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Wal-Mart All Star Collectible Cards: Susan Chambers

Wal-Mart found itself embroiled in a massive wage & hour lawsuit in Minnesota this week. Minnesota District Court found that Wal-Mart violated state labor law two million times, and could award plaintiffs in the case a maximum of $2 billion in damages. In honor of the case, we decided to release our second Wal-Mart All Stars Collectible Trading Card: the woman who started it all, Susan Chambers.

Susan Chambers first came to Wal-Mart in 1999 after 14 years at Hallmark Cards, Inc. From 2003 to 2007, Chambers served as Executive Vice President, Risk Management, Insurance and Benefits. It was in this position that she issued a now-infamous memo encouraging Wal-Mart to get rid of senior employees - who cost the company money both in salary and health benefits - and shift to a younger, cheaper workforce (PDF). Chambers made a number of specific suggestions for implementing this plan, including denying cashiers stools to sit on and forcing all employees to push carts around the parking lot for exercise.

In 2007, Chambers was promoted to Executive Vice President of the People Division where “she is responsible for managing, attracting and retaining the nation’s largest private workforce.” Well Susan, we gotta say, we’ve always thought paying people for the hours they work is a great way to retain employees. We know Wal-Mart’s always looking for ways to save money, but forcing employees to work off the clock and altering time sheets just doesn’t seem like it’s going to help those folks “live better.” And that’s what Wal-Mart’s all about these days, isn’t it?

Take a cue from international labor law: pay your employees fairly! We think you’ll find your job just that much easier if you do.

Notable stats:

  • Ms. Chambers is the highest ranking female employee at Wal-Mart. And of the 10 executives who report directly to CEO Lee Scott, Susan Chambers is the lone woman. Maybe that’s why she didn’t get fired after “Chambers Memo” was leaked to the press - Wal-Mart would have had to fire its entire female senior executive staff!
  • Ms. Chambers is on the Kansas State University Business Advisory Board, the Center for Women’s Business Research Advisory Council, and serves on the Leadership Council of the New America Foundation. [New America Foundation]
  • “She is a firm believer that human resources issues – like training, compensation and opportunity – are issues with a real social, financial and economic impact.” [Cite] She also like puppies.

Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Click Here for a Printer-Friendly Version

COMMENTS

How can you completely hate a dog lover?

Scooby Doo in Cartoon Network
Wednesday, July 02 at 02:21 PM

The origin of bbrd and RDS, ‘mary’, DAVE, m att hew vantress etc…

A New Weapon for Wal-Mart: A War Room
By MICHAEL BARBARO
The New York Times

“The war room staff arrives at Wal-Mart’s headquarters, a short drive from a nearby corporate apartment where they live, by 7 every morning. The group works out of an old conference room on the second floor, christened Action Alley, the same name Wal-Mart gives to the wide, circular aisle that runs around its stores.”

Why Wal-Mart is still one down and dirty corporation

THE WAR ROOM. On the second floor of the mother ship in Bentonville, Wal-Mart executives have set up a war room, modeled on political campaigns. As in the world of roughhouse politics, the corporate war room exists to attack opponents, plant puff pieces in the media, generate fake “third party” groups that give a false sense of public support for the company, etc.

In 2005 Wal-Mart hired Edelman, a huge PR/political firm, to run the war room, and Edelman dispatched its top Washington operatives to Bentonville. Michael Deaver, Ronald Reagan’s image maker, was brought in, as were former top political henchmen of Bill Clinton and John Kerry, plus George W’s 2004 political director. Staffers live in a corporate apartment near headquarters and report at 7 a.m. to the war room, known as Action Alley, where they work in tandem with Wal- Mart’s director of corporate communications, a former political strategist for the Tobacco Institute.

http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/997

“Wal-Mart corporate culture is parsimonious except in the matter of executive compensation, but, according to a source, the company has been paying Edelman roughly ten million dollars annually to renovate its reputation.”

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/02/070402fa_fact_goldberg?currentPage=1

You don’t think real people would spend their time day after day, hour after hour, patrolling the internet praising WalMart with lies and total bullshit do you?

America hates WalMart and only goes there out of desperation and as a last resort. The anti-WalMart movement is the natural American expression that worries WalMart a great deal.

And it should.

“In terms of PR strategies, Rubel last year told BusinessWeek that the first job for companies is to monitor the blogs to see what people are saying about them. The next step is to think of damage-control strategies. And when blogs attack, he says companies have to learn to track what blogs are talking about, pinpoint influential bloggers, and figure out how to...”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15319926/

WalMart- We spent at least $10 million trying to fool Americans on the internet.

SanDiegoView in
Wednesday, July 02 at 03:03 PM

Waves at Edelman

Hi guys!

Ruth in
Wednesday, July 02 at 03:14 PM

Seeing Susan reminds me they cancelled plans for a George W. Bush stamp. The Post Office was afraid people wouldn’t know which side to spit on.

For all you associates out there, Susan Chambers is the one that said your productivity peaked in your first year. After that you’re pretty much dead weight. She accomplished this by averaging. So if you work your ass off but the guy next to you is a shirker, the two of you average out with the productivity of a couple of new-hires.

Thanks, Susan! (((kiss)))

Ken V in Texas
Wednesday, July 02 at 04:18 PM

In the spirit of WalMart’s Chinese/American ‘capitalism’ for the 4th of July…

Ask not what your WalMart corporate billionaires can do for you, ask what you can do to go without health care, decent wages, union representation, quality products, while shifting the tax burden onto America’s growing poor and eliminate taxes for corporate CEO uberwealthy.

WalMart- We hire internet frauds to lie to America. Happy 4th everybody!!

SanDiegoView in WalMart is America's #1 poverty engine whorehouse
Wednesday, July 02 at 06:23 PM

i attended anti-union meeting today where we were told to vote republican or wal-mart would be unionized,

john smith in lubbock
Wednesday, July 02 at 08:00 PM

costco we hire imbeciles like sdv to talk out of his ass about us to make us feel good.we are too lazy and cheap to give full time work to everyone

m att hew vantress in gresham,oregon
Thursday, July 03 at 03:59 AM

i dont need to prove anything besides i cant.i am a complete lying asshole.

m att hew vantress in gresham,oregon
Thursday, July 03 at 05:36 AM

According to her memo she should be replaced,she is no more productive then a some one that has been there a year

WallStreet in
Thursday, July 03 at 08:04 AM

My Memo? Oh, come on now! Everybody does it!

Susan 'Gas' Chambers in Zyklon B for the little bastards
Thursday, July 03 at 09:25 AM

Susan can not be with us at this time. She has been schedualed to gather shopping carts so that she doesn’t get to comfortable. Don’t hurt yourself Susan because I am not sure you have health insurance.

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Alex in Ontario, Canada
Thursday, July 03 at 09:51 AM

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