By Steven Mikulan
The Frying Pan
Over the past week retail giant Walmart has squirmed in the unflattering news spotlight. There was a wave of stories about one of Walmart’s Thai shrimp distributors treating its workers as little more than captive laborers, and another barrage of pieces focused on corporations dropping their affiliations with the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council even as Walmart holds onto its ALEC membership card.
Walmart’s biggest black eye, however, came from a blockbuster weekend New York Times story outlining how the head of the retailer’s Mexican operations spent $24 million bribing officials in that country to fast-track its expansion there. Worse, the company tried to squelch an internal probe into the allegations.