August 10, 2005

AMERICA’S TEACHERS & WAKEUPWALMART.COM OFFICIALLY LAUNCH NATIONAL “”SEND WAL-MART BACK-TO-SCHOOL”” CAMPAIGN

Washington, D.C. – Today, all across America, over 2000 elected officials, teachers, civic and community leaders, and students officially launched a new campaign to highlight Wal-Mart’s failures and its negative effects on our communities, our families, and the nation’s children. The “”Send Wal-Mart Back to School Campaign”” is part of a first-time nationwide effort being led by the two largest teacher’s groups in America, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA), and WakeUpWalMart.com – America’s national campaign to change Wal-Mart.

The “”Send Wal-Mart Back to School”” campaign began with over 30 coordinated press conferences in 20 states where various leaders, like Senator Jon Corzine, Members of Congress, state officials, labor representatives, local teachers and students asked all Americans to sign WakeUpWalMart.com’s “”Back-to-School Pledge.”” Americans who sign the pledge agree to not buy their Back-to-School supplies at Wal-Mart until the company becomes a more responsible corporate citizen.

“”Every day Wal-Mart’s so-called ‘low prices’ comes with too high a cost for our families and our children. Starting today, Americans will have the opportunity to teach Wal-Mart a lesson that corporations have a responsibility to do the right thing,”” said Paul Blank, WakeUpWalMart.com Campaign Director.

As part of the press conferences, local teachers released the “”Wal-Mart Report Card”” – a 3-foot-by-5-foot replica of an actual report card that displays Wal-Mart’s failing grades and shows how Wal-Mart has repeatedly failed American families and children by offering poverty level wages and poor benefits, by abusing taxpayers, by having discriminated against 2 million women, and by breaking child labor laws.

“”Wal-Mart has failed America for too long. This Back-to-School season, all Americans can help send Wal-Mart this message – our children are not a commodity to be exploited. Clearly, our children deserve better than Wal-Mart,”” added Paul Blank.

At the press conference, speakers also released a letter sent to Lee Scott, CEO, of Wal-Mart. In the letter, Scott was asked to adopt a nation-wide “”zero tolerance policy”” and promise the American people, and his shareholders, that he would resign if Wal-Mart were found guilty – again – of breaking child labor laws. The letter will be posted on WakeUpWalMart.com.

Press conferences were held in over 30 cities, including:

Boston, MA; Hartford, CT; Albany, NY; New York, NY; Paterson, NJ; Commack, NY; Providence, RI; Springfield, MA; Philadelphia, PA; Edgewater, NJ; Cleveland, OH; Louisville, KY; Columbus, OH; Toledo, OH; Cincinnati, OH; St. Louis, MO; Kansas City, MO; Albuquerque, NM; Chicago, IL; Milwaukee, WI; Oshkosh, WI; Minneapolis-St Paul, MN; Seattle, WA; Portland, OR; Las Vegas, NV; Phoenix, AZ; Los Angeles, CA; San Jose, CA; Oakland, CA; Denver, CO

The “”Send Wal-Mart Back To School”” campaign is the latest effort in the growing national campaign to change Wal-Mart led by WakeUpWal-Mart.com. Already, over 67,000 Americans in all 50 states have joined our campaign to “”Wake-Up”” Wal-Mart and change America’s largest employer.