Union Leader Santa and Elf Demonstration at Florida Wal-Mart Store

BENTONVILLE, Ark., Dec. 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The following was released today by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. :

"Unfortunately, this union leader campaign stunt went too far. Union demonstrators dressed as Santa and his elves entered a Wal-Mart and began presenting some of the children in the store with wrapped boxes. The children became excited and started saying things like, 'Let me have the big one.' But when the children opened the boxes, they found that the boxes were empty. Needless to say, the children were upset and some began crying.

"When asked to leave, the demonstrators became argumentative. They claimed that they had permission from the Wal-Mart home office to demonstrate, but, in fact, they did not. Soon the demonstrators began pushing and shoving Wal-Mart associates. The Broward County Sheriff's office was alerted and deputies arrested two demonstrators for battery and gave fifteen other demonstrators trespassing warnings.

"This just goes to show that the union leadership will stop at nothing -- even upsetting children with fake Christmas gifts and resorting to physical confrontation with our associates. We have tolerated numerous union demonstrations and disruptions in our stores, but we cannot tolerate attacks that become physical. We ask for the union leadership to publicly apologize to our associates, these children, their parents and the customers who were in our store and pledge that any future demonstrations will be peaceful and non- violent.

"The Washington, D.C.-union leader campaign is failing. With sales up 4.3% last month and 10 million people visiting our stores in just the first six hours of Black Friday, the union leadership is resorting to desperate and divisive attacks. The American people are becoming increasingly incensed by the nature of this campaign and are still wondering why the union leadership is obsessed with attacking a company that creates jobs and provides affordable health insurance to working families."