"...Look behind that yellow smiley face and see what's really happening to workers...that poor guy making $15, $16 an hour, now he's [going to be] making a fraction of that, $7, $8 an hour, working 32 hours a week; a meager health care plan that he's got to pay for now, token health care plan; no pension; no future...That's what's happening [behind] that big, yellow smiley face."
-Jon Lehman, Former Wal-Mart store manager

Wal-Mart's network of suppliers (about 10,000) is constantly squeezed to lower their prices, so they continually scour the earth for places that can provide the labor cheaper and cheaper, battling with the other suppliers to come in the lowest. Each step of the chain of buying provides other opportunities for someone to cut a corner, or for someone to anonymously take advantage of disadvantaged, desperate people. Click

[Added 4/12/05] What would happen if a union formed in a Wal-Mart store? They shut it down. "Wal-Mart's decision to close the store reflects the retailer's deeply rooted aversion to unions, and its worries that organized labor had nearly established a beachhead, said Burt Flickinger III of Strategic Resource Group, a consulting firm specializing in retailing and consumer goods.

But he said the move could backfire for Wal-Mart, which has worked hard to counter a wave of bad publicity and portray itself as a generous employer."

"In the last few years, well over 100 unfair labor practice charges have been lodged against Wal-Mart throughout the country, with 43 charges filed in 2002 alone. Since 1995, the U.S. government has been forced to issue at least 60 complaints against Wal-Mart at the National Labor Relations Board. (International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), Internationally Recognised Core Labour Standards in the United States: Report for the WTO General Council Review of the Trade Policies of the United States (Geneva, January 14-16, 2004)."
"In 2000, when a small meatcutting department successfully organized a union at a Wal-Mart store in Texas, Wal-Mart responded a week later by announcing the phase-out of its in-store meatcutting company-wide. Pan Demetrakakes, "Is Wal-Mart Wrapped in Union Phobia?" Food & Packaging 76 (August 1, 2003). Rather than comply, Wal-Mart is appealing this decision. (Dan Kasler, "Labor Dispute Has Historical Precedent," Scripps Howard News Service (November 3, 2003)."
"Wal-Mart has issued "A Manager's Toolbox to Remaining Union Free," which provides managers with lists of warning signs that workers might be organizing, including "frequent meetings at associates' homes" and "associates who are never seen together start talking or associating with each other."[7] The "Toolbox" gives managers a hotline to call so that company specialists can respond rapidly and head off any attempt by employees to organize." (Click)

There was an article in the Post today about recently passed legislation in Maryland with requires Wal-Mart to increase the amount of money they put towards health care for their workers. The bill would require "organizations with more than 10,000 employees to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on health benefits -- or put the money directly into the state's health program for the poor." It might seem like this bill unfairly targets Wal-Mart, but that's mostly because they're the only ones that don't meet the standard: three other organizations are large enough to be bound by this bill, but they all already meet the threshold.

Wal-Mart has a history of paying women less than men, discriminating in training practices and of passing over women for promotions (2/3 of their workforce is women...1/10 of their management is). Now they've got a class action lawsuit against them, which covers more than 1.5 million women who have worked or currently do work for Wal-Mart. (See here or here).

Here are summaries of a few studies done on the Wal-Mart big box impact on rural communities and on counties:

"Rural communities have been losing retail sales to larger towns ever since Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck started their mail order businesses. However, the leakage of retail trade from small towns has accelerated in the last two decades with the rapid proliferation of discount mass merchandiser stores in the larger towns and cities. Studies in Iowa have shown that some towns below 5,000 population have lost nearly half their retail trade in the last 13 years. Public officials are placed in difficult situations as they decide whether to recruit and/or approve the establishment of new mass merchandiser stores. There is a need for an educational program aimed at public officials, to help them make better decisions regarding this problem." (Increasing Understanding of Public Problems and Policies, 1997, "Impact of the Wal-Mart Phenomenon on Rural Counties" (PDF))

"Wal-Mart has created tremendous economic benefits for consumers by providing more choices at lower prices, especially in communities that had only local retail monopolies prior to the chain?s arrival. Yet no retailer evokes stronger negative emotions than this chain. Recent media attention has focused on questionable labor practices and other impacts of the stores, while academic studies have examined impacts on retail wages, employment levels and existing stores. Missing from the literature is an analysis of whether the ?Wal-Mart effect? is large enough to influence community-wide poverty rates. We find, after controlling for other factors determining changes in the poverty rate over time, that both counties with more initial (1987) Wal-Mart stores and with more additions of stores between 1987 and 1998 experienced greater increases (or smaller decreases) in family poverty rates during the 1990s economic boom period. We offer three possible explanations for this finding, including that Wal-Mart stores destroy civic capacity in the communities in which they locate by driving out local entrepreneurs and community leaders." (Center for Economic and Community Development (Penn State), October 2004, Wal-Mart and County-Wide Poverty (PDF))

"Due to low pay and lack of health care, Wal-Mart employees are eligible for federal assistance. The estimated total amount of federal assistance for which Wal-Mart employees were eligible in 2004 was $2.5 billion (?Harper?s Index,? Harper?s Magazine, Vol. 310, No. 1858, 3/2005) According to a study by the Institute for Labor and Employment at the University of California-Berkeley, California taxpayers subsidized $20.5 million worth of medical care for Wal-Mart in that state alone.[48] In fact, Wal-Mart personnel offices, knowing employees cannot afford the company health plan, actually encourage employees to apply for charitable and public assistance, according to a recent report by the PBS news program Now With Bill Moyers.[49]
...
The Democratic Staff of the Committee on Education and the Workforce estimates that one 200-person Wal-Mart store may result in a cost to federal taxpayers of $420,750 per year ? about $2,103 per employee." (Click).