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In a national campaign aimed squarely at Wal-Mart Stores, lawmakers in 30 states are preparing to introduce legislation that would require large corporations to increase spending on employee health insurance, according to the A.F.L.-C.I.O., which planned to announce the initiative this morning.

The legislative push underscores state lawmakers' growing frustration with the progress of federal health care reform and the success of a union effort to turn Wal-Mart into a symbol of everything that is wrong with the system.

It's a new year and the fate of Wal-Mart Bank still hangs in the balance.

A California jury on Thursday awarded $207 million to thousands of employees at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. who claimed they were illegally denied lunch breaks.

Which are the world's worst multinationals? Which are the best? These are questions CorpWatch gets asked practically everyday. Just to clarify, we do not rank good corporations or endorse any of them, for several reasons: today's idols sometimes turn out to have feet of clay. And we see our job as investigators of malfeasance. For those who want to do the opposite, there are plenty of groups out there who promote "socially responsible" businesses, and we encourage you to look them up.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is the target of a
criminal investigation over how it handled merchandise that is
classified as hazardous waste, the company announced today.

Six current and former employees of Best Buy filed a race- and sex-discrimination lawsuit Thursday against the consumer electronics chain in federal court in San Francisco, accusing it of denying better-paying sales and managerial jobs to African Americans, Latinos and women in favor of white men.

Wal-Mart, which last year opened a store near the ancient Teotihuacan pyramids of Mexico despite loud protests from local activists and small businesses, is now seeking a repeat of its earlier victory, this time in two heavily indigenous areas: in Pátzcuaro in the state of Michoacán and Juchitán, in the southern state of Oaxaca. But local opponents are set for a pitched battle.

Several congressional Democrats introduced a bill that would force states to report the names of companies that have 50 or more employees who receive government-funded health care, an effort to pressure Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in particular to improve employee health coverage.

For years, Target has cultivated an image of itself as the "anti-Wal-Mart," a retailer that refuses to sacrifice workplace standards in the pursuit of higher sales and stock prices. But now, after a decade of meteoric growth at both Target and Wal-Mart, labor groups say the two retailers are no longer very different in the way they treat their workers.

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, may be violating international and Canadian laws by using covert strategies to undermine a unionising drive at its Canadian stores, say labour experts and union activists.

For the past three years, PETA has attempted to have a dialogue with
eBay, Inc., officials about the company's permissive policies regarding
the auctioning of live animals, animal parts, and various other
animal-related items. Sadly, eBay Web sites haven't stopped
facilitating the suffering, torture, and death of animals and related
crimes.

"Items" recently for sale on eBay include the following: