Working Families for Walmart is an advocacy group formed by Walmart and the Edelman public relations firm on December 20, 2005. It has been used to praise Wal-Mart in a show of opposition to union-funded groups such as Wake Up Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart Watch. The group is financially supported by Wal-Mart and is headquartered in Edelman’s Washington, D.C. office. It is not organized as a non-profit, and is not required to disclose its sources of funding.
Critics have accused Wal-Mart of leaving the impression that Working Families for Walmart is a spontaneous grass-roots organization, without fully disclosing its financial reliance upon Wal-Mart. The group's web site does not reveal its connection to Wal-Mart or Edelman. Its home page features a blog and with a link stating that the bloggers are employees of Edelman; however, no other mention is made of Edelman on the site. This has led to accusations of Walmart being engaged in deceit and astroturfing. For example, Wal-Mart Watch has stated, “Working Families for Wal-Mart is not a lobbying group or a 501(c)3 (non-profit), but is a sock puppet for Edelman, Walmart’s public relations firm…”.
Read more about Working Families For Walmart: Mission Statement
Famous quotes containing the words working and/or families:
“Working women today are trying to achieve in the work world what men have achieved all along—but men have always had the help of a woman at home who took care of all the other details of living! Today the working woman is also that woman at home, and without support services in the workplace and a respect for the work women do within and outside the home, the attempt to do both is taking its toll—on women, on men, and on our children.”
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