Wal-Mart Watch: Outrage builds over the sweetheart deal that will make it easier for Wal-Mart to keep breaking the law:

Wal-Mart allowed nearly 70 teenage employees in Connecticut to operate dangerous machinery over a four-year period, federal Labor Department officials said Monday. State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal called for a state investigation after federal authorities reported 16- and 17-year-old children operated chain saws, forklifts and paper balers at Connecticut stores. Federal labor law prohibits children under 18 from operating such machinery. The number of youths involved was disclosed Monday after a weekend announcement that Wal-Mart and the federal Department of Labor had reached an unusual, out of court settlement in January regarding 25 violations of child labor laws – 21 of which took place in Connecticut stores between 1998 and 2002. The Labor Department would not disclose where in Connecticut the violations occurred nor whether any children were hurt.

The settlement requires federal officials to give the company a 15-day advancenotice of any further audits as well as a 10-day grace period to correct violations. Wal-Mart agreed to pay $135,540 to settle the charges, but denied any wrongdoing. It is unclear whether any violations have taken place since 2002. The arrangement drew sharp criticism as a “sweetheart deal.” “In effect it gives the company an unusual, if not unique, amount of time to avoid or even cover up evidence in the future,” Blumenthal said. “And it certainly diminishes the usefulness of any future federal investigation, which is why the state has an obligation to undertake a more proactive and aggressive role.” The notification provision prompted Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., to call for an investigation by the federal Department of Labor’s Inspector General to determine whether the arrangement represented a “sweetheart deal between the Bush Administration and one of the nation’s most frequent violators of labor laws.”

Meanwhile, as Nathan notes, the Bush Department of Labor has edited its press release to remove this line:

The department’s Wage and Hour Division found that Wal-Mart allowed teenage workers to operate hazardous equipment resulting in one teenager being injured while operating a chain saw.

As Congressman George Miller observes:

There’s labor organizations that watch out for these people. But, every time one of these labor organizations approaches a Wal- Mart, they fire the workers who are involved it. They make their life very difficult. We just saw, I believe it is in Canada, where they got a right to organize and Wal-Mart closed the whole store. So what chance do these people have? Now they have the inside track in the Department of Labor, the last independent party between Wal-Mart’s employment practices and their employees, and that’s now been taken away because the home office gets the first cut at your grievance. These are — these people have no real protections in these jobs. What does that tell them about filing a grievance, that people in the home office are going to look for this, they’re going to tell your supervisor, your store manager, and they’re going to come looking for you.

Bush and Wal-Mart: Standing by the finish line in the race to the bottom.

Caroline Howe on the Kyoto Protocol’s commencement today:

Eight years after its creation, the Kyoto Protocol will go into effect today, commiting 141 countries to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2012. Although today is momentous for climate-change activists and the global community, Feb. 16, 2005 must also remind us of the United States’ failure to appropriately address global warming despite our status as the largest global emitter of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide. As British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said, “I think the blunt reality is that, unless America comes back into some form of international consensus, it is very hard to make progress.” The United States’ refusal to commit to Kyoto prevented the protocol from going into effect for years, and demonstrates to the global community an obstructive reluctance to make any strong goals toward carbon dioxide reductions. Instead, President Bush wishes to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions per dollar of economic output by 18 percent from 2002 to 2012. This target will not provide any actual decrease in U.S. emissions, as the economy is expected and encouraged to continue its growth. However, there is no time to waste. Greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced now.

The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects a global average temperature rise of 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius (2.5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit) in the next 100 years, which will be the largest century-warming in more than 10,000 years. The research and reports revealing the existence, anthropogenic roots and dangers of climate change are widespread. Projections of climate change include the IPCC’s estimate of the flooding of 70 to 200 million peoples’ homes by coastal storm surges, and the World Health Organization’s estimate of the deaths of 300,000 people annually due to climate change by the year 2100. This does not even consider the projected deaths and extinctions of plant and animal species that cannot adapt to climate change the way that humans, particularly Americans, can. The areas that will be hit the hardest — in arctic, equatorial and coastal regions — are the least prepared for these effects. And even the United States Department of Defense has announced that climate change should be “elevated beyond a scientific debate to a U.S. national security concern.” Unfortunately, it is clear that President Bush has no intention of doing so.

Another win for GESO’s international student organizing:

The new policy will affect foreigners working in what the government characterized as “sensitive” scientific and technical fields. Current visa granting procedures, established in 1998 with the Visa Mantis program, require both extra and annual security clearance for these individuals. But under the revised program, for which the University and members of the Graduate Employees and Students Organization have lobbied, the clearance will last for as many as four years for students and two years for working scientists and postdoctoral fellows. Government agencies have been altering the visa granting process for foreign students since last May, when Yale President Richard Levin and top administrators from other universities began pressuring the Bush administration to reform the policy. The new policy is a significant step in reducing the burden international students face in renewing their visas, Levin said. The Yale president said the situation for international students is more favorable and welcoming, much like it was before the USA PATRIOT Act was passed in 2001.

The Calgary Herald reports on the controversy over Yale’s investment in sour gas wells:

Challengers of Compton Petroleum Corp.’s plan to drill sour gas wells on the southeast edge of Calgary are appealing to one of America’s esteemed Ivy League schools to help quash the company’s proposals. Yale University is the largest shareholder of the $1.5-billion Calgary company, and the institution’s involvement has raised the ire of academics, who say the company may not meet the university’s ethical investment guidelines. “This seems to be an investment that has the potential for significant harm both to human beings and the environment in the greater Calgary area,” said Ben Begleiter, a research analyst with Yale’s graduate students’ union who monitors the school’s investments. “With all the controversy surrounding it . . . Yale should press the company to really negotiate with the Calgary Health Region, the City of Calgary and other interveners to come up with a mutually acceptable solution.” Opponents want Yale to demand Compton scrap its proposal, saying it doesn’t fit with the school’s 33-year-old ethical investment policy. “I am deeply disappointed that an institution as old and venerable as Yale would be involved with a project with such potentially severe health implications for hundreds of thousands of Calgarians,” said David Eggen, environment critic for the Alberta New Democrat Party. “Our first priority is to defend the health and well-being of Albertans. I’m sure that Yale will agree and as a shareholder will want to put people over profits.”

Compton officials say they’re not surprised its rivals are targeting the company’s largest shareholder, but say they have already proven their activities are sound to Yale’s investment managers. “We’ve written many letters detailing our programs and to point out major inaccuracies with what some people have said about us,” company vice-president Derek Longfield said. “We’ve been a very good investment for Yale,” Longfield said. Eggen and Michael Queenan, co-ordinator of the lobby group Residents for Accountability on Power Industry Development, are sending a letter to Yale University president Richard Levin outlining their concerns about Compton’s plan to drill six new sour gas wells 1.1 kilometres from Calgary’s city limits and asking for the university’s assistance. Pointing out that some of the earliest research done on the toxic nature of hydrogen sulfide was done by Yale researchers, the letter says the school should ask Compton president Ernie Sapieha to withdraw the applications that are the subject of an ongoing Alberta Energy and Utilities Board hearing. “A serious leak from the wells would be catastrophic,” the letter states. “There is no plan to evacuate all of the people living within a 15-kilometre radius of the wells. The potential health problems from a serious leak are staggering.”

Wal-Mart Watch: Wal-Mart settles over violating child labor law:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, will pay $135,540 to settle federal charges that it broke child labor laws, the Labor Department said Saturday. The 24 violations, which occurred at stores in Arkansas, Connecticut and New Hampshire, had to do with teenage workers who used hazardous equipment such as a chain saw, paper bailers and fork lifts. Wal-Mart denied the allegations but agreed to pay the penalty. A spokeswoman for the Bentonville, Ark., company said Wal-Mart was preparing a statement Saturday. Child labor laws prohibit anyone under 18 from operating hazardous equipment. The company also agreed to comply with any provisions they violated — in this case, child labor laws — in the future, said Victoria Lipnic, assistant secretary for the department’s Employment Standard Administration. In the settlement, Wal-Mart also agreed to continue providing store manag rs with training on child labor law compliance and provide new managers with similar training. “This is a fairly standard thing to have an agreement like this,” Lipnic said.

The settlement was signed by both sides on Jan. 11. An announcement was not made before Saturday because the department was waiting for the settlement to be paid in full within the 30-day period agreed to, Lipnic said. The allegations, which occurred between 1998 and 2002, involved one case in New Hampshire where a youth was using a chain saw to trim Christmas trees. A majority of the cases in Connecticut involved children loading paper bailers. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., was critical of the provision that gives Wal-Mart 15 days notice before the Labor Department investigates wage and hour accusations. He said it could give Wal-Mart the chance to sweep violations under the rug.

Noam Schieber on social security privatization:

We know that the people most likely to do worse are poorer people, for the reasons laid out above. And, again, if the logic of privatization is right,*** we don’t really need private accounts to accomplish this result. We could simply have the government borrow a lot of money, invest it in the stock market, and then reward a lot of rich people and punish a lot of poor people. As long as you know that the winners will mostly be in one group (i.e., affluent), and the losers will mostly be in another (i.e., poor), the government can identify them itself and basically replicate the privatized system. But, of course, when you think about it that way–as a government plan for rewarding the rich and screwing the poor–it doesn’t sound like a political winner.

And as it turns, out, Bush’s version isn’t much of a political winner either.

Wal-Mart Watch: Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott defends the punitive liquidation of the unionized store:

The chief executive of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. yesterday defended the retailer’s decision to close a Canadian store after its employees voted to form a union, saying demands from negotiators would have forced an already unprofitable store to hire 30 more people and abide by inefficient work rules.
“You can’t take a store that is a struggling store anyway and add a bunch of people and a bunch of work rules that cause you to even be in worse shape,” H. Lee Scott Jr. said. In his first interview since Wal-Mart announced it would close the store in Jonquiere, Quebec, Scott said Wal-Mart saw no upside to the higher labor costs and refused to cede ground to the union for the sake of being “altruistic.” “It doesn’t work that way,” he said.

…Scott, who has worked at Wal-Mart since 1979 and became chief executive of the 3,000-store chain in 2000, said he has studied how major companies in the tobacco, beer and petroleum industries have weathered intense criticism.

No surprise that Scott tries to obscure his real fear – workers empowered to stand up for their rights and challenge business as usual at Wal-Mart – behind claims about union intractibility. It’s understandable that a company used to management by fiat would bristle at the possibility of negotiation. Sooner or later, though, they’re going to have to get used to it. In the meantime, how does Scott plan to sell Wal-Mart’s agenda? By parrotting Big Tobacco, Big Oil, and Big Beer. Very telling.

Human rights further deteriorate in Nepal:

Nepal is plunging deeper into a massive human rights crisis following last week’s seizure of power by King Gyanendra and the Royal Nepalese Army, Human Rights Watch said today. With all power concentrated in the hands of the King, he is now responsible for what happens to the people detained after the takeover. In handing the army unbridled power, he will also be responsible for the predictable human rights abuses the army commits under the state of emergency. With ongoing arrests reported around the country, Human Rights Watch said that there is a risk that some of those being arrested will be “disappeared” by the security forces and never seen again, as happened during Nepal’s last state of emergency in 2001. On February 1, the King and the Royal Nepalese Army seized effective control of all levers of power in Nepal and embarked on a campaign of arbitrary arrests, censorship, and general repression. The King has imposed a state of emergency throughout Nepal and has suspended fundamental constitutional rights, including freedom of assembly and expression, the right to information and privacy, the right to property and the prohibition against arbitrary detention. Because the constitution does not allow the King’s actions to be challenged in court, Nepal’s population is effectively at the mercy of the security forces, which have a history of widespread and serious violations of human rights.

“With all power concentrated in the hands of the King, he is now responsible for what happens to the people detained after the takeover,” said Brad Adams, Asia Director for Human Rights Watch. “In handing the army unbridled power, he will also be responsible for the predictable human rights abuses the army commits under the state of emergency.” Although information from areas outside Kathmandu remains limited due to the cutting of telephone and internet services, Human Rights Watch said that at least 150 political leaders and student activists have been arbitrarily detained or placed under house arrest since the February 1 royal takeover.

Republicans render America even softer on corporate crime:

Handing President Bush a significant victory, the Senate overwhelmingly approved a measure on Thursday that would sharply limit the ability of people to file class-action lawsuits against companies. The measure, adopted 72 to 26, now heads to the House of Representatives, where Republican leaders say it will be approved next week and sent to the White House for Mr. Bush’s signature. The measure would prohibit state courts from hearing many kinds of cases they now consider, transferring them to federal courts. Experts say many cases will wind up not being brought because federal judges have been constrained by a series of legal precedents from considering large class actions that involve varying laws of different states.

Alek, over at his new digs, is all over this one.

My op-ed in today’s YDN on shifting the discourse of “fiscal responsibility” is on-line here:

This week, President Bush presented Congress and the American people with a budget with steep cuts in job training, affordable housing and Medicare. It’s a budget that calls on poor kids to do without health class, poor families to do with heating and poor communities to do without wastewater treatment plants. Not everyone, however, is called upon to sacrifice for the common good. While those with the least wealth among us brace for a further assault on their economic security, those with the most can look forward, if Bush has his way, to further tax cuts — all in the name of fiscal responsibility.

All this from a man who transformed a near-$6 trillion surplus into a half-trillion dollar deficit and his campaign pledge of fiscal responsibility into a punch line. Bush’s surplus-slaying ways made shows of dismay pro forma for every self-respecting conservative pundit. “Among conservative journalists and activists,” Jonah Goldberg wrote in late 2003, “the disappointment in the Bush administration’s, and the GOP congressional leadership’s, domestic policies is mounting daily.” Even the International Monetary Fund has begun issuing warnings about American debt. Politicians and pundits from across the political spectrum have rightly assailed the president for saddling future generations with crippling debt. As Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid observed last week, it means a $36,000 “birth tax” on every future American left holding the bill. President Bush should not be surprised to find few Americans comforted by his claim that he can halve the deficit in his second term — a claim based on math that fails to account for the ongoing costs of his dire misadventure in Iraq, the trillions in debt required to enact his erosion of social security, or the ballooning price tag of extending his disastrous tax cuts. Democrats have been right to join with conservatives in slamming Bush for sinking the federal government deep in the red. Deficits are bad for America. Balancing the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable members of our society, however, is worse. That’s why congressional Democrats and Cato Institute libertarians, who’ve found common cause in slamming Bush’s deficits, should have little common ground in confronting Bush’s budget.

More on this here.

Jeffrey Dubner reports on a GOP “border security” bill that would “waive all laws” that got in the way. As Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer put it:

If this provision, the waiver of all laws necessary for quote improvements of barriers at the border was to become law, the Secretary of Homeland Security could give a contract to his political cronies that had no safety standards, using 12-year-old illegal immigrants to do the labor, run it through the site of a Native American burial ground, kill bald eagles in the process, and pollute the drinking water of neighboring communities. And under the provisions of this act, no member of Congress, no citizen could do anything about it because you waive all judicial review.

Looks like Rice’s honeymoon is over:

EIGHT months before the September 11 attacks the White House’s then counterterrorism adviser urged then national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to hold a high-level meeting on the al-Qaeda network, according to a memo made public today. “We urgently need such a principals-level review on the al-Qaeda network,” … Richard Clarke wrote in the January 25, 2001 memo. Mr Clarke, who left the White House in 2003, made headlines in the heat of the US presidential campaign … when he accused the Bush White House of having ignored al-Qaeda’s threats before September 11. Mr Clarke testified before inquiry panels and in a book that Rice … had been warned of the threat…However, Ms Rice wrote in a March 22, 2004 column in The Washington Post that “No al-Qaeda threat was turned over to the new administration”.