The timing was purposeful. The group, funded by the United Food and Commercial Workers union, had sought to spotlight the employment practices of the nation's largest private employer during the all-critical holiday season.
On Tuesday, WakeUpWalMart.com held news conferences in 10 cities from Baltimore to Seattle.
At the local news conference, Verlene Jones of the A. Philip Randolph Institute called on Wal-Mart to provide living wages to its employees.
"No worker should be required to work an eight-hour job and still be below the poverty line," she said.
Although the message wasn't new — Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott conceded to analysts in September 2004 that the company was being pounded by critics — the location was a bit curious for this nationwide campaign.
Wal-Mart operates just four discount stores in King County — in Renton, Federal Way, Covington and Auburn — and no discount stores and supercenters in Seattle. By comparison, Albuquerque, N.M., a city with 100,000 less residents than Seattle, has nine stores within its city limits.
So why here?
Ed Fox, a retail professor at the Southern Methodist University Cox School of Business, said it's practical to presume Wal-Mart would expand in Washington state because it grows "market by market, not store by store."
"You don't want to have a distribution center that supplies one or two stores," Fox said. "You want to have a distribution center that works close to capacity."
In Washington state, Wal-Mart runs 21 supercenters; 20 discount stores; three Sam's Clubs, including one in North Seattle; and two distribution centers. The company is homing in on urban areas, where the market isn't saturated with big-box stores.
As of this month, the company has 16,656 employees in Washington state, not including Sam's Club. The average wage for those full-time hourly employees was $10.61, or slightly more than $22,000 a year.
On a more symbolic note, Seattle is home to warehouse-club retailer Costco, which competes with Sam's Club.
"Costco is a very strong foil," WakeUpWalMart.com spokesman Chris Kofinis conceded. "Here you have an employer that is a very responsible employer, pays a living wage and has a great public image because of that."
The local coalition said they hoped to put Wal-Mart on notice as the company looks to expand in the area.
It wasn't clear how the group planned to pressure Wal-Mart locally, although it announced an unspecified news conference and event in December.
"They're the largest retail chain in the country," Jones said. "They should do better."
