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Here's a story that will make your blood boil: The Walton family, owners of Wal-Mart, the world's largest corporation, are planning a huge art museum in Bentonville, Arkansas. There's nothing wrong with a little culture in the Midwest, right?

Except when you consider how much they are spending on their little hobby, while resisting spending a fraction as much to simply pay their employees a living wage.

Rebecca Solnit's article on the subject will enrage you. She discusses a single painting the family recently bought for $35 million:

Wal-Mart Stores, facing a raft of state legislation that would require it to increase spending on employee health insurance, will lift several of its long-standing - and most-criticized - restrictions on eligibility over the next year, the giant retailer said this morning.

Wal-Mart Stores, facing a raft of state legislation that would require it to increase spending on employee health insurance, will lift several of its long-standing - and most-criticized - restrictions on eligibility over the next year, the giant retailer said this morning.

Corporate social responsibility, once a do-gooding sideshow, is now seen as mainstream. But as yet too few companies are doing it well, says Daniel Franklin (interviewed here)

This latest example of Wal-Mart's "direct procurement" approach continues the company's practice of upending the traditional relationship between the makers of goods and those who sell them.

The deal has some in the recording industry alarmed at the thought of Wal-Mart's establishing direct partnerships with musicians and cutting out the labels. And it may just be the start.

The "union project" was a secret scheme, approved by senior Wal-Mart executives, to pay union members for information about which stores they planned to organize.

Wal-Mart apologized yesterday after its retail Web site directed potential buyers of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "Planet of the Apes" DVDs to also consider purchasing DVDs with African American themes.

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.