Wal-Mart dropped its plan to build a 132,000-square-foot store in Queens yesterday, signaling a major win for labor, small businesses and environmentalists, How this was accomplished can perhaps serve as a model for other communities seeking to stop this destructive behemoth. Details are in this
NYTimes article.
The efforts of the local political leadership were key in this victory:
"Helen Sears, the City Council member representing Rego Park, had warned Wal-Mart, which has several stores in the suburbs surrounding the city, that to win approval in the city itself, it needed to improve its wages, health benefits and pensions and end its vehement stance against unions."