Asa Hutchinson: “I pick up on a point the distinguished majority whip made about Wal-Mart's great success in charitable giving. That is…”

“I pick up on a point the distinguished majority whip made about Wal-Mart's great success in charitable giving. That is one thing on which we certainly agree. That is, that Wal-Mart has been enormously generous, giving last year over $100 million to charity. The distinguished former majority leader of the Senate just visited the Senate, Senator Bob Dole. Senator Dole said: Tell 'em that Wal-Mart gave $17.5 million to the World War II memorial. And they did. And we are all immensely proud of that and everything else that Wal-Mart has done. This is the reality: Wal-Mart has been generous. Their customers have been generous. And their employees have been generous at the risk of the future of the company. To say it is working fine is not the case because the vulnerability that Wal-Mart faces, that Target faces, that every retailer faces, that every convenience store faces--somewhere along the line, a labor union may decide to put pickets out in front, and as the customers try to go in the door, they will get the message: This company, we don't like. That company is going to then face the choice, Do we want to continue to allow solicitations for charities or are we going to have to adopt an absolute ``no solicitation'' policy that will exclude good charities? Right now, we are being forced by a misunderstanding, a misinterpretation of the National Labor Relations Act, to allow these pickets in front of our door.”