Wal-Mart Watch: David Moberg on beating Wal-Mart: Taming the Wal-Mart beast will require a massive, broad-based crusade. Organizing unions against such a huge, implacable corporation is daunting without a commitment of the entire labor movement, perhaps starting in Canada (where there is the possibility of a small breakthrough), focusing first on distribution centers or organizing a union that functions without a majority of workers, as advocated by Wade Rathke, chief organizer of the community organization, ACORN, and a Service Employees International Union local. Fighting Wal-Mart one store at a time often makes sense locally and educates the public, but it also risks antagonizing consumers looking for bargains or residents of poor neighborhoods, especially if labor and community opponents can’t offer better development options, argues local labor leader John Dalrymple, a key figure in a narrowly defeated effort to block Wal-Mart in Contra Costa County, California. There’s a need for a broader strategy to hold Wal-Mart accountable and to promote the “high road” alternative of skilled, well-paid retail work advocated in Chicago by the nonprofit Center for Labor and Community Research. For example, newly proposed legislation in Los Angeles would make approval of a big box store depend on the city government’s evaluation of its economic impact. A 2003 California law—contested in an upcoming fall referendum partly financed by Wal-Mart—would require big employers to provide affordable health insurance for all employees. Wal-Mart faces hundreds of legal challenges, including the largest class action suit for discrimination against female employees, and some strategists are considering anti-trust action to curb Wal-Mart’s economic and political power. “We want development but development that contributes to building community,” argues Madeline Janis-Aparicio, director of Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy. “If Wal-Mart wants to come on those terms, they have a place.”