Shareholder Campaign for National Health Care
Reform Faces Next Test at Wal-Mart

After 11% Vote at Ford Motor Company, Wal-Mart Shareowners vote June 1st

BENTONVILLE, AR///May 31, 2007///Wal-Mart shareowners vote this Friday on a proposal calling for increased disclosures of Wal-Mart's long-term health care strategy. A similar proposal at Ford Motor Company was supported by 6.6% of all shareowners, (11% of shareowners not affiliated with the Ford family). The Wal-Mart resolution was filed by the Basilian Fathers of Toronto and seventeen other members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR). ICCR members own over two million shares of Wal-Mart.

Margaret Weber, coordinator of corporate responsibility for the Basilian Fathers of Toronto, said: "In today's business environment, it is difficult to imagine a more pressing social policy issue facing U.S. companies, including Wal-Mart, than the relentless growth of health care costs. As the national discussion on how to deal with the uninsured and rising costs evolves, corporate positioning is crucial. The public policy environment around health care will change substantially in the next three to five years. There will be winners and losers in those changes, and shareholders require disclosures from the company to assess where Wal-Mart will be on that continuum. Given both the reputational costs Wal-Mart is incurring and their rising health costs, Wal-Mart today is in some ways in the worst possible position."

The resolution is item number four on the Wal-Mart proxy. It was written by The Nathan Cummings Foundation and filed at seven companies in total. It reads in part:

Shareholders request that the company report (at reasonable cost and omitting proprietary information) on the implications of rising health care expenses and how it is positioning itself to address this public policy issue without compromising the health and productivity of its workforce. The report should be completed by June 30, 2007 and need not address specific benefit offerings.

The SEC is allowing five companies - 3M, Federated, Kohl's, Target, and General Motors - to omit the resolution from their shareholder ballots. Wal-Mart did not ask the SEC for permission to omit the resolution. Ford asked the SEC for permission to omit the resolution and did not receive it.

In addition to the health care resolution, the Benedictine Sisters of Boerne, Texas and twenty-five co-filers have proposed a resolution requesting the Compensation Committee review Wal-Mart's senior executive compensation policies and make available a report detailing the comparison of compensation between top executives and the company's lowest paid workers. This resolution is now in its second year. Research by ICCR found the average Wal-Mart cashier would have to work for over 1600 years to make CEO Lee Scott's annual compensation last year.
These resolutions are part of a multi-faceted health care reform campaign by ICCR, a coalition of faith-based institutions, denominations, pension funds, foundations, and other institutional investors. In addition to filing resolutions, ICCR has articulated Principles for Health Care Reform and published a report compiling the health care reform positions of Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic religious traditions.

"In the decade since the failure of the Clinton reform plan, the faith community has continued to call for accessible and affordable health care for all people in a just and compassionate health care system. Now, we are using the financial and moral power of faith-based investors to encourage American business to also address this issue. Shareholders interests and the public interest here are aligned - we need comprehensive health care reform in this country," said Catherine Rowan, a corporate responsibility consultant whose clients include Trinity Health and the American Baptist Church Home Mission Society. Rowan serves as the co-chair of ICCR's Access to Health Care Working Group.

ABOUT ICCR

The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility is a 35-year-old international coalition of 275 faith-based institutional investors including denominations, religious communities, pension funds, healthcare corporations, foundations and dioceses with combined portfolios worth an estimated $110 billion. ICCR seeks to build a more just and sustainable society by integrating social values into corporate and investor decisions. ICCR is one of the foremost shareholder advocacy organizations in the world. More detailed information about shareholder resolutions is available from ICCR's Ethvest sm, the comprehensive, on-line, subscription-based, ethical investor database, and at www.iccr.org.

ABOUT ICCR's 16-YEAR HISTORY WITH WAL-MART

Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) members have worked with Wal-Mart on a wide variety of social, environmental, and financial issues material to the company since 1991. These include:

--factory conditions and vendor standards:
--domestic weapons and firearms sales;
--equal opportunity and diversity reporting;
--portrayals of American Indians and advertising images;
--environmental principles and climate change;
--executive compensation;
--genetically modified food safety and labeling;
--violence in video games
--sustainability reporting;
--adequacy of health benefits; and
--toxics and product safety.

On these issues and many others, non-governmental organizations, organized labor, and socially responsible investors have urged reforms and improvements. Until recently, the history of change at Wal-Mart has been one of reluctance and resistance.

In 2006, after a dozen years of shareholder advocacy, ICCR members successfully negotiated with Wal-Mart to be transparent about diversity on all employment levels by posting EEO-1 documentation on the company website.

In 2005, media accounts reported forty-six percent-46%- of Wal-Mart employees' children were uninsured or on Medicaid. Disturbed, ICCR members approached Wal-Mart on the quality and availability of employee health benefits. Using shareholder proposals and dialogue simultaneously, ICCR members have urged the company to address the issue of adequate health benefits as a company but also as a corporate citizen.

In June 2006, ICCR's Access to Health Care Working Group decided to call for - and to win - universal access to quality, affordable health care coverage in the United States. ICCR efforts expanded from Wal-Mart to a full slate of manufacturers, retailers, and blue-chip American companies.

The timing of this expanded effort could not be better. After decades of moral witness by the faith community, Democratic and Republican governors are finally tackling the crisis head-on. The business community is increasingly seen as a constructive participant in health care reform debates in California, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and nationally. Individual corporate leaders in retail, automotive, and food service industries are calling for a new approach.

ICCR's ambitious campaign for universal access will engage companies on increasing low-wage workers' access to affordable, quality health care coverage, and encourage companies to become involved in the public debate to expand access to coverage. The campaign is grounded by ICCR's Health Care Principles:

ICCR HEALTH CARE PRINCIPLES

These principles are meant to reflect ICCR Members' basic principles for healthcare system reform, primarily in the United States. The principles are used to engage employers, to build consensus, and to evaluate corporate and legislative proposals.

Universal access to health care is a societal good, serving the individual, the common good, and business.

Our principles for health care reform are:

--Accessible and affordable: each individual has access to quality, affordable health care coverage and services sufficient for a healthy life, regardless of health/financial circumstances
--Quality: quality is determined by improved health outcomes
--Accountability: all stakeholders (individuals, providers, businesses, non-profits, governments) are accountable for the integrity, viability, and cost containment of the health care system
--Equitable Financing: all stakeholders share responsibility for equitable financing of the system

NOTE FOR EDITORS:
Shareholder resolutions may be filed by any shareholder holding $2000 worth of company stock for a period of one year. Companies who feel resolutions are not appropriate may ask the staff of the SEC for permission to exclude or omit the resolution from their shareholder ballots. The SEC grants such permission if the resolution is false and misleading, deals with a personal grievance, deals with the ordinary business of the company, or for a number of other reasons.

Margaret Weber and Sister Susan Mika will be presenting the resolutions at the Wal-Mart annual meeting on June 1st in Bentonville, Arkansas and are available to interviews.

CONTACT:
Dan Klotz, 917-438-4613

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