"Former Al Gore senior aide Leslie Dach dared to dream:
In July 2006, Dach was installed as the public relations chief for Wal-Mart. He drafted a number of other progressives into the company, seeking to change the company’s way of doing business: its culture, its politics, and most importantly its products.
Out went drab, inexpensive merchandise so dear to low-income Americans. In came upscale organic foods, “green” products, trendy jeans, and political correctness. In other words, Dach sought to expose poor working Americans to the “good life” of the wealthy, environmentally conscious Prius driver.
How did that all work out?
After suffering seven straight quarters of losses, today the merchandise giant Wal-Mart will announce that it is “going back to basics,” ending its era of high-end organic foods, going “green,” and the remainder of its appeal to the upscale market. Next month the company will launch an “It’s Back” campaign to woo the millions of customers who have fled the store.
Further from the Wall Street Journal:
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Why has the non-political act of treating our environment well turned into a shakedown racket of bullies including admitted liar Al Gore and his faked movie? Wal-Mart hired political operative and longtime lobbyist Leslie Dach and made him a multi-millionaire. (last paragraph)
1/28/08, "Wal-Mart's Leslie Dach on "The Company of the future," TreeHugger, Lloyd Alter
"Leslie Dach used to do government relations work for Environmental Defense and served on the Audubon Society board. He was an advance man for Senator Edward Kennedy in his failed run for the nomination in 1980, and, later, as communications director for Michael Dukakis’s campaign in 1988, (according to the New Yorker, he says he was thousands of miles away during the famous tank moment), and now he is the Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Government Relations for Wal-Mart and "reports directly to CEO Lee Scott and also manages communications, government relations and the Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club Foundation for the company.""...
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12/7/2006, "A Look Behind the Wal-Mart PR Machine," Wall St. Journal, Kris Hudson, republished on ReclaimDemocracy.org
"He (Leslie Dach) went on to play prominent advisory roles for Democrats in five of the next six presidential campaigns. He prepared Al Gore for debates in 2000 and handled publicity for Democratic efforts in 2004 to keep Ralph Nader off the ballot in several states."...(paragraph 15 in link)...
In July, Mr. Dach arranged for former Vice President Al Gore to speak about environmental issues and screen his global-warming movie "An Inconvenient Truth" at a quarterly meeting of Wal-Mart employees and environmental groups. Mr. Gore's camp initially had concerns about Wal-Mart's sincerity on the issue, but Mr. Dach helped allay them. "Leslie brings some credibility and integrity," said Roy Neel, Mr. Gore's chief of staff....(3rd paragraph from end)
In hiring Mr. Dach, Wal-Mart granted him stock then valued at $3 million and nearly 169,000 options. The retailer allows him to split his time between Bentonville and Washington , D.C., with Washington remaining his primary residence. He also gained oversight of the $1 billion Wal-Mart Foundation, a charitable group. "I'm convinced Wal-Mart is changing and the change is real," Mr. Dach wrote in an email to friends announcing the move." (last paragraph)
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3/28/2007, "Buddying up to Walmart," The Nation. SEIU boss Andy Stern strangely cozy with Walmart
"Last week, in a remarkable interview with the American Prospect magazine's Ezra Klein, SEIU president Andy Stern, normally one of the more articulate leaders of the American labor movement, was unable to form a single persuasive sentence on the subject of his recent partnership with Wal-Mart on health care policy reform. Klein pressed Stern pretty hard, asking what exactly Wal-Mart has committed to do, in exchange for all the positive publicity the company gets for working with unions on this issue. Stern hemmed and hawed and finally said that if the partnership doesn't work, he was "gonna eat a lotta crow." Looks like that feathery chow-down may occur sooner rather than later....
Now, Wal-Mart's "co-option" of SEIU may not work as well as Wal-Mart would like, in that SEIU probably
- will continue to attack and criticize Wal-Mart."...
7/2/2007, "Labor Head Andy Stern Has Some Unusual Corporate Bedfellows," The Nation, Liza Featherstone
"SEIU President Andy Stern heads one of the strongest unions in the country, yet he's stood on stage to campaign with anti-union CEOs like Wal-Mart's Lee Scott. Why is he so cozy with corporations?"...
"Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association (which competes with SEIU to organize nurses), bluntly calls Stern "the neocon of the labor movement.""...(p. 1, end)
via Climate Depot
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