Wal-mart

United Food and Commercial Workers Local 789 has withdrawn charges of labor law violations by Wal-Mart against employees at its store in St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood. The union, which is currently engaged in an organizing campaign at Wal-Mart outlets throughout the Twin Cities, accused the world’s largest retailer last month of illegally threatening to terminate workers who supported unionizing.

Wal-Mart is threatening to fire pro-union workers at its store in the Midway neighborhood of St. Paul, according to a complaint filed today with the National Labor Relations Board. The charges, filed by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 789, allege that starting on June 11 corporate representatives began telling employees that they could easily acquire a list of union backers and that those people would lose their jobs.

Wal-Mart is the most notoriously anti-union corporation in the world. After a five-year hiatus, the United Food and Commercial Workers union is once again seeking to organize the company’s 1.4 million U.S. workers. Yesterday they held a rally at the Wal-Mart store in St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood.

After years of eschewing labor-organizing drives at the world’s largest company, the United Food and Commercial Workers has vowed that capitulation to Wal-Mart is over. The union has started organizing campaigns in 17 states, including Minnesota, targeting more than 100 stores. The impetus for the organizing drive: the new administration in the White House and the possibility of passing the Employee Free Choice Act.

Wal-Mart “saved money” and — to further shoplift from the discount retail mega-chain’s current advertising slogan — its executives will probably “live better” after today’s $54.3 million settlement of a Minnesota class action lawsuit. The Dakota County District Court case involved allegations that Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores denied wages for training time and didn’t [...]

You could fill an undergraduate survey course in American history with the political, historical, cultural, and geographical differences between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden and their respective home states. One state is tiny, the other enormous. One state is the oldest, the other the newest. One state leans the deepest shade of blue, the other [...]

During his travels across the country to stump for Sen. John McCain (and bid for the GOP veep slot), Gov. Tim Pawlenty positively owned the phrase “Sam’s Club Republican.” Today T-Paw hits the road again — D.C.-bound in fact, but with his vice presidential hopes a pale memory — for an event billed as the Sustainability Solutions [...]

I’m one of the pokier bloggers on the block, so I read with a dash of glee last month when New York Times reporter/blogger Andrew Revkin pondered whether now might be the time to consider a “slow blog” movement. I even thought about registering slowblog.com. (Someone beat me to the punch, unfortunately.)

Revkin’s suggestion came on [...]

Other pharmacies will soon be jumping on the $4 generic drug program. The Snyders Drug Store in Mankato has posted a handwritten sign saying “We will beat the price on any $4 generic drug.” What does that mean? Their price is $3.99. Whether the chain will adopt the $3.99 price across all its stores is [...]

The Rochester Post-Bulletin installed a new publisher at the end of last month, and already the change is obvious. Much of the Post-Bulletin website had been hidden behind a subscriber-only firewall, which made information about the goings-on in the area difficult to find. Now no longer. As Bluestem Prairie has pointed out, “Not only are [...]