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“Bennifer” buried as Ben Affleck’s star soars

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – It has taken 10 years of hard work and indie movies, but Ben Affleck finally has moved past his “Bennifer” nightmare.

Affleck, 40, once a tabloid staple who risked becoming a laughingstock during his romance with Jennifer Lopez and their movie flop “Gigli,” is back on top in Hollywood, winning accolades for his work both in front of and behind the camera.

Fifteen years after Affleck shared an Oscar with Matt Damon for their first screenplay, “Good Will Hunting,” buzz is building over a likely second Academy Award nomination next month. It would be Affleck’s first since 1997.

“Finally, people now are ready to go, ‘Wow! He’s at the very top of the food chain,’” Damon told Reuters.

Affleck’s latest film “Argo,” a part-thriller, part-comedic tale of the real-life rescue of six American diplomats from Iran in 1980, this week picked up five Golden Globe nominations and a nod from the Screen Actors Guild for its top prize of best ensemble cast.

The film, which Affleck directed, produced and stars in, has also delighted critics and brought in some $ 160 million at the worldwide box office.

In “Argo,” Affleck’s clean-cut looks are hidden under a long, shaggy 1970s hair cut and beard as he plays CIA officer Tony Mendez, who devised a fake film project to spirit six hostages out of Tehran after the Islamic revolution.

The kudos Affleck is now receiving follows the embarrassing headlines he attracted over his 2002-2004 romance with Lopez.

“It was tough to watch him get kicked in the teeth for all those years because the perception of him was so not who he actually was,” Damon said.

“It was upsetting for a lot of his friends because he’s the smartest, funnest, nicest, kindest, incredibly talented guy. … So that was tough. Now I’m just thrilled. … He deserves everything that he’s going to get,” he added.

With a huge, pink diamond engagement ring for Lopez and gossip about matching Rolls Royces, the pair dubbed “Bennifer” starred in the 2003 comedy romance “Gigli,” which earned multiple Razzie awards for the worst comedy of the year.

SELLING MAGAZINES NOT MOVIES

Damon, by contrast, was seeing his career surge with “The Bourne Identity,” “Syriana” and “The Departed.” But he recalls Affleck’s pain.

“He said (to me), ‘I am in the absolute worst place you can be. I sell magazines, not movie tickets.’ I remember our agent called up the editor of Us Weekly, begging her not to put him on the cover any more. Please stop. Just stop,” Damon said.

About a year after splitting with Lopez, Affleck married actress Jennifer Garner, had the first of three children with her, and started writing and directing small but admired movies like “Gone Baby Gone” in 2007 and 2010′s gritty crime film “The Town.”

Last month, Affleck was named Entertainment Weekly’s entertainer of the year, largely on the back of “Argo.”

The actor-turned-director said that managing the various tones of the film was his hardest challenge.

“I had to synthesize comedic elements and the political stuff and this true-life drama thriller story. … It was scary and it was daunting,” Affleck told Reuters, saying he powered through by “overworking it by a multiple of ten.”

A trip to the Oscars ceremony in February is now considered a shoo-in by awards pundits, but Affleck is not convinced that success is sweeter the second time around.

“It’s harder. On the one hand, coming from obscurity, you have a neutral starting place. Because of the tabloid press and over exposure, I was starting from a deficit,” he said.

“It can be very unpleasant to be in the midst of a lot of ugliness. But I just put my head down and decided … I was going to work as hard as I could, and I never let the possibility enter my mind that I might fail – at least consciously. Subconsciously, I knew I could fail and I was really scared, so it made me work harder.”

(Additional reporting by Zorianna Kit; Editing by Will Dunham)

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Roche wins EU nod for breast cancer drug Perjeta

ZURICH (Reuters) – European health regulators recommended Roche‘s breast cancer drug Perjeta for approval on Friday, cementing the company’s hopes that the drug will become the standard of care for an aggressive, incurable form of cancer.

Roche is hoping that combining Perjeta with its older drug Herceptin will become the standard treatment for women with a form of cancer known as HER2-positive, which makes up about a quarter of all breast cancers and has no cure.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women worldwide, with about 1.4 million new cases diagnosed each year and more than 450,000 women dying of the disease annually, according to the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer.

U.S. health regulators already granted the drug approval in June. Recommendations from the European Medicine’s Agency (EMA) are normally endorsed by the European Commission within a couple of months.

Perjeta is an effective but costly drug. A typical 18-month course of Perjeta plus Herceptin costing approximately $ 188,000.

Vontobel analyst Andrew Weiss forecasts peak sales of 2 billion Swiss francs ($ 2.15 billion) for the drug.

Roche is also developing an “armed antibody” known as TDM-1 as a treatment for HER2-positive breast cancer. TDM-1 combines Herceptin with a derivative of a powerful type of chemotherapy and is designed to reduce unpleasant side effects.

(Reporting by Caroline Copley; Editing by Hans-Juergen Peters)

Diseases/Conditions News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Wall Street dips at open on “cliff” overhang

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stocks were little changed on Friday, with the Nasdaq weighed by a 3-percent drop in shares of tech giant Apple, amid investor worries about a lack of progress by politicians in ongoing fiscal negotiations.

Apple was down 2.8 percent at $ 515.11 as UBS cut its price target to $ 700 from $ 780. The stock has tumbled in recent months for a variety of reasons, including investors locking in profits ahead of scheduled capital-gains increases for next year.

President Barack Obama and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner held a “frank” meeting Thursday to try to break an impasse in negotiations over the “fiscal cliff,” tax hikes and spending cuts set to kick in early in 2013.

“The uncertainty that (the fiscal talks) is creating is basically holding the markets hostage in the short term,” said Andres Garcia-Amaya, global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Funds, in New York.

Frustration has mounted over the lack of progress in the discussions, with market participants’ worries reflected in a 0.6 percent drop in the S&P 500 on Thursday. Investors are concerned that going over the cliff could tip the economy back into recession. While a deal is expected to ultimately be reached, a drawn-out debate – like the one seen over 2011′s debt ceiling – can erode confidence.

Still, expectations of an eventual agreement have helped the S&P 500 bounce back over the last month, and on Wednesday, the index hit its highest intraday level since late October. For the year, the S&P has advanced more than 12 percent.

“For the end of this year, I wouldn’t expect a lot of big decisions by investors,” Garcia-Amaya said. “It’s been a fairly good year for equities and for that reason a lot of people don’t want to be a hero going into the end of the year.”

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> edged up 11.05 points, or 0.08 percent, at 13,181.77. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index <.spx> slipped 2.49 points, or 0.18 percent, to 1,416.96. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> lost 12.62 points, or 0.42 percent, to 2,979.54.</.ixic></.spx></.dji>

Best Buy Co Inc slid more than 15 percent to $ 11.90 after it agreed to extend the deadline for the company’s founder to make bid.

Consumer prices fell in November for the first time in six months, indicating U.S. inflation pressures were muted. A separate report showed manufacturing grew at its swiftest pace in eight months in December.

Meanwhile, data out of China was encouraging for its key trading partners, including the U.S., and for the prospects for global growth. It showed manufacturing in the world’s second-largest economy grew at its fastest pace in 14 months in December.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Business News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Home invasion victim gets help over Xbox headset

NORTH APOLLO, Pa. (AP) — Police say a Pennsylvania man used his Xbox headphones to call for help after being bound with duct tape and menaced with a gun during a home invasion.

Investigators say the 22-year-old suburban Pittsburgh man was playing video games in an upstairs bedroom when he heard his front door open. The man initially thought it was a family member but saw an armed man wearing a ski mask when he looked downstairs.

Authorities say the intruder bound Derick Shaffer and led him around the North Apollo home to locate valuables, then fled in Shaffer’s car. Shaffer reached a friend over his Xbox Live headset and had him call police.

The missing car was located about an hour later. Police questioned three people but are still trying to identify a suspect.

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps signs new first look deal with Fox

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Fox has signed a new three-year first look deal with director/producer Shawn Levy‘s 21 Laps, the production company behind “Night at the Museum” and “The Watch,” the companies announced on Wednesday.

21 Laps is already based at Fox, having supplied the studio with several comedy titles over the past few years. While its most recent, “The Watch,” disappointed at the box office, the company has otherwise provided a steady supply of hits.

The original “Night at the Museum leads the pack with $ 570 million at the global box office, while the sequel surpassed $ 400 million.

“Shawn’s boundless energy, ambition and effortless creativity make him the perfect partner,” Emma Watts, Fox’s president of production, said in a statement. “We are lucky he continues to call Fox his home.”

21 Laps has a couple of projects due for release in 2013 – “The Internship,” starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, and “The Spectacular Now,” starring Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley.

Levy directed “The Internship,” his first job since “Real Steel,” which Disney released. That film debuts June 7.

21 Laps also has several projects in development, including a third installment of “Night at the Museum” and “Project Aloha,” which Levy plans to direct from a script by Nick Stoller. It is also at work on projects beyond Fox, such as “Story of Your Life,” a sci-fi thriller that Nic Mathieu will direct.

In signing a new deal with Fox, 21 Laps also announced a series of promotions. Billy Rosenberg moves up to the Senior Vice President level from Vice President while Dan Cohen rejoins the company from Mandeville as VP.

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Best Pals Paralyzed Just 2 Years Apart

Alan Brown had just wrapped up a fundraiser for his high school best friend, Danny Heumann, who had been paralyzed after he broke his back in a car accident.

“We were 18 years old, ready to live life,” said Brown, who became his friend’s caregiver, staying by his side at New York City‘s Rusk Institute after the 1985 accident.

But just six weeks after he had helped raise $ 15,000 for his friend’s new foundation, Brown himself suffered a cruel twist of fate. He, too, was paralyzed after diving into the surf on a Club Med vacation in Martinique. It was Jan. 2, 1988, a bit more than two years after Heumann’s accident.

Brown said that he quite literally “saw the light” when he shattered his neck. The undertow threw him head-first against the ocean floor.

“I heard it snap,” he said. “I was under water two or three minutes holding my breath to survive. But I thought this was it.”

He never lost consciousness and remembered from his friend’s accident not to be jostled, so he refused a ride in the bumpy ambulance until he could be airlifted to the hospital. En route, he said he quoted lines from the comedy film, “Fletch” — “It’s all ball bearings.”

Just short of his 21st birthday, he lost the use of his legs, but not his sense of humor or his drive.

Today, at 45, Brown says he is doing what he has always done best: facing a challenge.

He has pledged to raise $ 250,000 — $ 25,000 for each year he has been paralyzed — for the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. His one-year campaign is aptly named the “Power of We.”

“There’s no ego here — we’re building an army,” said Brown, who is director of impact for the Reeve Foundation. “Spinal cord injuries don’t discriminate. In one split second my life changed.”

Both Heumann and Brown now sit on the board of the Reeve Foundation.

An estimated 5.6 million Americans live with some form of paralysis, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and most, like Brown, were injured when they were young.

The Reeve Foundation has become the “hub” of most of the research and advocacy for those who suffer from paralysis. It is named for the actor Christopher Reeve, who was injured in a horseback riding accident and died in 2004. His wife, Dana, worked with him and chaired the foundation; she died in 2006.

Spinal cord research is “painstakingly slow and expensive,” according to Susan Howley, executive vice-president of research at the Reeve Foundation. And there are never any quick fixes.

But this is a pivotal time in research and more is being done to improve quality of life and independence for those who are paralyzed.

“It’s actually a phenomenally interesting and exciting time in the field of spinal cord research,” said Howley. “The old dogmas haven’t really been overturned for a very long time.”

As recently as two decades ago, an injured adult was never expected to recover. Today, scientists are discovering activity-based exercise or locomotor training that can “remind” the spinal cord how to step and stand again, she said.

But being wheelchair-bound is only part of the medical, psychological and financial challenge of a spinal cord injury.

Depending on the severity of the injury, the yearly expense for treatment can be anywhere from $ 300,000 to nearly $ 1 million, according to The University of Alabama National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The lifetime cost of caring for a 25-year-old can range from $ 1.5 to $ 4 million.

Pain, Bladder and Skin Issues Plague Those With Paralysis

The secondary effects of spinal cord injuries are as challenging as the mobility issues: constant pain, bowel and bladder issues, and skin problems; shoulder and back injuries from years of strain and aging in a wheelchair.

“There are so many of them,” said Brown. “Care giving and the psychological are part of it — developing your own confidence to face the world. Some people don’t even want to leave their homes.”

Brown’s generation is the first to even survive spinal cord injuries. “There is no road map for us,” he said. “In the past, if they didn’t die, they were put away in a nursing home to die.”

Relationships are tested; Brown said his own marriage broke up.

Since the early days of treatment at Jackson Memorial in Miami and later in outpatient therapy at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City, his humor has kept him going.

“They put me in a halo backwards and had to unscrew it and screw it back into my head,” said Brown. “I laughed the entire time. I laughed every day and cried every day.”

He said he learned to hold his breath so the nurses would talk to him.

Laughter has carried him through six surgeries and physical ordeals. “I am an emergency room frequent flyer,” Brown jokes.

He has 11 screws and two metal plates that were inserted after his neck was rebuilt.

“Technically I’m three people,” said Brown. “My head is screwed on, my body is in the middle and there is my soul.”

Brown has always been a giver — as a child growing up in a Jewish family in New York City, he used to help prepare dead bodies for burial — “one of the biggest mitzvahs,” he said.

“I was always a person who wanted to overcome, an overachiever,” he said. “I wasn’t a great student, but I was there by your side. I would help the elderly at Rosh Hashanah — it’s in my make-up.”

While he was still bedridden and his health was touch and go, Brown asked his rabbi what he would say in a eulogy. The rabbi told Brown he had the “spirit to help others.”

Today he says he leads a full life, helping to raise his two sons, Max, 15, and Sam, 10.

Brown uses a power wheelchair and has difficulty using his hands. He said he battles constant pain, but is able to get himself in and out of the chair and drives a car.

A former hockey player, Brown keeps fit. He participates in marathons in his wheelchair and has tried both scuba and sky diving.

Professionally, Brown has worked his entire life — at public relations, recruiting NFL players for ad campaigns and even running a radio station.

“Nothing will ever stop me,” said Brown, who has also begun a book.

He confesses he doesn’t sleep much, especially with an eye to the fundraising campaign for the Reeve Foundation.

“There totally is hope,” he said when talking about medical advances. “Cures come in different shapes and sizes. A lot of us would take just not being in pain.”

Meanwhile, Brown’s attitude and energy astound his colleagues.

“Alan lives with his injury day in and day out,” said Howley at the Reeve Foundation. “He, better than anyone else, understands what the challenges and needs are. He is so articulate and compassionate. We are very lucky. God bless him.”

For more information and to help, go to the donor page for the Alan T. Brown Power of We Campaign.

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Walmart vs. Walmart

Cindy Murray has been working at Walmart store No. 1985 in Laurel, Md., for 13 years. She’s stationed in the fitting rooms and earns $ 12.40 an hour. Murray, who’s in her fifties, says she loves her job. She thinks of herself as a model employee. She also helped start OUR Walmart, or Organization United for Respect at Walmart, the group of employees who defied one of the most powerful companies in America by holding protests at about 1,000 stores on the busiest day of the year for retailers. OUR Walmart says it has at least 4,000 members. The protests, on the Friday after Thanksgiving, involved about 500 of them, as well as many thousands of others sympathetic to their cause. Murray and her colleagues are asking Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) for more full-time jobs with predictable schedules instead of part-time work with hours that can change every three weeks—and wages that can provide their families a decent life. They also want respect.

Photograph by Christopher Leaman for Bloomberg BusinessweekOUR Walmart member Cindy Murray in Maryland

On the morning of Nov. 23, instead of going to work, Murray put on her bright green OUR Walmart T-shirt and boarded a bus provided by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which has tried and failed to unionize Walmart associates for more than a decade. “Walmart isn’t on a good path, and someone needs to stand up and speak out,” says Murray. “But we always have fear inside of us, too.” They weren’t sure how many police would be present or if shoppers would support them. They weren’t sure if afterward their hours would be cut or if managers would make their lives difficult. None of them could afford to lose their jobs.

Murray was one of several hundred people, employees and activists and community leaders, who met at a store in nearby Hanover, Md. She helped lead chants, including “Stand up! Live better!” a play on Walmart’s slogan, “Pay less, live better.” They sang and marched for a couple of hours, then moved on to another store. At 7 a.m. on Saturday, she punched in for her regular shift.

Walmart is the largest private employer in the U.S., with nearly 1.4 million workers in 4,602 stores. The company operates in 26 other countries, employing an additional 780,000 people. Its efficiency, in stores and throughout its supply chain, has remade the retail industry. When Walmart decides to sell mortgages, local produce, or compact fluorescent light bulbs, the effects ripple through the economy. So do its decisions about workers’ schedules, wages, and benefits. With revenue of $ 464 billion over the past year, it’s the biggest company in the U.S.

As it has expanded, Walmart has been vilified by activists and watchdog groups who say the company’s relentless growth has come at the expense of its workers, the environment, and the law. Since 2005 it has agreed to pay about $ 1 billion in damages in six different cases related to unpaid work. The U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating allegations of corruption by company executives in its Mexican subsidiary, Walmart’s biggest, and a potential coverup by executives at its headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. Walmart says it’s cooperating with the investigations and is conducting its own internal investigation and review.

Last month more than 100 workers died in a fire at a factory in Bangladesh that was sewing clothes for several retailers, including Walmart. The company says it was unaware its supplier had sent work to the factory and has fired the firm. According to Bloomberg News, the previous year Walmart had declined to sign an agreement among retailers to pay their suppliers to improve safety conditions at Bangladeshi factories. Walmart said it would be too expensive.

Walmart has survived labor fights before. But Murray and a core group of about 100 employees—along with the largest union of retail employees in the country and a branding firm founded by a top adviser to President Obama—are the architects of what may prove to be the most potent challenge yet. Crucially, the thousands of associates who have joined OUR Walmart say they’re not agitating for legal recognition or collective bargaining rights; unlike previous efforts, they’re not trying to unionize. They say they want to make Walmart a better place to work and shop. “It’s a cause that affects every American,” says Murray.

There’s also growing financial pressure. Walmart wants to expand into big cities where its size and power are controversial. Elected officials, community leaders, and residents often see the company as a disruptive economic force and a socially dubious one as well. “A business case can be made that it would be smart for them to figure out a way to improve the situation for their workers so that OUR Walmart is an ally, not an opponent,” says Ken Jacobs, chairman of the University of California at Berkeley Labor Center. Or it could continue to dismiss OUR Walmart as a small group of disgruntled associates who speak only for themselves and their union backers. Despite the organization’s success in attracting attention to the Black Friday strikes, less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the company’s U.S. workforce participated. What’s certain is that Walmart’s management is facing a new kind of unrest at a time when it’s already vulnerable. Says Julius Getman, a labor law professor at the University of Texas School of Law: “This is a battle for the soul of Walmart’s workforce.”

Walmart has been opposed to unions since Sam Walton opened his first store in Rogers, Ark., in 1962. These days, “we have human resources teams all over the country who are available to talk to associates, and we will get questions about joining a union,” says David Tovar, a spokesman for the company. “We would say: ‘Let us remind you of all that Walmart offers, and of what might go away. Quarterly bonuses might go away, vacation time might go away.’ ”

Tovar says the company is proud of the jobs it offers, that its benefits are affordable and comprehensive, and that there are plenty of opportunities for associates to advance. Walmart has more employees working full-time than its competitors do, he says, and a lower turnover rate. “The suggestion that the issues OUR Walmart is raising are widespread or representative of any sizable number of associates is ludicrous,” he says. “We know this because we have hard data. And we know this because our managers and executives are in our stores every day asking associates questions. They believe what they’re getting at Walmart is a good deal.”

In a rare public appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Dec. 11, Walmart Chief Executive Officer Mike Duke, interviewed by Bloomberg LP CEO Daniel Doctoroff, dismissed the idea of a rift between Walmart’s employees and management. “The characterization is not always accurate,” he said. “This tension for me is not a tension.”

Murray’s campaign started six years ago. Backed by the UFCW, and a coalition it called “Wake Up Walmart,” Murray tried to get workers in her store to join the union. She didn’t get far. “We knew we had to do something different this time,” she says. “The organization had to be made by associates and for associates so they would feel more free to join.”

Organizers at the UFCW felt the same way. In 2010 the union hired a veteran labor leader, Dan Schlademan, to be the director of “Making Change at Walmart,” a campaign it had just launched. “We needed to build something new,” says Schlademan. He connected with Murray and a few other Walmart employees and then turned to ASGK Public Strategies, the media and branding firm started by David Axelrod, a senior political adviser to President Obama. (Axelrod had sold his stake by 2010.) “There is a permanent political campaign around the legitimacy of Walmart on both sides,” says Nelson Lichtenstein, a history professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara and author of The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business. “Walmart hires operatives who are in and out of political campaigns. Unions enlist the hottest political consultants around.”

On its side, Walmart had Leslie Dach, who had been a strategist in several Democratic campaigns and a vice chairman at public-relations firm Edelman. Dach was hired in 2006 in part to improve the company’s reputation, especially with liberal politicians and shoppers. By 2010 the company had reduced waste and energy use, tried to offer more affordable health insurance, and had supported Obamacare. At an analysts’ meeting that October, Dach said: “I think the numbers clearly show that customers and elected officials like us better. … And that makes it easier for us to site stores, makes it easier for us to stay out of the public limelight when we don’t want to be there.”

In the fall of 2010, ASGK began conducting opinion research about how to effectively reach Walmart employees. The firm declined to comment on its work, but as a former executive described it, they realized that buying an ad on Facebook (FB) would allow them to target users who had identified themselves as Walmart employees. There were about 150,000 of them. Then ASGK asked the employees to rate themselves according to how committed they were to Walmart. It focused on the group in the middle: dedicated employees with a couple of complaints. Chief among them was that they weren’t treated with respect by their managers. Second was their pay.

“ASGK was good at getting to the heart of what really was important to people,” says Schlademan. The firm helped name the movement and craft a logo that looks like the OK hand sign. “Three employees have it tattooed on their arms,” he says.

OUR Walmart had a brand. Now it needed more leaders. Maggie Van Ness was an overnight stocker at store No. 1563 in Lancaster, Calif., when she heard about the group from a UFCW representative. In the fall of 2010, Van Ness and another employee began holding meetings at a cafe every Friday, telling their co-workers about the new movement. For a couple of months, they went to the Los Angeles union hall every other week for training. “The union was very good at teaching us what we could and couldn’t do,” says Van Ness, who left the company earlier this year for health reasons. “They stood behind us and pushed in the right direction.”

Photograph by Ryan Lowry for Bloomberg BusinessweekOUR Walmart member Mary Pat Tifft in Wisconsin

Mary Pat Tifft, from store No. 1167 in Kenosha, Wis., joined the organization in the spring of 2011 and quickly emerged as an effective spokeswoman. Tifft, who’s 57, has worked for Walmart for almost 25 years. She says she was a contented employee until 2005, when union organizers got hold of a memo from a Walmart executive to the board of directors. The memo proposed ways to hold down spending on health care and other benefits without damaging Walmart’s reputation. It suggested capping pay, discouraging unhealthy people from applying, and expressed the company’s frustration that workers with seniority made more than new employees but were no more productive. “Reading that tells you how they feel about associates,” says Tifft. “It was degrading.” Tifft makes $ 19.96 an hour, the most she can earn without moving into management, which doesn’t interest her. Others in her store don’t make enough to support themselves, she says, and rely on the local food pantry that Walmart takes pride in contributing to. “Everyone always banked on the fact that Walmart would have your best interests at heart. But it’s not true,” she says.

In June 2011, OUR Walmart made its debut. At the UFCW’s expense, Murray, Van Ness, and Tifft, along with 97 other associates, traveled to Walmart’s headquarters a couple of weeks after the company’s annual shareholder meeting. They wrote a 12-point declaration that asked for wages and benefits that ensured no associate would have to rely on government assistance. They also called for dependable schedules, expanded health-care coverage, and the freedom to speak up without facing retaliation. In the parking lot, they presented the document to Karen Casey, the senior vice president for global labor relations. “It was really scary,” says Murray. “I think the executives were just as shocked as we were. Walmart heard us, but they didn’t listen.”

Photograph by Ryan LowryOUR Walmart protesters take part in a Black Friday demonstration in Chicago

The Bentonville trip was the first time many OUR Walmart members met face to face. “I was so taken aback listening to other associates’ stories,” says Tifft. “It made me want to speak louder.” The first discussion about holding protests on a Black Friday began then. At a hotel conference room, Schlademan set up computers for associates to learn how to use Facebook to stay in touch and reach other potential members.

During the next year, union organizers and employee leaders worked on recruitment. Van Ness says she signed up 25 employees at her store, about 10 percent of the staff. Murray says there are 40 members at her store, though most are silent. Monthly dues are $ 5.

OUR Walmart returned to Bentonville in June 2012 for the annual meeting, which coincided with Walmart’s 50th anniversary. The group had proposed a shareholder resolution calling for greater disclosure about incentive pay for executives, spurred by allegations in the New York Times that top executives in Bentonville covered up evidence from Walmart’s own investigation into accusations of bribery in Mexico. Schlademan had found experts to help Tifft and three others, all shareholders, craft the resolution. Then he got them a lawyer when Walmart tried to have it removed from the ballot.

In front of about 16,000 people, Proposal 6 was read aloud: “We have cut costs too far, stores are understaffed and associates cannot provide customers the service that Sam Walton built the company on and that we are proud to provide. … Sam Walton said, ‘Listen to your associates, they are your best idea generators.’… There has to be a new relationship based on honesty, based on trust, based on respect.” The auditorium was full of cheers; Tifft looked stunned. The resolution, supported by Institutional Shareholder Services, a leading proxy advisory group, won about 9 percent of the vote. The Walton family controls almost half of the shares in the company.

As the holiday shopping season approached, several dozen employees at warehouses that serve Walmart walked off the job in California and Illinois to protest what they said were poor working conditions. Then, in early October, OUR Walmart staged its first strike, in Pico Rivera, Calif. From there, some members went to Bentonville for the annual meeting for analysts. They stood in the parking lot, chanting: “We do not get enough hours. We cannot take care of our families.” Later, Colby Harris, who’s 22 and works in the produce department in a Walmart in Lancaster, Tex., led a dozen or so people to Walmart’s first store. The group collected water jugs, buckets, trash cans, cooking utensils. They found a rhythm and began chanting, “What do we want? Respect! When do we want it? Now!” Says Harris: “I think we caught the managers off guard. It was exhilarating.”

Photograph by Ryan Lowry for Bloomberg BusinessweekOUR Walmart member Colby Harris in Texas

At the meeting itself, Walmart noted how well it treats its associates. The company had already issued guidelines to store managers about how to respond to walkouts or work stoppages on Black Friday. “We wanted to ensure we provided the safest possible shopping environment for our customers,” says Walmart spokesman Tovar. The company also engaged in its own workers’ campaign. “If OUR Walmart people are in a store trying to talk to associates about joining a union, we do educate them about what it would mean,” he says.

Acknowledging their existence proved Walmart was paying attention. “That was a tactical mistake,” says Lichtenstein of UC Santa Barbara. “That ratified the importance of the protests.” Murray agrees: “It was a great recruiting tool.” She and other leaders spoke to associates afterward, explaining that despite Walmart’s assertions, their group is not trying to form a union. “Right now that’s not even a topic of conversation,” says Tifft.

On the Monday evening before Thanksgiving, Tovar told CBS News that the protests were “another union publicity stunt.” He added: “If associates are scheduled to work on Black Friday, we expect them to show up and to do their job. And if they don’t, depending on the circumstances, there could be consequences.” As encouragement, Walmart offered associates an additional 10 percent discount if they worked the full day. (They are normally entitled to a 10 percent discount.) “Some people might call that an incentive,” says Tifft. “I call it a bribe.”

On the day of the protests, Tovar issued a statement accusing the UFCW of exaggerating the scope of the demonstrations. “We had our best Black Friday ever,” he said. A week later, though, Walmart felt compelled to again counter the perception that its employees were in revolt. Michael Bender, the president of Walmart West, wrote an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle with the headline, “Our workers love their jobs.” “I want our associates to know we have their backs,” he wrote.

Cindy Boyd has been a full-time associate at a Walmart in Glendale, Calif., for the past 15 years. Her husband and son work there, too. She doesn’t support OUR Walmart. “I feel like, if they’re not happy, maybe it’s not the right fit for them,” she says. “They shouldn’t bash the company that feeds them.” Shirley Jeanine Clem says she thought the protests were silly and unnecessary. She’s been working at a Baytown (Tex.) store for nine years and was among the women reimbursed after the company found they had been paid less than men for the same work. “As a caring mother, I do not hesitate to tell my daughters to work for Walmart,” she says.

OUR Walmart’s decision to create a new kind of organization makes it a less predictable adversary than the company is used to. Yet it’s hard to assess if the group will achieve its goals without the legal protections that come with union recognition. “Walmart has the advantage of money and power, but these things can be overcome,” says Getman of the University of Texas. “The very fact that the situation is unusual gives an advantage to OUR Walmart.” The group has gotten Walmart’s attention. Beyond that, it may be years before it’s possible to assess its impact on the company.

Meanwhile, Walmart has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board claiming OUR Walmart has been organizing without seeking union recognition. The UFCW is reviewing more than 100 violations of workers’ rights by Walmart and has promised to continue supporting OUR Walmart as long as the group needs help. “Everything will be building toward an even bigger Black Friday 2013,” says Schlademan.

“I’m pretty sure Bentonville knows that we’re here to stay,” says Murray. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not backing down.”

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Aides: Chavez in tough fight, may miss swearing-in

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Somber confidants of President Hugo Chavez say he is going through a difficult recovery after cancer surgery in Cuba, and one close ally is warning Venezuelans that their leader may not make it back for his swearing-in next month.

Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said Wednesday night that Chavez was in “stable condition” and was with close relatives in Havana. Reading a statement, he said the government invites people to “accompany President Chavez in this new test with their prayers.”

Villegas expressed hope about the president returning home for his Jan. 10 swearing-in for a new six-year term, but said in a written message on a government website that if Chavez doesn’t make it, “our people should be prepared to understand it.”

Villegas said it would be irresponsible to hide news about the “delicateness of the current moment and the days to come.” He asked Venezuelans to see Chavez’s condition as “when we have a sick father, in a delicate situation after four surgeries in a year and a half.”

Moving to prepare the public for the possibility of more bad news, Vice President Nicolas Maduro looked grim when he acknowledged that Chavez faced a “complex and hard” process after his latest surgery.

At the same time, officials sought to show a united front amid the growing worries about Chavez’s health and Venezuela’s future. Key leaders of Chavez’s party and military officers appeared together on television as Maduro gave updates on Chavez’s condition.

“We’re more united than ever,” said Maduro, who was flanked by National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez, both key members of Chavez’s inner circle. “We’re united in loyalty to Chavez.”

Analysts say Maduro could eventually face challenges in trying to hold together the president’s diverse “Chavismo” movement, which includes groups from radical leftists to moderates, as well as military factions.

Tapped by the 58-year-old president over the weekend as his chosen political heir, Maduro is considered to be a member of radical left wing of Chavez’s movement that is closely aligned with Cuba’s communist government.

Cabello, a former military officer who also wields power within Chavez’s movement, shared the spotlight with Maduro by speaking at a Mass for Chavez’s health at a military base.

Just returned from being with Chavez for the operation, Cabello called the president “invincible” but said “that man who is in Havana … is fighting a battle for his life.”

After Chavez’s six-hour operation Tuesday, Venezuelan television broadcast religious services where people prayed for Chavez, interspersed with campaign rallies for upcoming gubernatorial elections.

On the streets of Caracas, people on both sides of the country’s deep political divide voiced concerns about Chavez’s condition and what might happen if he died.

At campaign rallies ahead of Sunday’s gubernatorial elections, Chavez’s candidates urged Venezuelans to vote for pro-government candidates while they also called for the president to get well.

“Onward, Commander!” gubernatorial candidate Elias Jaua shouted to a crowd of supporters at a rally Wednesday. Many observers said it was likely Chavez’s candidates could get a boost from their supporters’ outpouring of sympathy for Chavez.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who lost to Chavez in the October presidential election and is running against Jaua, complained Wednesday that Chavez’s allies are taking advantage of the president’s health problems to try to rally support. He took issue with Jaua’s statement to supporters that “we have to vote so that the president recovers.”

Maduro looked sad as he spoke on television, his voice hoarse and cracked at times after meeting in the pre-dawn hours with Cabello and Ramirez. The pair returned to Venezuela about 3 a.m. after accompanying Chavez to Cuba for his surgery.

“It was a complex, difficult, delicate operation,” Maduro said. “The post-operative process is also going to be a complex and hard process.”

Without giving details, Maduro reiterated Chavez’s recent remarks that the surgery presented risks and that people should be prepared for any “difficult scenarios.”

The constitution says presidents should be sworn in before the National Assembly, and if that’s not possible then before the Supreme Court.

Former Supreme Court magistrate Roman Duque Corredor said a president cannot delegate the swearing-in to anyone else and cannot take the oath of office outside Venezuela. A president could still be sworn in even if temporarily incapacitated, but would need to be conscious and in Venezuela, Duque told The Associated Press.

If a president-elect is declared incapacitated by lawmakers and is unable to be sworn in, the National Assembly president would temporarily take charge of the government and a new presidential vote must be held within 30 days, Duque said.

Chavez said Saturday that if an election had to be held, Maduro should be elected president.

The dramatic events of this week, with Chavez suddenly taking a turn for the worse, had some Venezuelans wondering whether they were being told the truth because just a few months ago the president was running for his fourth presidential term and had said he was free of cancer.

Lawyer Maria Alicia Altuve, who was out in bustling crowds in a shopping district of downtown Caracas, said it seemed odd how Maduro wept at a political rally while talking about Chavez.

“He cries on television to set up a drama, so that people go vote for poor Chavez,” Altuve said. “So we don’t know if this illness is for that, or if it’s that this man is truly sick.”

Some Chavez supporters said they found it hard to think about losing the president and worried about the future. His admirers held prayer vigils in Caracas and other cities this week, holding pictures and singing hymns.

Chavez has undergone four cancer-related surgeries since June 2011. He has also undergone months of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Throughout his treatments, Chavez has kept secret some details of his illness, including the exact location and type of the tumors.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa wished his close ally the best, while also acknowledging the possibility that cancer might end his presidency. “Chavez is very important for Latin America, but if he can’t continue at the head of Venezuela, the processes of change have to continue,” Correa said at a news conference in Quito.

___

Associated Press writer Christopher Toothaker contributed to this report.

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Lidl Christmas dinner offer goes viral on Twitter

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Discount retailer Lidl faces a 200,000-euro ($ 260,000) Christmas dinner bill after an offer of chicken vol-au-vents and ice cream cake for the poor went viral.

The supermarket launched a Twitter campaign in Belgium on Monday, saying it would hand out five four-course Christmas dinners to food banks for each tweet on a hash tag.

Lidl had expected to hand out about 1,000 of the 20-euro dinner packs, consisting of tomato soup, vol-au-vents with chips, an ice-cream cake and chocolates, a spokesman for the German-based company’s Belgium unit said on Wednesday.

But local newspapers wrote about the offer and people retweeted using the hash tag – #luxevooriedereen, Dutch for “luxury for everyone”.

By the end of the 24-hour campaign, 1,500 people had tweeted, meaning Lidl has to deliver 7,500 dinners. That sparked reports the supermarket had been caught out by its campaign.

To quash such talk, Lidl rounded up the number of dinners to 10,000, and branded the campaign a success.

Lidl said it had not yet decided whether to repeat the exercise next year.

“We’ve learnt quite a few lessons over the past 48 hours, to say the least,” the spokesman said.

($ 1 = 0.7693 euros)

(Reporting By Ben Deighton. Editing By Sebastian Moffett.)

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