of course, Andy, who also played a similar role for Nike, has for a long time been parleying his civil rights pedigree into a new role as selfless campaigner for corporate rights, but this is indeed a new high (or low) depending on how you see it.... ( incidentally, president-in-waiting Hillary Rodham used to be on Walmart's board of directors)
http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/0227walmartyoung.html
Andrew Young goes to bat for Wal-Mart
By MARIA SAPORTA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 02/27/06 Former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young is rising to the defense of Wal-Mart as a company that helps the poor, but acknowledges his new efforts may be in conflict with his years of being pro-union.
In an announcement to be made today, Young says he'll be chairman of the national steering committee for the new Working Families for Wal-Mart, funded by the company and its suppliers.
Wal-Mart has been criticized for allegedly not paying its workers enough, not offering decent health care benefits and for driving small-town retailers out of business. Young says the criticism is unfair and one-sided because it doesn't credit the retailer for its contributions to low-income communities.
"I like to fight poverty," Young said Sunday. "For almost 10 years, I've been using in my sermons the message that fighting poverty is good business, and I've used Wal-Mart as an example. The question is how do you fight poverty — with high wages or low prices? The answer is both."
Young also is chairman of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, a nonprofit that describes itself as dedicated to "progressive public policy for social and economic fairness." Once known as the Gandhi Society, Young said, it has a "New York liberal constituency that was very valuable and very important in the civil rights days." The group was founded by Harry Wachtel, lawyer and adviser to the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
"The Wal-Mart people know I've been a strong advocate of the trade union movement," he said.
Last March, Drum Major Institute's "Marketplace of Ideas" round table, which took place at the Harvard Club in New York, featured Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union. Stern's union is the key backer of Wal-Mart Watch.
Young says his roles with Wal-Mart and the Drum Major Institute are at apparent philosophical odds. "There's probably a conflict," Young said. "I can't step down from my past."
But he said he has "worked out these conflicts in my own mind" and that he sees opportunity for dialogue.
Paul Blank, campaign director for WakeUpWalMart.com, said Young's new group "is another well-funded ploy by Wal-Mart to try and cover up its record of driving down wages, not providing affordable health care, shifting costs onto taxpayers and shipping U.S. jobs overseas."
He called on Young "to use his new position to help us change Wal-Mart for the better, rather than defend its abysmal record of child labor violations and poor health care."
The company has told Young that a family can save $2,300 a year by shopping at Wal-Mart. Company founder Sam Walton "really created a model that allowed any American to have middle-class luxuries at a low cost," Young said.
In addition to Young, the steering committee of 16 other members includes two other Georgians: the Rev. Barbara King and Ron Galloway, an Augusta filmmaker who recently made a pro-Wal-Mart documentary. Young's firm, GoodWorks International, has been hired by Wal-Mart to be a consultant. The other steering committee members are not being paid.
"His position is unique, and it's related to the specific time commitment he has made," said Kevin Sheridan, a spokesman for Working Families. "He will be the public face and the spokesman for the group."
Wal-Mart formed the group in December in response to growing criticism from two organizations supported by labor unions, Wal-Mart Watch and WakeUpWalmart, which lead grass-roots campaigns to push the company to increase wages and benefits.
Young, a civil rights leader and a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, did acknowledge that some of the criticisms may be valid.
"Nobody who hires over 1 million people is free from faults and complaints," said Young, who is also a former union organizer. "But the question is whether you have a process to address them and a management that is sensitive to those complaints."
Marilyn Geewax of the Washington Bureau contributed to this article.