Friend or foe? Wal-Mart's supporters, opponents take up fight just in time for busy shopping season.(Business)

0 Comments | Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL), December, 2005 | by Spak, Kara

Byline: Kara Spak Daily Herald Staff Writer Michael Benditz, the manager of Batavia's new Wal-Mart, was interviewing potential employees in a Geneva hotel when his wife went into labor with the couple's third child in their hometown of Princeton, Ill. He rushed home, but missed the birth.

His tale of workplace devotion was celebrated in October at the ribbon cutting for the Fox Valley's latest Wal-Mart, a festive event attended by the mayor, high school cheerleaders, a pep band, a local minister and members of Batavia's chamber of commerce in a store festooned with red, white and blue balloons. But stories like Benditz's lie at the core of a deeper debate that's spilled into radio advertising and two documentary movies - all providing widely differing...