"Outfoxed," "Uncovered" filmmaker takes on Wal-Mart

[DeepModem Mom]

New York Times:
Taking On a Giant (Whistleblowers Welcome)
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER

Published: June 1, 2005

LOS ANGELES, May 31 - He's taken on the Bush administration, the war in Iraq and the Fox News Channel. He's forged alliances with grass-roots liberal groups like MoveOn.org, liberal research groups, even liberal churches.

Yet Robert Greenwald, the producer and director of "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism," thinks his next documentary-cum-indictment will appeal to gun-toting Bush voters in the Bible belt as much as to the latte-drinking lefties who made his last movie a hit at house parties on both coasts.

His new project? "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price."

The diminutive Mr. Greenwald, 61, is leading this assault on the retailing behemoth of Bentonville, Ark., from a converted hot-sheets motel in Culver City, Calif. There, where MGM executives once conducted their trysts, he and a dozen or so young producers and editors are compiling digital video from interviewing teams across the country, while spreading the word through advocacy groups and labor unions to invite whistleblowers to come forward.

Their plan is to depict what they and a growing number of critics perceive to be Wal-Mart's sins against society: unfair competition and erosion of the fabric of communities; exploitation of its American workers, and of the government welfare programs many rely on to supplement their wages and benefits; union busting; reliance on suppliers with sweatshops overseas; and environmental negligence - among others....

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/01/movies/01walm.html?8hpib

[rndmprsn]

1. nice...i'll look forward to this one...ive seen all the others and they...

are great...

great line from the interview:

But he said he chose Wal-Mart as his next subject because he saw it as a mainly red-state company. And in thinking about how to appeal to a red-state audience, he said in an interview, he realized this could be a way to make common cause with the socially conservative base of the Republican Party.

"The social values people - I think the economic issues that we're talking about absolutely are in sync with them," he said. "To me, it's an anomaly or a contradiction that some of these folks are voting against their economic self-interest. But in the Wal-Mart fight, we're seeing that whether you voted for Bush or have an N.R.A. hat, or are all your life Republican, when Wal-Mart comes to town, they build or drive you out of business, or your neighbor, or they put a road where it used to be your front yard - that's an equalizer."

[G_j]

2. good choice

for the next project. I will be looking forward to seeing it.

[sinkingfeeling]

3. I hope he's here this week! The idiots wouldn't let us down a public

street this morning to get to our permitted parking lot....causing people to be 20 minutes late to work! WM invades the U of A every year for their shareholders' meeting. They seem to believe that their token rent includes the whole city of Fayetteville. I wish I could get away with hanging a banner across our building..."Wal-Mart Sucks!". Their theme this year is "It's MY Wal-Mart".

[DeepModem Mom]

5. Wow, sinking -- you share a home with Wal-Mart!

My condolences. (Beautiful area, however.)

[Triana]

4. Excellent!

I can't wait to see this one! :applause:

[paineinthearse]

6. Nominated, can we get one more?

This deserves to be on the greatest page.

[Bozita]

7. Greenwald has a new WalMart column at Arianna's site -- link

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/featuredposts.html#a001940

06.01.2005
Robert Greenwald
The Wal-Mart Documentary

The Wal-mart documentary had its genesis in the doctor's office.

Strange, but true. I was having a routine check-up for some fairly mundane complaint. As the exam went on and various tests were ordered, I began to mentally calculate how much the bill for this visit was going to come to. But I was thinking of a friend of mine -- a hard-working salt-of-the-earth kind of guy -- whose recent health crisis had severely strained his family's resources. He did not have the kind of high-quality health coverage that I had through the Directors Guild.

Days later, with my friend's situation still on my mind, I met a new neighbor who was a Wal-Mart sales clerk. He worked there full time but could not afford the health care plan they offered. Wait a minute, I thought. This clerk worked full time for a company whose profit was ten BILLION dollars annually, and they did not provide health care? But it got worse. The clerk said that the company had very kindly advised him how to apply for Medicare, so he could get public aid. So taxpayers were paying for Wal-mart employees to get medical care! I really found it hard to believe. I assumed that if it was true, it had to be an isolated incident.

So I began some months of research. What I discovered was shocking even to me: Not only were employees of Wal-Mart nationwide routinely directed to apply for Medicare, they were also regularly referred to government programs such as food stamps and Section 8 (subsidized) housing. I was furious and wanted to do something. I knew I had to make a film.

more...

[hfojvt]

10. ten billion does not go as far as he thinks

Wal-mart's profit in 2005 was $10.267 billion. About 2.2 billion of that went to dividends. Wal-mart currently pays 52 cents a share dividend out of profits of 2.41 per share. Dividends have gone up from 17.7% of profits to 21%. Wal-mart stock is at 47.85 which means they pay 1% return to a shareholder (who is supposed to make up for the low return with capital gains, but Wal-mart stock is down $10 from last year).
That leaves $8 billion in profits. Wal-mart has 1.6 million "associates". So if half of Wal-mart's profits was distributed to its associates, that would mean each employee would get a raise of only $1.2 an hour, or about $208 per month. (less than $166 after taxes, and speaking of taxes, Wal-mart's extra FICA taxes from $4 billion in raises would be $306 million, making the total cost 4.3 billion.) Would that be enough to pay for health insurance? Probably not, and if they get the insurance that Wal-mart offers, Wal-mart is probably picking up at least half of the costs.

[Bozita]

8. Greenwald is on LIVE with Thom Hartmann now (12:38pm EDT) -- link

http://linux.redbird.com:8000/listen.pls

enjoy!

[Pacifist Patriot]

9. Can't wait to see it.

[arikara]

11. I can't wait to see it

That evil empire is the symbol of what's wrong with the world today.