks are going to leave or start complaining more vocally,” he said.

Executives knew the minimum wage hike would make those left out feel disenfranchised, said Kristin Oliver, Wal-Mart’s U.S. human resources chief. Since then, the company has been hearing from upset employees and understands that the new wage policy could lead to increased turnover, she said.

In an attempt to retain workers who didn’t get a raise, Wal-Mart has changed its scheduling system to help workers get the hours they want and started a new training program for employees looking to advance within the company. Wal-Mart announced the scheduling changes as well as a new training program at the same time as the wage increase to address the different needs of its workers, Wal-Mart spokesman Kory Lundberg said.

“We are constantly looking and evolving what the right pay should be and we were aware of the issue,” Oliver said. “We weren’t prepared to go forward with any additional increases but have continued to look at it to see if there is something else we should do for those in the middle.”

The cost of more raises

Giving additional raises to employees already making close to the new minimum wage would cost Wal-Mart about $400 million, said Jeannette Wicks-Lim, an assistant research professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She based her calculation on raises the retail industry has handed out after past increases to state and federal minimum wages. Wal-Mart declined to comment on her calculation.

Additional pay bumps could put further strain on profits, which Wal-Mart said last quarter were dragged down by the $1 billion it’s already spending on raises. Last year, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based chain generated $486 billion in annual sales and a profit of about $16 billion.

Wal-Mart has said about 500,000 of its 1.3 million U.S. employees are getting raises as part of the new pay policy and all employees will be able to benefit from the new scheduling and training programs.

“We are trying to create a situation where they have a path to higher paying positions over time,” Oliver said.

Still, that hasn’t been the takeaway for many workers.

Sal Fuentes, who makes $13 an hour operating a forklift overnights at a Wal-Mart in Duarte, California, said he expects the company to give out lower raises to him and other senior employees to compensate for the cost of raising pay for the newer employees.

“There is always some way they get the money back,” said Fuentes, who has worked at the company since 2006 and is a member of OUR Walmart. “They give you some but they are taking away something else. It has always been like that.”

While employers may think raising wages will help them compete for talent, research shows workers care more about how much a colleague is making than someone at another company.

“Workers appear to pay attention to peer wages,” said Laura Giuliano, an associate professor of economics at the University of Miami who has studied the issue. “Even a small difference can matter, and whether or not it is going to matter may well depend on whether it appears arbitrary or unfair.”

Givens-Thomas said she was happy to see her colleagues getting a raise and thinks it’s a sign Wal-Mart is moving in the right direction. Still, she said the new wage policy is bittersweet; Givens-Thomas recently moved in with her mother because she couldn’t afford her rent.

“I am impressed that they are even trying to raise the wages — I know it has been hard for them,” she said. “I would like to continue to see pay go up because it has been stagnant for so many years and people are really suffering.”

Via: The Bulletin-Oregon

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Wal-Mart sued for denying health insurance to gay worker's wife

A Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) employee sued the retailer on Tuesday, saying its prior policy of denying health insurance to the spouses of gay employees violated gender discrimination laws.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Boston, seeks nationwide class-action status.

Wal-Mart, the largest private U.S. employer, began offering health insurance benefits to same-sex spouses last year, after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act that denied federal benefits to married gay couples. Even after that change, the lawsuit says, Wal-Mart workers still live with the uncertainty of losing spousal coverage.

"Benefits provided by Wal-Mart as a matter of grace ... are not secure and could potentially be withdrawn just when large health care costs are incurred," the lawsuit says.

Jackie Cote, who has worked at Walmart stores in Maine and Massachusetts since 1999, said in the lawsuit that her wife, Diana Smithson, developed cancer in 2012 and the denial of insurance led to more than $150,000 in medical debt.

Cote and Smithson were married in Massachusetts in 2004, days after a court ruling made the state the first to allow gay nuptials.

Smithson worked for Wal-Mart until 2008, when she left to care for Cote's elderly mother, according to the lawsuit. The company then repeatedly denied requests by Cote to add her wife to her insurance policy. Smithson is now in hospice care, Cote said.

Last year, Cote filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a prerequisite to filing an employment discrimination lawsuit. The commission said in January that Wal-Mart violated gender discrimination laws by denying benefits to Smithson.

The commission in recent years has pioneered the argument that employment discrimination against gay people is a form of gender discrimination, since it would not happen if an employee were of the opposite sex, but it has not been vetted by courts.

Via: Reuters

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Walmart to ‘melt’ class rings bearing Confederate flag rather than complete orders

An Arkansas woman who went to pick up the class ring she ordered from Walmart left disappointed, after store officials told her the retailer's new policy barred them from turning the item over -- because it bore an image of the Confederate flag.

Elaine Glidewell told KFSM someone from the store in Fort Smith called her to pick up the ring she'd ordered for her nephew, but when she arrived on Tuesday, a clerk told her she couldn’t have it. The ring had been ordered before Walmart stopped selling items bearing images of the flag, in the wake of controversy that stemmed from a racially-charged shooting in South Carolina.

“I wanted to cry,” Glidewell told KFSM, adding that the store clerk said the ring would be "melted."

Glidewell said she paid $320 for the ring and was going to present it to her nephew, who recently graduated. He had expressed interest in a design that bore a Rebel mascot that incorporates the Confederate battle flag. She got her money back, but no ring.

“They wouldn’t let me have the ring. It had a note on it, was in a plastic bag, it said do not sell. It was signed by the store manager,” Glidewell said.

Brian Nick, spokesman for Walmart, told FoxNews.com Glidewell was denied the ring because her transaction came after the retailer made a “business decision” to stop selling items with the Confederate flag on it.

“The decision was made several weeks ago not to sell products promoting the confederate flag and this item fell under that category and the associate made the right choice and did not complete the sale,” Nick said.

Nick said the ring might have slipped through the cracks because a third party manufactured it, and the store did not realize the Confederate flag was on the ring until an associate went to sell it.

“Because there was a little bit of time I think that’s probably the reason it was noticed a few weeks after,” Nick said.

Nick said the store put Glidewell in touch with a manufacturer, who can get her a new ring, but Glidewell says it was that particular piece she wanted.

“I would give anything to have that ring. Anything. Just because it means so much to him,” Glidewell said.

Via: Fox News

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Union Members Support Bernie Sanders

Report: 'Hillary Clinton has a union problem'

Bernie Sanders has turned Hillary Clinton’s parade to the White House into a competitive race for the Democratic nomination, as unions prefer Clintons’ socialist opponent.

LaborUnionReport.com organized an informal poll in mid-June 2015 and the results showed that union support for Hillary Clinton was lacking significantly.

Seventy-six percent of union members favor Bernie Sanders for president in 2016. Only 11 percent of union members favored Hillary Clinton.

The report said, “due to her time spent with the employer-friendly Rose law firm (which helps employers fight unions), as well as her stint on the board of directors for Wal-Mart, many union members believe Clinton cannot be trusted.”

Unions distrust Hillary Clinton’s intimacy with Wall Street, according to the report. In addition to that concern, Clinton declined to weigh in on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Labor leaders are opposed to the TPP.

“Hillary Clinton has a union problem,” the report said. “Since no Democrat can win the White House without union support, it is the union problem that may pose a bigger problem than all the others … and it has her campaign very worried.”

Via: WFB

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[VIDEO] Walmart Refuses To Bake Cake With Confederate Flag Image, No Problem Making One With ISIS Flag

According to Chuck Netzhammer:

On 06/25/15 I attempted to get an Edible image cake printed with the confederate flag image on it at Walmart. It was denied. The next day I had them do the same for the ISIS battle flag image I brought to them. They cheerfully did it. and sold me my ISIS cake. WTF Walmart! ISIS is beheading Christians, selling little girls into slavery, and is currently a terrorist org at war with the United States……..but you can’t buy the General Lee toy car at Walmart? It’s a damn shame.

Via: Weasel Zippers

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Starnes: The Cultural Cleansing Of The Southern States Begins

A full-fledged cultural cleansing of the Southern states is underway as lawmakers debate whether to remove Confederate flags and rename schools and parks named after Confederate war heroes.

Republicans are leading the charge in South Carolina and Mississippi to remove the Confederate flag — called a symbol of hate and racism.

Wal-Mart jumped on the band wagon, too – announcing they will remove all Confederate merchandise from its stores.

Has the Department of Homeland Security classified the Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy as right-wing hate groups, yet?

Wal-Mart jumped on the band wagon, too – announcing they will remove all Confederate merchandise from its stores. EBay announced they will no longer sell Confederate flags or any other memorabilia.

Has the Department of Homeland Security classified the Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy as right-wing hate groups, yet?

Meanwhile, there are dozens of reports from around the southeast of lawmakers hoping to rename parks and schools and streets that were originally named in honor of Confederates.

*Tennessee lawmakers are demanding that a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest be removed from the statehouse;

*Baltimore lawmakers want to rename Robert E. Lee Park;

*Dallas lawmakers are considering demands to rename Stonewall Jackson Elementary School;

Via: Fox News Radio

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Study: Walmart Health Plans Better than Obamacare

 Walmart is offering better and cheaper healthcare insurance coverage for its more than one million employees than plans competing under Obamacare, the Washington Examiner reports.

A comparison by the newspaper found that Walmart's plans are more affordable and provide better access to doctors and hospitals than the plans offered under the Affordable Care Act.

The Examiner asked health policy experts and independent insurance agents affiliated with the National Association of Health Underwriters to study the plans to see which, if any, were better.

Walmart has two plans from Blue Cross Blue Shield — one called the Health Reimbursement Account (HRA) and another it calls HRA High, which cost employees more but have lower deductibles. Individuals can receive coverage for as little as $40 a month while a family plan costs about $160 a month. 

The Walmart plans, which are offered to 1.1 million enrolled employees, differ from Obamacare in that age and gender do not affect premium rates and there are no income eligibility requirements. 

A Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) analysis found that unsubsidized Obamacare enrollees will face monthly premiums five to nine times higher than Walmart premiums.

According to the JAMA report, the monthly unsubsidized Obamacare premium for married 60-year-old non-smokers can cost $1,365 compared to Walmart's premium of just $134 for the same couple. The report also said an unsubsidized premium under Obamacare for a 30-year-old single smoker would cost $428 a month, compared to $70 monthly for Walmart employees.

The Times said researchers also found that Walmart staff can use eight of the nation's leading hospitals for heart and back surgery, including the Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic, which the department store chain calls "Centers of Excellence."

Walmart employees can also get free hip and knee replacements at four other hospitals nationwide. But none of these hospitals are included in most of the plans obtained through Obamacare's exchanges.

Robert Slayton, an independent Chicago insurance agent and former president of the Illinois State Association of Health Underwriters, noted that the number of doctors and hospitals available in Chicago under Obamacare is very limited when compared to Walmart's plans.

“You will notice there are 9,837 doctors [under Obamacare]. But the larger [Walmart] network is 24,904 doctors. Huge, huge difference,” he said.

The healthcare plans offered by the company have been attacked by unions and other groups for providing "substandard" benefits. But Gail Wilensky, who was in charge of President George W. Bush's Health Care Financing Administration, said, “It’s a lot better program than people, I think, might assume without looking, just because Walmart has gotten such a bad reputation by some of the labor groups and other groups for its general activities.” 

Via: Gold Is Money
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Wal-Mart Blamed for Obama Economic Policies and ObamaCare Caused Cuts

Fired By Walmart for Christmas

Written by Michal Rozworski, City Watch LA,  12/24/13

SEASON MEANING-The holidays are meant to be a joyful time. Religion aside, they are a time for family and celebration. For many workers at Walmart, however, the holidays are a source of stress and challenge. Stores become figurative, sometimes even literal, battlefields, making already-taxing work more demanding, even chaotic. At the same time, low wages and inadequate benefits stretch year-end budgets, leaving little room for the joys of the holidays.

On average, US retailers make 20% of their sales during the holiday shopping season. Walmart does not publicize holiday revenue figures, but its fourth-quarter sales are almost a third higher than the rest of the year. With profits similarly higher, Walmart and its shareholders have cause to celebrate during the holidays, especially as the company has been aggressively buying back shares, using its profits to line the pockets of investors with over $15 billion since the summer.

Walmart “associates” (the term Walmart uses for its employees), on the other hand, have fewer reasons for holiday cheer. The last two holiday shopping seasons have kicked off with highly-visible Black Friday protests organized by OUR Walmart, the organization of current and former associates that aims to improve conditions at the retail giant. According to OUR Walmart, problems at the retail giant center on a lack of respect for associates, low pay and benefits as well as haphazard enforcement of policies including scheduling. These grievances are even more evident during the holidays.

Mary Watkines is a 13-year veteran at Walmart in Federal Way, Washington. She describes a fundamental shift in the culture at Walmart that can be traced back less than a decade. For her, a more “family-oriented” approach that saw associates as partners has been replaced with a drive for profit that squeezes workers. And this squeeze is at no time more apparent than during the holidays.

Via: CA Political News

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Walmart — 1 Billion Page Views On Cyber Monday, Healthcare.gov Dies Under 50k

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. ( WMT ) said it posted record online sales on Cyber Monday, while its Internet sales from Thanksgiving Day through Monday marked the retail giant's strongest five-day stretch of sales to date.

Wal-Mart's website processed more than a billion page views during the period, the company said in a statement.

"We had an all-time record sales day yesterday as the momentum we saw on Thanksgiving carried through to Cyber Monday," said Joel Anderson, president and CEO of Walmart.com U.S., although specific sales figures weren't provided.

Last week Wal-Mart, which launched its Thanksgiving Day deals two hours earlier than last year, said it had recorded more than 10 million register transactions between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. Thursday in its stores and nearly 400 million page views that day on its website. The company said electronics, such as big screen TVs, iPad minis, laptops and new game systems Xbox One and PS4 were among the top sellers.

In addition to televisions and tablets, Wal-Mart said Tuesday that top sellers included Fisher Price Power Wheels Red Ford F150 Raptor Ride-Ons and Mega Bloks First Builders Build 'n Learn Table play sets.

Wal-Mart plans to offer 200 specials a day on its website through Friday.

The retail industry's main trade group earlier reported retail spending over Thanksgiving weekend dropped for the first time in at least seven years, as retailers kicked off sales earlier on Thanksgiving Day and touted discounts all week. Estimated total spending over Thanksgiving weekend fell to $57.4 billion, down 2.7% from a year ago, according to the National Retail Federation.

Shares were down seven cents at $81.04 in recent trading.

Via: Nasdaq
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Cops: Woman pulls stun gun in fight over Walmart shopping cart

NEW JERSEY (MYFOXNY.COM) -

A Thanksgiving shopper is facing criminal charges after police say she pulled a stun gun in a dispute over a shopping cart outside of a Walmart store.

Police say it happened Thursday at about 7:18 p.m. at the Walmart in Linden, N.J.

Officers assigned to the store were alerted to a dispute in the parking lot between two women. An on-duty Linden Fire Department captain on scene monitoring the crowd situation told an officer that one of the women had a stun gun.

Police spoke to a victim, a 42 year old from Staten Island, who told officers that she and another woman were having an argument over a shopping cart when the other woman pulled out a stun gun and activated it in a threatening manner.

Police say the woman with the stun gun, Latosha Mathis, 34, of Elizabeth, N.J. was arrested after officers found the TW-11 stun gun in her purse.

She was charged with illegal possession of a stun gun, and is due back in court on December 6, 2013.  She faces up to 18 months in jail and a $10,000 fine.

Via: My Fox NY

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