The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • C1

Filename: C1-BUSINE-AJCD1126-BUDOG created: Nov 24 2006 Username: SPEED2 AJCD1126 Sunday, Nov 26, 2006 BUSINESS 1 AJCD 1 Cyan Magenta Yellow Black 1 Cyan Magenta Yellow Black AJCD Filename: C1-BUSINE-AJCD1126-BUDOG created: Nov 24 2006 Username: SPEED2 SUNDAY, NOV. 26, 2006 Private Quarters: Ex- New Yorkers love their Atlantic Station loft. INSIDE TODAY C3 Business The Atlanta Journal-Constitution CONTACT US: Mark Braykovich, Business editor 404-526-5869 Power tools help uncover bargains. C6 Online shopping Big Apple style WORKING FAMILIES FOR WAL-MART Mission: To encourage and honest dialogue with elected opinion makers and community to remind them of Created: In December 2005 by Edelman, a public relations working for Wal-Mart. Leadership: A 14-member steering committee of volunteers, many of whom have had business relationships with Wal-Mart.

Interim chair is Catherine Smith, a vice president for iVillage a Web site aimed at women. Funding: The group no public documents, but Edelman says Wal-Mart is the primary backer. The company also has asked its suppliers to contribute. Tax status: Edelman says WFWM does not seek to make a but it has never applied to the IRS for tax-exempt status. Web site: www.forwalmart.com WAL-MART WATCH Mission: challenge the largest retailer to become a better employer, neighbor and corporate Created: In early 2005 with funding from the Service Employees International Union.

Leadership: Executive director is Andrew Grossman, a longtime political organizer for Democratic candidates. A six-member board sets policy. Funding: According to documents with the IRS, the group spent $4.56 million in 2005. SEIU provided 78 percent of the funding, with the remainder coming from sympathetic groups and individuals. Tax status: Wal-Mart Watch is a joint project of two groups, the Center for Community and Corporate Ethics and Five Stones.

Web site: www.walmartwatch.com Spinning Wal-Mart By MARILYN GEEWAX Washington When it comes to peddling pickles and pants, Wal- Mart Stores Inc. knows just what to do: Cut costs and pass along the savings. But the largest retailer is facing a trickier marketing challenge as it tries to sell its political agenda to lawmakers, regulators and voters. Wal-Mart, whose sales have tened this year, needs their support to start growing again. It must defeat legislation designed to drive up its wages and and it must win governmental per mission to open big-box stores in crowded cities and enter the banking industry.

With its future hinging on its political savvy, Wal-Mart decided last December to launch a campaign, Working Families for Wal-Mart, to drum up support. But again and again, public relations efforts in 2006. Exhibit Civil rights icon Andrew Young agreed to serve as the public face. But just a few months into the job, he abruptly resigned after making ethnically insensitive comments. MIKKI K.

HARRIS Staff Andrew Olson staffs a booth at the Georgia State Fair promoting Working Families for Wal-Mart, the company-sponsored group. Retailer, union activists wage high-stakes PR battle Catherine Smith, an executive for a Web company, is interim chair of the pro-Wal- Mart group. Andrew Grossman is a longtime political organizer for Democratic candidates. PShone.com Civil rights icon Andrew Young, shown at the opening of an Atlanta store, quit campaign after making ethnically charged remarks. Please see WAL-MART, C8 For about $55 a month, burn off all the turkey you want Biz (off)beat By now digested dinner and awakened from your Thanksgiving-induced hibernation.

Now, time to talk turkey or burning off the turkey. Thanksgiving ushers in weeks of gluttonous gorging, followed by promises to hit the gym after the Peach drops to mark the New Year. Before you beat yourself up for skipping the gym, consider this: The median cost for a gym membership is $55 a month, or $660 a year, according to the International Health, Racquet Sportsclub Association, the trade group representing the $15.9 billion-a-year industry. Monthly costs range from $45 to $75. The average gym-goer works up a sweat 92 days out of the year, so a median cost of $7.17 per visit.

If at the low end of the monthly cost, even cheaper: $5.86 a visit. But even if at the other end of the cost spectrum, it still works out to about $9.78 a visit. The lesson: Regular workouts is one resolution you can afford to break. C. Paul THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION CHECK FOR BREAKING NEWS UPDATES AT AJC.COM clipart.com The average person pays $7.17 for each gym visit.

EEOC reaches out to teens By TAMMY JOYNER A 16-year-old fast-food restaurant worker in rural Georgia is told she has to work late and is raped over two months by her boss. A male manager at a Family Dollar store in Atlanta ridicules a 17-year-old for not being manly enough. In Raleigh, teenage boys working at a Carmike Cinema are groped and pressured for sex by their male supervisor, a convicted sex offender. Since 2000, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has seen a pattern of workplace abuse involving these and other teenagers.

are one of the most vulnerable groups out said Terrie Dandy, an outreach manager in the Atlanta district which covers all of Georgia and parts of South Carolina. Hundreds of teenagers discrimination complaints each year with the federal agency and other state and local civil rights agencies, EEOC estimate. Last year alone, more than 40 percent of the cases were sex-related. The number of cases by teenagers represent a fraction of the 7,767 sexual harassment charges nationwide last year with the EEOC. But no less problematic.

The EEOC is the federal agency that monitors and regulates a wide range of workplace problems such as race and age discrimination, as well as sexual harassment. Between 2001 and 2005, the agency prosecuted 105 lawsuits nationwide involving teen workers. Of those cases, 80 percent involved sexual harassment. Atlanta EEOC received 32 charges from teen workers for the year ended Sept. 30.

Of those charges, 14 were allegations of sexual harassment. Eight of those were against fast-food restaurants. The problem is far more prevalent than reported cases suggest, EEOC and researchers say. get said Anthony Seals, a senior investigator with the EEOC. lot of these teens are really fearful.

been told that if they told an adult they would be retaliated TEEN WORKERS Teen workers: 5.97 million (as of October 2006) Where they work: Leisure and hospitality (which includes food services) was the largest employer of teens in 2005, the latest available data, followed by wholesale and retail trade, education and health services. Source: Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics Please see TEENS, C9 Bias, harassment often covered up.