A Successful Anti-Wal-Mart Activist

"This business of fighting businesses is more than a grassroots movement. For Norman, whose day job is running Mass Home Care, a nonprofit network in Burlington, Massachusetts that helps senior citizens remain in their homes, the anti-Wal-Mart crusade is a business. He gets up to $3,000 for his speeches, which he delivers 36 times a year, money paid by merchants, concerned townspeople and unions. He has plenty of allies, including the United Food & Commercial Workers Union, frightened competitors from small retailers to big chains, and environmental groups. Norman gets results. He says in the last decade he has helped towns from Charlevoix, Michigan to Hood River, Oregon to Eureka, California beat back 180 Wal-Marts (and 70 other big-box stores)."