CostCo IS Better than Walmart and Sam's Club

Pretty easy to see why I'll never willingly set foot in a Walmart or Sam's Club and am a regular customer at CostCo.

The full article is available on Atlasleft.

Wal-Mart Abusing Trademark Law

Wal-Mart Abusing Trademark Law To Try To Shut Down Union Website

The latest such story (lawsuits against so-called "gripes" sites) takes place up in Canada, and rather than a traditional disgruntled customer or ex-employee, the gripes site in question is from a union. Michael Scott points TechDirt to the news that Wal-Mart is trying to shut down a union website using quite a creative interpretation of trademark law, to suggest it blocks out all sorts of stuff it does not:

They want the court to order the union:
* to refrain from using the names Wal-Mart or Walmart as a trademark alone, or with other indicia, in any form or format
* not to use the expressions "Walmart Workers Canada" or "Union for Walmart Workers" in any form or format
* not to use the expression "Get respect. Live better." or any other expression which constitutes a play on Wal-Mart's trademarked slogan "Save money. Live better"
* not to use photos or images of WalMart employees or people purporting to be such employees
* not to use an oval, circular or semi-circular design similar to the Spark Design that includes spokes or figures in association with trademark Walmart in any form or format
* to take down the website www.walmartworkerscanada.ca

And in doing this, Wal-Mart draws alot more attention to the site and looks like a giant butthole in the process. Not to mention the fact that the website isn't violating any laws whatsoever, that Wal-Mart is using the threat of litigation to bully them and that union-busting is near and dear to the Wal-Mart Board (along with employee exploitation, supply chain strong-arming, sweat shop based clothing manufacturing, locality shifted medical expensing and likely dozens of other shifty, amoral and probably illegal business practices).

Obama Won't Shop at Wal-Mart

Barack Obama Doesn't Shop at Wal-Mart and neither should you.

His reasons? Wal-Mart is anti-union and treats its employees "shabbily". Works for me.

Note, if you shop at Wal-Mart because you have to because of economic constraints then I honestly have no issue with your doing so. It is when people of greater means that can afford to shop at less exploitative places of business that I have an issue. Studies have shown that Target's prices are as good or better than Wal-Mart but that people feel like Wal-Mart's prices are better because the stores are not as well kept (no lie, people equate lower prices with messier stores).

If It Doesn't Play At Home, Try It in Foreign Countries!

Argentina: Wal-Mart Faces Accusations of Anti-union Practices

Not that accusations are anything new to Wal-Mart.

Tags: Wal-Mart, WalMart, Argentina, anti-union, accusation