WAL-MART BOMBS IN GERMANY

REUTERS - Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, is selling its
underperforming German stores to the country's leading retail chain
Metro, marking a major retreat that will cost it about $1 billion. The
U.S. retail giant has struggled to capture market share ever since
entering the crowded German retail arena eight years ago, hurt by
cut-throat competition and tepid consumer spending, and frustrated by
Germany's tight labor and trade laws.

The move to quit Germany marks the second time in two months that
Wal-Mart has pulled out of a country to focus on more promising growth
opportunities in China and South and Central America, and as it lobbies
for permission to build stores in India. . .

Wal-Mart, which operates 85 hypermarkets across Germany, said on Friday
it would incur the roughly $1 billion pretax loss on the deal in the
second quarter of its fiscal 2007 year. . .

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060728/bs_nm/retail_metro_walmart_dc;_ylt
=AnPC_JCM0puFsZlYijruqTC573QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--


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CHICAGO COUNCIL PASSES BIG BOX FAIR PAY BILL

ERIK ECKHOLM, NY TIMES - After months of fevered lobbying and bitter
debate, the Chicago City Council passed a groundbreaking ordinance
yesterday requiring "big box" stores, like Wal-Mart and Home Depot, to
pay a minimum wage of $10 an hour by 2010, along with at least $3 an
hour worth of benefits.The ordinance, imposing the requirement on stores
that occupy more than 90,000 square feet and are part of companies
grossing more than $1 billion annually, would be the first in the
country to single out large retailers for wage rules. A gallery packed
with supporters of the bill broke into cheers as the measure passed, by
a vote of 35 to 14, after four hours of intense speeches and debate. . .
An Illinois retailers' group said it would challenge the measure in
court, and Mayor Richard M. Daley, who opposed the measure, has not said
whether he will veto it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/27/us/27chicago.html?ref=us

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Wal-Mart Raises Pay for Some - But Caps It for Others
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/081006LA.shtml
The world's biggest retailer, Wal-Mart, is to raise starting salaries at nearly
a third of its American stores in an effort to remain "competitive." But critics
attacked the increase as a shield to disguise new wage caps imposed on
longer-term staff.

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Labor Federation Forms a Pact With Day Workers
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/081006LB.shtml
The AFL-CIO and the nation's largest organization of day laborers signed a
partnership agreement yesterday intended to help the languishing labor movement
tap into the potent energy of the immigrant rights movement. The AFL-CIO said
its partnership with the group, the National Day Labor Organizing Network, would
also seek to improve wages and conditions for tens of thousands of laborers and
other immigrant workers.