"The employee is back to work. I think both parties realized that this is something that should be resolved between the parties rather than go through the grievance process and through a third party," said Canadian Auto Workers Local 111 president, Don MacLeod.

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We’d like to take a moment today to applaud two Arkansas state senators for standing up to Wal-Mart. Sen. Percy Malone and Rep. Tracy Pennartz, in a meeting with Wal-Mart’s senior director of health-care policy Joe Quinn, accused the company of “just trying to polish its image” by calling its $4 generics program “real change in health care.” Wal-Mart, long accused of providing stingy benefits for its employees, has been citing its low retail prices as an answer to criticisms of its health care plan.

Rep. Pennartz, for her part, expressed concerns for independent pharmacists across the country, who would face serious difficulties matching Wal-Mart’s low price. Independent businesses are certainly struggling to keep up with Wal-Mart’s pricing, but Pennartz’s concerns reveal a larger point: Wal-Mart’s $4 generics are aren’t an answer to America’s health care problems, they’re a way for Wal-Mart to make more money. Whether that means luring in Medicaid recipients who need cheaper drugs, getting employees to use the company pharmacies for their prescriptions or driving out competing pharmacies, Wal-Mart is only looking out for one thing: itself.

Wal-Mart: Health care revised [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. officials told home-state lawmakers Monday that the company’s simplified, cheaper prescription-drug program constitutes real change in health care.

In 2006, Wal-Mart began filling prescriptions for certain drugs for $4 for up to a 30-day prescription, a program the company touts as cutting through the complexities of the pharmaceutical industry. Customers can buy more than 350 prescription drugs that way.

“I think our $4 drug program has been the only true healthcare reform in the United States, in that it definitely changed the landscape in terms of health-care delivery,” Joe Quinn, Wal-Mart’s senior director of health-care policy, told Arkansas lawmakers gathered in Rogers.

Wal-Mart’s announcement last week that it would source $400 million in local produce may provide a positive PR boost for a company that is notorious for its abundance of outsourced products. It is only a small chunk of Wal-Mart’s $53 billion-a-year grocery market (less than 1%), however, leading to the conclusion that the decision to “cultivate local economies” is more hype, rather than actual progress. Wal-Mart’s overall food sourcing practices continue to display over-reliance on imported food, questionable on account of the environmental toll it effects, in addition to safety concerns within the food supply chain. In 2003, the United States Economic Research Service outlined how food imports may pose dangerous risks for consumers:

...the globalization of the food supply could introduce new food safety risks, revive previously controlled risks, and spread contaminated food wider.

Further, Brian White of BloggingStocks finds a correlation between the rise in imported food items and the rise in chemically-riden, salty foods that are so popular, and cheap, in your local Wal-mart:

Wal-Mart seems like the anti-retailer when it comes to local and fresh food items. Indeed, much of the product lines in a typical Wal-Mart location are sourced from outside the U.S. (non-food items). But, do you really know where those processed food items come from too? The ingredients inside many of those items are so loaded with chemicals and salt to make them taste good, but the true ingredients are from non-U.S. origins and are anything but local in origin.

Without a comprehensive commitment towards the goal of sourcing food locally, Wal-Mart will continue to run roughshod over the legitimate environmental and safety concerns associated with an over-reliance on imported food items. Wal-Mart’s commitment to source less than 1% of its grocery supply hardly deserves cheering commendation.

International Trade and Food Safety: Economic Theory and Case Studies [United States Economic Research Service]

The Wal-Mart Weekly: Venturing into the local food supply chain [BloggingStocks]

TWSC Statement of Solidarity With Doro-Chiba Against Raid By Japanese Police Forces During G-8 Meeting
The Transport Workers Solidarity Committee TWSC protests the vicious assault on the offices and members of Doro-Chiba union on July 4, 2008. Using false pretenses, the Japanese police forces were alledgedly looking for evidence of illegal activity in the protest against the G-8 conference in Japan. This effort to intimidate and silence those unions, workers organizations and many others who are protesting this governmental meeting is a flagrant violation of democratic rights. The record of the G-8 is a history of trampling on the rights of working people not only in the under-developed world but in the more industrialized countries. This organization which is fundamentally a tool of the United States and the multi-nationals which run it has pushed deregulation, privatization and the destruction of democratic rights for working people. The world drive by the G-8 and other organizations representing the billionaires to destroy the labor movement through privatization, deregulation and other union busting policies must be stopped. These neo-liberalism policies have been opposed by US workers including the shutdown of all West Coast ports by the ILWU to protest the November 1999 meeting of the WTO. The ILWU also joined with many other protesters.

• Wal-Mart Opposes Workers Comp Disability For Shot And Beaten Police Officer
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• Trader Joe's Asked To Help Pressure Wine Vendor
• Economic Report: Lovin' The Pay In An Elevator

Economic Report:

Who are the highest paid blue collar workers in the United States? According to a new study released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, it is "elevator installers and repairers.” On average, workers in the field of elevator installation earn an hourly wage of $32.69. And in that field the highest paid elevator installers are in Nevada.