It?s been a crazy month for Wal-Mart, its friends and its foes.

CEO Lee Scott announced a series of initiatives that suggested an amazing about-face in Wal-Mart's business model. Days later, a leaked company document revealed an entirely different kind of truth.

Meanwhile, a federal investigator ruled that the Labor Department had indeed cut Wal-Mart a deal earlier this year in a settlement of child labor law violations.

An unusual economic conference published a series of research papers that argue, among other conclusions, that Wal-Mart is good for the American economy if you're a consumer, but probably not so good if you?re a worker or a competitor.

And all that is a prelude to a scathing new documentary that hits the streets nationwide ? part of this week's "Higher Expectations Week," a series of events sponsored by unions and others who think Wal-Mart ought to live up to its responsibilities as America's largest corporation. The new documentary, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, is being shown this week at more than 7,000 locations around the country, including two Twin Cities screenings sponsored by labor groups.

"Our advice to Wal-Mart is simple," said Paul Blank, of UFCW's Wake-Up Wal-Mart campaign, "stop spinning and start changing."

Wal-Mart proved it could do so with its hurricane relief efforts. In the aftermath of Katrina, Rita and Wilma, the company pledged $18 million in cash, and donated millions of dollars worth of water, ice, generators and other supplies to victims ? in many cases bringing relief before government agencies themselves were able to respond.

But apparently that good press isn't enough. To counter the organized grassroots pressure against it, Wal-Mart beefed up its public relations apparatus by adding high-level political operatives from the right-wing blogosphere and the Reagan and the Clinton administrations; a Chicago public relations firm that specializes in crisis communications; and a former image specialist for the tobacco industry.

The CEO
CEO Lee Scott started it all with statements that had skeptics and supporters doing a double-take:

? Wal-Mart will hold foreign suppliers more accountable for their environmental and workplace standards, Scott told an audience at the University of Arkansas. "The factories in China are going to end up having to be held up to the same standards as the factories in the U.S.," he said.
? Wal-Mart will promote sustainability in its operations, such as making its stores and trucks more energy-efficient, and focus more on environmentally friendly practices, including reducing packaging and adding clothing from organically grown cotton.
? Wal-Mart will make its health insurance more affordable for employees, including reducing premiums to as little as $11 a month.
? Finally, Scott said, the United States should raise the minimum wage. Too many of Wal-Mart's customers, he said, "simply don't have the money to buy basic necessities between paychecks."

Whether Scott's statements were sincere or simply spin, things started unraveling, quickly.

Skeptics found Scott's position on the minimum wage especially puzzling. After all, Wal-Mart has been a big backer of business groups and of Republican legislators who vigorously oppose raising the wage. It didn't help that Scott went public a few days after the Senate voted not to raise the minimum above $5.15 an hour.

Then Scott told his own employees that they should not expect better pay because "even slight overall adjustments to wages eliminate our thin profit margin."

Further, a Missouri judge on Nov. 1 certified a class-action lawsuit that covers seven years and as many as 200,000 former and current workers. It charges Wal-Mart with violating wage-and-hour laws by forcing employees to work off the clock, to work without breaks, and to work overtime without pay.

All that duplicity is too much for Bernie Hesse, organizing director for UFCW Local 789 in South St. Paul. "Once again, they show their true colors," Hesse said.

The health plan
The wage issue wasn't the only statement to blow up in Scott's face. A look at the details of Wal-Mart's new health-insurance shows that while premiums might go down, out-of-pockets costs ? especially higher deductibles ? will eat up any savings if employees actually use the insurance. Plus, the plan relies more heavily on health savings accounts, thus pushing more of the cost burden onto workers.

Wake Up Wal-Mart's Blank called the health plan a "sham" and a "another empty promise wrapped in a publicity stunt." In the end, he said, the deductibles and premiums and could cost the average Wal-Mart worker 25 percent of take-home pay for single coverage, and 40 percent for family coverage.

It doesn't stop there. Another labor-supported group, Wal-Mart Watch, obtained an internal company memo that it leaked to The New York Times. That memo, by Susan Chambers, Wal-Mart's executive vice president for benefits, revealed how Wal-Mart intends to reduce coverage for employees, not increase it.

"It's confirming everything we've been saying all along," said Jenny Shegos, an organizer for Local 789 who is focusing on Wal-Mart issues in the Twin Cities. "They're shifting costs. They definitely can afford to give better coverage to employees, but they're definitely not doing it."

For more on the memo, click here.

The truth behind Wal-Mart's health insurance also increased skepticism about Scott's pledges of sustainability and accountability. After all, Wal-Mart is the nation's largest importer of foreign-made products; it alone accounts for nearly 10 percent of U.S. imports from China. Those facts are a long way from the "Buy American" philosophy that Wal-Mart once subscribed to and promoted heavily ? before quietly abandoning it in the 1990s.

The investigation
In January, the Labor Department settled a case in which it accused Wal-Mart of violating child labor laws in Arkansas, Connecticut and New Hampshire. The department fined Wal-Mart $135,540. But the settlement was anything but routine, because the department also agreed to give Wal-Mart 15 days' warning of any future investigation, and an additional 10-day grace period to come into compliance without facing penalties.

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the lead minority member of the House Workforce Committee, demanded an investigation. On Oct. 31, the Labor Department's Inspector General released the results.

"The report proves what we have known all along," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., "that Wal-Mart's settlement with the Department of Labor put the interests of one of the nation's worst labor-law violators ahead of the protection of America's workers."

The investigation concluded:

? The agreement "gave significant concessions to Wal-Mart ? in exchange for little commitment from the employer beyond what it was already doing or required to do by law."
? The agreement "contained significant provisions that were principally authored by Wal-Mart attorneys and never challenged" by the department.
? The Labor Department had "serious breakdowns" in procedure and oversight in negotiating and approving the settlement.
? The agreement "did not violate federal laws or regulations" but was "significantly different" than settlements of similar cases.

The holidays
All this activity leads to where UFCW's Hesse thinks opponents will have their biggest impact in changing Wal-Mart's behavior: holiday shopping. "I think they're going to have a dismal holiday season, and we can take credit for that . . .

"What I'm telling people is, take a holiday for the holidays. Go somewhere else. If we can get union members not to shop there, if we can convince people that 'real Democrats' don't shop at Wal-Mart, we'll have a real effect."

At this point, Hesse said, he's not even bothered if shoppers shift from Wal-Mart to another nonunion retailer. "If we can change Wal-Mart's behavior, Target will follow."

Adapted from The Union Advocate, the official newspaper of the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly. E-mail The Advocate at: advocate@stpaulunions.org