Employee Speakout Update: EFCA Special

We’ve been talking all week about the looming fight between Wal-Mart and the Obama Administration over labor reforms which might force Wal-Mart to treat its employees a little more fairly and give workers a little more say in the terms of their employment.

But we shouldn’t look at this as just a fight between Lee Scott and Barack Obama. There are 1.4 million Americans in the middle of this fight as well.

How has Wal-Mart been responding to the state of its workforce? Last week, Lee Scott was quoted talking non-specifically about his company’s response to the EFCA threat:

“We’re going to run this business,” Scott said. “Our associates are going to be productive. We’re going to reach out. We’re going to have relationships with our associates. We’re going to care about them and we’re going to serve our customers.”

("We’re going to care about them”?....that’s the best you can do, Lee? Anyone else think that sounds eerily like he’s admitting that he’s not caring about them now?)

But regardless, over the next year Wal-Mart execs will continue to tell us that all Wal-Mart employees are happy and productive and that all 1.4 million U.S. “associates” are one big warm fuzzy family. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. We know because every day we hear otherwise from Wal-Mart employees. Here’s a few more stories we’ve received lately.

Read these and more - in their entirety - on walmartspeakout.com:

“Why do you work overtime when you know that they will not pay you?”

“I have posted here a number of times before and I am always amazed that I have new bullets for my anti-Wal-Mart weaponry. No, my store doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to denying overtime pay.”

“Benefits” is a Loose Term to Wal-Mart

“When I was hired at Wal-Mart about 7 months ago, I was told by the hiring manager that Wal-Mart has the best benefits and I would receive then after 3 months. I believed him, but was in for a very rude awakening.”

Deaf Employee’s Request: Ignored

“I tried to apply for a promotion and they required me to do an interview over the phone, which was difficult considering there was no accommodation made for my disability.”

Posted by Media Team on Thursday, November 13, 2008

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COMMENTS

Now that the unions have totally destroyed the big three from the inside I guess they’ll have more time and energy to focus on unionizing Walmart so they can destroy it too.

Dave in
Monday, November 17 at 10:22 AM

Dave,

“I guess they’ll have more time and energy to focus on unionizing Walmart so they can destroy it too.”

Isn’t that EXACTLY what Ken V., and Screwedby, say they WANT to happen?

As for the UAW, seems they want a government ‘bailout’, so they can maintain their ‘non-compeitive’ wages and benefits!! Isn’t being GREEDY, being ‘eager to obtain more’ than others in their peer group? In the case of the UAW, they are ‘eager to obtain’ MORE than other factory workers!! The UAW talks about how without the ‘bailout’, their retirees would lose value in their retirement plans, well, during the last year, many other people’s retirement plans have decreased substantually, guess they should go to the goverment and ask for a ‘bailout’ too, right?

The union mantra: Live ‘high off the hog’, during the ‘good’ periods, but, expect the SAME during the ‘bad’ periods, just as long as it’s others who do the suffering!!

RDS in
Wednesday, November 19 at 12:24 PM

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