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New York City Comptroller John Liu’s office announced on Tuesday that the city’s pension fund will vote against five Wal-Mart’s directors at the annual shareholder’s meeting next month. The move comes in the wake of reports that Wal-Mart officials allegedly sought to cover up hi-level bribery in the company’s Mexico division in the middle of the last decade.

Wal-Mart stock fell nearly five percent to $59.42 on Monday after The New York Times reported that the company tried to cover up evidence of widespread bribery in its Mexican operations. Meanwhile, the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission have opened probes into the retail giant.

Thanksgiving has passed, which means memories of fighting family members will soon be replaced by images of fighting consumers, pummeling each other inside our nations' Wal-Marts. But in the 5,000-person town of Saranac Lake, New York, people have a different option. The town opened a community-owned department store, which they named the Community Store.

Author Barbara Ehrenreich discusses the new afterword to her 2001 bestselling book, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, and how it relates to today's bleak economic picture.

American domination weakens and the Chinese gain a stronger foothold in the rankings of the world's 500 largest companies.

Lizabeth Schalet, employment discrimination attorney and partner at Lipman and Plesur, and Beverly Cooper Neufeld, President of New York Women's Agenda and director of the Equal Pay Coalition of New York City, discuss the future for class action sex discrimination litigation after the Supreme Court's dismissal of Wal-Mart v. Dukes.

In the case of Dukes v. Wal-Mart, lawyers potentially representing 1.5 million female employees of the “big box” chain store alleged their clients were denied management positions and equitable pay because of their gender. The Supreme Court delivered a significant victory to Wal-Mart and other large American corporations on Monday when it delivered its decision to block this huge class-action suit.   

The court ruled unanimously that the many plaintiffs' individual circumstances were too different to make up a single class action; and perhaps more significantly, in a 5-4 ruling along conservative political lines, the justice's ruled this case could not proceed as any kind of class-action suit. 

Fed Votes to Propose New Rules

Federal regulators voted to propose new rules that would prevent banks from dumping risky mortgages on to investors. One would require banks to hold five percent of their mortgage loans on their own books. This is supposed to discourage the kind of risk taking that led to the financial crisis.

The arguments being heard by the Supreme Court today in Dukes vs. Wal-Mart are about whether there is enough of a connection between 1.5 million workers to validate their discrimination as a class-action suit. But this is not just the largest class-action suit ever, it is also the largest gender discrimination case in history. The plaintiffs are arguing that the world’s largest corporation maintained paid women less money, denied them promotions, and perpetuated a culture rife with gender stereotyping. And it will be heard by a Supreme Court with three female Justices — the most ever in history. Will their decision come down to gender vs. business?

For the past 11 years, 1.5 million women have been taking on the world’s largest corporation, Wal-Mart, for what they claim is a corporate practice of gender discrimination. The case would be the largest employment discrimination suit in U.S. history, damages could be in the billions, and the whole process has already dragged on over a decade. But whether that suit will ever be heard in court still has to be decided. Today the United States Supreme Court will hear argument in Wal-Mart vs. Dukes. Their task is to decide whether such a large and diverse group of people — working for shops across the country — can even be considered a “class” and therefore capable of raising a claim.

Most New Yorkers said they actually like much-gripped about bike lanes, according to a new poll. 

Wal-Mart workers, former and current, will testify Thursday at the City Council's second and final hearing into the labor practices of of the retail giant, which is expected to get blasted by the employees following a fiery council meeting that drew protesters two weeks ago.

This unusual story is prompting one anti Wal-Mart operative, Eric Koch, to ask "who fires people for disarming a crazy gunman?"

More attention will be put on Wal-Mart employees when former and current workers testify at a 1 pm City Council hearing tomorrow.

Michael Bloomberg says he neither supports, or opposes, Wal-Mart's efforts to open their first store in New York City, but simply doesn't like the idea of a legislative body tinkering with the free market in an effort to block one store in particular.

During an interview with Joyce Purnick for her book, the mayor was more outspoken about the City Council's successful efforts at blocking the giant retailer.

"Everybody leaves to go to Nassau County or Westchester. Shirley Franklin, the mayor of Atlanta, she laughed at me in the face. They just got the biggest Wal-Mart in Atlanta -- she was thrilled. Only we can turn victory into shit.''

Which, with the City Council pushing hard against the giant retailer, basically puts Bloomberg in the pro category.

From his Q&A; today:

No I don’t support Walmart opening a store. I don’t think the city should tell anybody that they can’t come here. If Walmart wants to come, that’s their business. If you want to work for them, work for them, if you want to shop there, shop there, if you don’t you don’t. We’re not here either pro or against. This city should be open to business to anyone who wants to come here.

Wal-Mart was ripped by sharp-tongued critics who oppose the retail giant's potential move into the city during a City Council hearing that drew more than 100 people to the former Emigrant Savings Bank in Lower Manhattan on Thursday.

The world's largest retailer hopes to open their first store in New York City; opponents are weighing their options. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/minttea)

Wal-Mart's inability to open a store in New York City has been almost entirely due to the loud, coordinated and vocal opposition it's faced from labor groups and Democratic elected officials.

But as vocal as the opposition has been, there really is no legal backstop for them. There's no law (on the books, or proposed) that can prevent a particular store from opening up in New York City if they find space zoned for their purposes.

One person working to oppose Wal-Mart told me the retailer's arrival in the five boroughs is inevitable, and that the definition of "victory" against them needs to be "redefined."

Echoing that need to redefine the goals of opposing Wal-Mart is labor organizer-turned Democratic State Senator, Diane Savino, who told the Staten Island Advance:

I have always been opposed because of the impact on small business and Walmart's abusive labor practices, which have been well documented...But we have to begin to develop a different perspective. The stores are throughout New York state. People like to shop there. And with the passage of my Wage Theft Prevention Act, those not adhering to the law can be aggressively prosecuted. At some point there has to be a conversation to see what it would take to permit Walmart into New York City, and what they are prepared to do to be good corporate citizens and neighbors."

The store has gone green and is now pushing for healthier food preparations. They still resist letting employees form into a union.

UPDATE: Pressing the economic argument, a spokesman for Wal-Mart Free NYC emailed a statement from an East New York shop owner, Mark Tanis, who said small businesses "will be run out of town and shuttered forever" if Wal-Mart opened here.

First lady Michelle Obama is joining Wal-Mart to announce a major health food initiative. The super store unveiled a five-year plan to improve the quality of its food, to lower prices on produce and to open stores in underserved areas. Wal-Mart is the number one grocer in the U.S. and can have a huge impact on public health.

As Wal-Mart explores opening stores in the five boroughs, its foundation announced it will donate nearly $383,000 to the Food Bank for New York City.