Makin’ news: Wal-Mart’s second FMLA lawsuit in a month

Several years ago, at my store, a female assistant
manager had to take time off from work for her own
hysterectomy. I’m not sure, but I don’t think it was
an emergemcy.

The store manager at the time did not terminate or
demote the female assistant manager. As far as I
could tell, any so called “retaliation” came in the
form of over-working the woman, such as having
her use a pallet-jack to pull over-loaded, heavy
pallets filled with boxes from receiving onto the
sales floor.

The female asssistantt manager finally found a job
with another chain retail store as a manager and
quit her job at Wal-Mart. Last I heard, she is doing
better. Much better.

Making more. Living better. Working elsewhere.

P.S.: Rob, maybe she could hire you on over at the new place of employment,perhaps?

Rob,

“such as having her use a pallet-jack to pull over-loaded, heavy pallets filled with boxes from receiving onto the sales floor.”

I remember a Wal-Mart worker saying that Wal-Mart doesn’t have ‘Pallet-Jacks’!!  Was he lying or are you?

As unfortunate as this story sounds, it is true.

As for Wal-Mart not having pallet jacks, there
is simply no other way of transferring all of the
thousands of boxes brought in to each store by
several trucks per day from receiving to the
sales floor, unless associates carry each and
every box individually.

Rob,

I was just trying to point out, how some people will LIE when coming to this site as a disgruntled employee!!  I have seen employees at our local stores, using pallet-jacks, even as soon as the next day, after that employee said they didn’t have them and made employees carry out the boxes!!

The problem with stories like your’s, is that in most cases, you don’t know all of the details!!  I had to write up a woman for her attendance and she was upset, because the absence was to take her child to a doctor, out of town!!  I tried to tell her, that it wasn’t THAT absence that was the problem, it was the other 9 absences before that in the last few months!!  Other people got mad at me as well, because they only looked at the incident that prompted the write-up, and didn’t think of the others!!  But, you can be sure, those people were upset, when they had to cover for her during those 10 absences!!

I stick with my story. It is based on actual facts as they
happened.

RDS,

Where as your concern and and your follow-up story is no excuse for the flagrant wage and hour violations and “predatory practices” that WalMart employs and is just a diversion from these issues.  But hey what the heck you are a part of the management team aren’t you? We would expect nothing less.

RDS
By the way check out the archive on the Dead Peasants Insurance and ask your self and your employer if the have taken out a life insurance policy on you to be paid to the corp !

I am a delivery driver for a company that supplys goods to walmart and I am amazed that this craphole store can even function as a business.  The area behind the store where the deliveries are received looks like a junk yard theres a sea of pallets and cardbord bails littered among milk crates, returned/defective car batteries, broken shopping carts and other crap.  This store is such a tiny craphole that they have around 20 ocean containers dropped outside and in their garden center used as supplemental storage for all the overstock they cant fit inside the backroom.

I will never shop in this or any other Walmart.  Every other Walmart I have had the displeasure of delivering to, has similiar space issues and neglect of outside areas.  I believe part of the reason for this is the lopsided ratio of WORK to WORKERS.  They dont schedule enough people at the same time to ever put a signifigant dent in the evergrowing backlog of work that needs to be done in order to keep the sore functioning like any other sensible business.

RDS is a blind idiot-
he sounds like he thinks the little write ups he hands out to his underlings actually mean anything.  Is that what they brainwashed you into thinking.

50 cents more an hour and the prestigious title of department manager.  “One day the the Walton empire could all be yours, or at least a slice of it”
Keep doing as you have been trained. Keep licking SAMS BALLS.
Good idiot.

SC,

“But hey what the heck you are a part of the management team aren’t you?”

As I have said, many times before, I am ‘retired’ and have NEVER worked for Wal-Mart!!

TEABAGS,

“sounds like he thinks the little write ups he hands out to his underlings actually mean anything.”

They DO, EARN enough of them and you could be standing in the unemployment line!!  But, the trouble is, people like you think you can do what you please and there are no consequences and if you do get ‘fired’, of course, it will be the managers fault!! 

But, since I’m ‘retired’, I don’t hand them out anymore!!

The point of the story is this.......when did walmart managers get doctors degrees?  The threat of punishment of losing a job, or demotion is a real threat these people face.  I hope this manager loses HIS job (he won’t, he embodies the walmart philosophy, and will probably be promoted).  The good news is what goes around comes around.  He himself might find that getting sick on walmart time could make his life a living hell to.

Be careful of the toes you step on on the way up, they might be connected to the butt you have to kiss on the way down.

The point of the story is this.......when did walmart managers get doctors degrees?  The threat of punishment of losing a job, or demotion is a real threat these people face.  I hope this manager loses HIS job (he won’t, he embodies the walmart philosophy, and will probably be promoted).  The good news is what goes around comes around.  He himself might find that getting sick on walmart time could make his life a living hell to.

Be careful of the toes you step on on the way up, they might be connected to the butt you have to kiss on the way down.

I am working at walmart because my unemployment ran out and I had no choice. I am not enjoying it and just wait for the day when I find a better job.
The problem isn’t with the local mgt. it is with corporate and it’s policies. Mgt has no choice but to enforce them.
The hiring of only part time workers, and the worst health insurance I have ever seen (available after a year, but with only part time work, most cannot afford it, I know I can’t).
It is all about the executives making the biggest bonuses they can.
The rest of us, hourly employees at store level, are nothing but cattle. And in this job market, easily replaced cattle at that.

Jane

And this is exactly what walmart relies on.  When you have no options walmart almost becomes a feasible one.

jane doe,

“I am working at walmart because my unemployment ran out and I had no choice.”

And, what would you be doing, if there were NO Wal-Mart for you to get the job you now have?  Think about that, they hired you, when no one else would!!  And, if you do find a ‘better’ job, you are ‘free’ to leave!!

RDS-

What does that say about walmart when it is your “when all else fails option.”

If there were no walmart she would probably be working for some mom and pop owned company that walmart wouldn’t have shut down (because they theoretically dont exist) and would probably be working under decent working conditions.

Wal-Mart start paying,

“If there were no walmart she would probably be working for some mom and pop owned company...and would probably be working under decent working conditions.”

And, in what ‘fantasy land’, have you ever seen ‘mom & pop’s’ that paid good wages and gave benefits?

And, besides, people at GM, Ford and Chrysler make ‘great wages’ and have ‘great benefits’, and Wal-Mart didn’t put them out of business, yet, they are laying off people and asking for a government ‘bailout’, so your statement holds little water!!

What is ‘better’, a ‘lower paying’ job and working or a ‘higher paying’ job and unemployed?

I have been laid off for 4 months and have not touched a penny of my savings, lets see a walmart employee do that!

I will take my “better” paying job every day of the week.  Since I make more in three months than walmart employees do in a year.  (I am not condescending those walmart employees for their earnings, just a comparison since YOU asked which I would take) Not to mention I do not have to put up with the same amount of B.S. that they do.

And I didn’t say anything about wages ....I said working conditions.  That means paid breaks and no forced overtime off the clock.  They may not have paid the best but at least you were an employee and not a slave.

October 13, 2006 - A.P. headline Wal-Mart Ordered to Pay $78 Million for Violating Labor Laws

A Dakota County ruling called the retailer’s treatment of workers “dehumanizing.”

By H.J. CUMMINS, Star Tribune

Last update: July 1, 2008 - 9:11 PM

“Wal-Mart Stores Inc. broke Minnesota labor law more than 2 million times over six years, routinely forcing some employees to work off the clock through lunch and rest breaks, a Dakota County judge has ruled.

The violations were willful, said District Judge Robert King in a ruling Monday in Hastings. They could bring a penalty of up to $1,000 per violation, which could mean a $2 billion fine for the world’s largest retailer. A jury will decide the size of the penalty during the second phase of the trial, expected to begin Oct. 20.”

The great thing is those of us anti-walmart people don’t have to look to far to justify our arguement.  How can you possibly defend this.  Show me one “mom and pop” charged with 2 million violations, THAT is indefensible.

Wal-Mart start paying,

“I will take my “better” paying job every day of the week.  Since I make more in three months than walmart employees do in a year.”

And, what did you do for those wages?  Did you ‘collect’ carts from the parking lot, stock shelves, greet people, or ‘checkout’ shoppers?  Or, were you a ‘skilled’ worker, that did a job that it actually took you longer than 1/2 hour to learn?

“Show me one “mom and pop” charged with 2 million violations, THAT is indefensible.”

First, you show me a “mom & pop” with 1.5 MILLION employees!!

THAT IS MORE THAN ONE VIOLATION PER EMPLOYEE!!!!!!
And that was only in Minnesota.  That doesn’t take into consideration the $150 million judgement against them in Pennsylvania in 2006.

Their track record is atrocious.

So if you hire the handicapped you don’t have to pay them a living wage?  Is that what you are advocating.  The people are stupid and unskilled lets keep them that way and pay them $6.55/hr.

Let’s see you live on $13,000 a year.

MAXIMUM financial recommendation for housing is 28% of your GROSS income.  That means you have to find a place to live for $3640 a year, or $303 a month.  Then you have to pay electric, heat, sewer, food, insurance (car, health, life), phone, maybe basic cable & or internet, food, toiletries, clothes, shoes, bus pass (because you cant afford a car), laundry.  Not to mention Christmas, birthday, wedding, baby, graduation gifts or whatever else happens in ones circle.

This just takes into account a single person it is magnified by being married with children. 

The people working at walmart are usually not married to rocket scientists or nuclear physicists.  So GENERALLY speaking spouses incomes are similar. 

But the Waltons are 4 of the richest people in the world.  They got that way by the sweat of the poor.  They can probably do without the 13th vacation home.  And they didnt do a damn thing except win the genetic lottery.

Wal-Mart start paying,

Here’s the main thing you don’t understand, people are ‘responsible’ for their income and if they can’t make enough at their job, they need to figure out some ‘better’ way to increase their income (getting a better education or asecond job)!!  Why is it that YOU DON’T work at Wal-Mart?  Did you make a willfull decision to go to the job you had?  You said you belong to the IBEW, did you do that on purpose or was that all you could get?  And, did you have to gain experience and more education to get that job?

Think of it this way, people who work at Wal-Mart, are there because they couldn’t find any other job that they were qualified for, therefore, they are at the ‘best’ job they could get and are getting the ‘best’ pay, that they are qualified to get!!  If they could get something better, why wouldn’t they?  Would you expect a person working at McDonalds to support a family on their wages?  Or, should McDonalds raise their wages to about $20.00/hr, so the people that work there can support a family?  And, then, would you be willing to pay $12.00 for a Quarter Pounder combo meal?

Hi! good design!

RDS-

You are arguing my point.  Walmart is exploiting the lowest level employee.  You don’t think it is a correlation that they have the highest revenue of any other business, yet the lowest ability/IQ level of any business. 

My arguement is exactly that, they are working there BECAUSE they cant work anywhere else.  If they could walmart would not be as successful as they are.

HOWEVER, that being said, if they had the ABILITY or INFORMATION for other options, walmart would not be as profitable as it is.  Therefore it is in their best interests to have a stupid, uninformed (misinformed), ignorant workforce.  Why do you think they spend so much time and ILLEGALY opposing the unions.