Wal-Mart Watch Report: “Work at Your Own Risk”
Wal-Mart Watch today released a new report on the retail giant’s workers’ inadequate workers’ compensation program that exposes serious risks to both its workers and the public. The report, titled “Work At Your Own Risk,” highlights ways Wal-Mart puts the health of their employees as risk while shifting the burden of caring for its on-the-job injured employees onto the taxpayer. It explains how Wal-Mart, the United States’ largest private employer, has a track record of difficulty in complying with state workers’ compensation laws, while putting its employees’ health in jeopardy. The study examines seven state case studies that have ramifications for the company’s operations in all 50 states. Key examples include:
- In 2001, the State of Washington Department of Labor and Industries made the unprecedented move of threatening to seize control of Wal-Mart’s entire injured worker program, after the company showed itself “unwilling or unable to manage its workers’ compensation program as required by law.” A decertification case ultimately was settled, but Wal-Mart is prohibited from self-administering its workers’ compensation program claims in Washington until 2010.
- In 2004, Maine amended the state’s Workers’ Compensation Act and began tracking workers’ compensation payments and claims challenges, finding Wal-Mart’s challenging of workers’ compensation claims was “off the charts.”
- Class action was filed in 2007 in Oklahoma for retaliation against employees who filed workers’ compensation claims. The charges include cutting hours, transferring employees to less desirable positions, and termination. There are over 30,000 people employed by Wal-Mart in Oklahoma.
- Individual stories reflect a policy, whether formal or informal, of fighting claims regardless of validity, and delaying payments as long as possible. The result is an increase in the number of employees forced onto federal and state programs to pay for treatment and subsidize lost wages, effectively shifting the cost of compensation workers away from Wal-Mart and onto taxpayers.
Click here to read the full report.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, June 28 | 19 comments | Permalink
Illinois Comptroller Calls for Wal-Mart Investigation
Illinois State Comptroller William Atwood joins the call for Wal-Mart to release documents regarding the company’s surveillance pratices.
The head of Illinois’ state employee pension fund on Tuesday joined New York City’s comptroller in saying Wal-Mart Stores Inc. should turn over records dating to 2002 to show whether it spied on shareholders who wanted annual meetings to adopt policies opposed by management.
Wal-Mart has denied allegations by a fired former security operative that it snooped on investors. But New York City Comptroller William Thompson said he has “a credible basis” to believe the company conducted surveillance and investigations of shareholders.
William Atwood, executive director of the Illinois State Board of Investment, said Wal-Mart’s denials are not enough to lay the issue to rest.
“This isn’t going away,” Atwood said. “Let’s open up the files and let an external set of eyes look at it.”
A Wal-Mart spokesman said the company received a letter from Thompson last week. “We are studying the letter and will respond appropriately,” he said.
The Illinois state fund has total assets of $12.6 billion. Thompson oversees five pension funds for New York City worth a total of about $105 billion.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, June 27 | 7 comments | Permalink
MICHIGAN SITE FIGHT: ASSURANCES ARE NOT HELPING
Wal-Mart assurances don’t allay concerns [Detroit Free-Press]
When Jeff Mizwa settled a year ago into a new Clinton Township subdivision featuring homes worth half a million dollars, he couldn’t wait for the planned high-end mall nearby to open.
When shoppers begin descending this fall on the Mall at Partridge Creek, seen as Macomb County’s answer to the ritzy Somerset Collection in Troy, Mizwa, 38, said he can see them driving up property values.
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Beth Gostanian on Monday, June 25 | 0 comments | Permalink
ILLINOIS SITE FIGHT: GROUP MAY KEEP FIGHTING
Group may keep fighting Wal-Mart plan [The Telegraph (Glen Carbon, Ill.)]
GLEN CARBON — Karen O’Koniewski didn’t cry after the June 12 Village Board meeting, but she and other members of the Glen-Ed Citizens for Fair Growth felt defeated.
Residents of Glen Carbon and Edwardsville, calling themselves the Glen-Ed Citizens for Fair Growth, banded together to protest the proposed expansion of the existing Wal-Mart at Cottonwood Plaza into a Supercenter. They presented a petition with more than 1,000 signatures to the Village Board and hired a lawyer to help them fight Wal-Mart from taking over Cottonwood.
But they didn’t win.
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Beth Gostanian on Monday, June 25 | 0 comments | Permalink
Illinois Site Fight: Wal-Mart to Flood Chicago
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Wal-Mart is planning to build “as many as five South Side supercenters” in the city. Development plans and aldermen votes are all up in the air at this point, but city offcial Pat Dowell remains firm on her insistence that big boxes in Chicago pay a living wage:
Wal-Mart is prepared to move “in six to 12 months, maybe sooner” to build as many as five South Side supercenters, but the world’s largest retailer is scouting sites in neighboring wards in case local aldermen resist, a top official said Tuesday.
A pair of sites that once housed Ryerson Steel plants—at 83rd and Stewart in Chatham and 111th and the Bishop Ford Expy. in Pullman—could be first in line for new Wal-Marts, primarily because they appear to be the paths of least resistance...Newly elected Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd) said she would be willing to talk to Wal-Mart about the site at 47th and State. But she is “not wavering” from her support for the ordinance that would have required Wal-Mart and other big box retailers to pay their employees at least $13 an hour in wages and benefits by 2010.
Chicago-based blog Chicagoist.com has an on-the-ground take on the situation:
According to an unnamed “top official,” the Sun-Times reported yesterday that Wal-Mart is prepared to build as many as five South Side supercenters in six to twelve months, maybe sooner, but is also scouting sites in neighboring wards in case local aldermen resist. “We’re making an active effort to speak with [the local] aldermen. We can’t move forward without them. If it is proven in the near future they’re not interested — maybe they don’t want the controversy or they made commitments to restrict development — we will look for opportunities in adjacent wards. We’ve been approached by [other] aldermen who are very interested,” Roderick Scott, Wal-Mart’s regional manager for community affairs, told the Sun-Time’s Fran Spielman.
In classic Wal-Mart fashion, the company is preparing to employ its nearly patented strong-arm tactics, which when combined with a divide-and-conquer strategy, especially when employed in urban black communities, is incredibly effective. During the last round of fights in the city council over zoning variances and what kind of retail the city will have in underserved neighborhoods, that divide-and-conquer approach spilled over into the aldermanic races, with both Daley and several now unemployed aldermen singing from Wal-Mart’s choir book and calling labor unions in Chicago racist. It’s easy for white liberals on the North Side, who have easy access to jobs, public transportation, and inexpensive, high-quality groceries to wring their hands about the cultural effects of Wal-Mart in the city. And it’s very hard for an alderman like Anthony Beal, who really does have a ward with very few opportunities for shopping to say no to Wal-Mart. The unfortunate aspect of this entire “debate” is that it pits the middle class against the working class, black against white.
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, June 21 | 16 comments | Permalink
ILLINOIS SITE FIGHT: HEADING TO THE INTERNET, AND TRYING TO MAKE IT IN THE CITY
Wal-Mart seeks OK to build 2nd city location [Chicago Tribune]
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said it is looking to open its second city store in a shopping center under construction in the Chatham neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.
The site, at 83rd Street and Stewart Avenue, which once housed a Ryerson Tull Inc. steel plant, has long been considered the most likely location for Wal-Mart’s next store in the city.
“We’re moving forward in the process,” said Roderick Scott, senior manager of public affairs for Wal-Mart in Chicago.
The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer is hoping to get the green light from the city in the next six to 12 months, he said.
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Beth Gostanian on Thursday, June 21 | 0 comments | Permalink
ILLINOIS SITE FIGHT: HEADING TO THE INTERNET, AND TRYING TO MAKE IT IN THE CITY
Wal-Mart faces fight in Vernon Hills [Daily Herald (Ill.)]
One Vernon Hills neighborhood is looking to the Internet in a pending fight against the world’s largest retailer.
David Oppenheim, a resident of The Pointe neighborhood of Gregg’s Landing, has created http://www.stopgreggswalmart.com as a pre-emptive strike against a proposal for a Wal-Mart Supercenter, which is anticipated but yet to be submitted to the village for review.
It’s the latest action in what is becoming an unprecedented response to a commercial development in shopping-rich Vernon Hills.
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Beth Gostanian on Thursday, June 21 | 0 comments | Permalink
Victory in Colorado: Littleton Voters Say NO to New Wal Mart
A vote of Littleton, CO citizens stopped Wal-Mart from building a Supercenter in their town. About 60% of people voted to keep the 187,000 square feet a park. Bentonville probably won’t give up entirely without a fight, but it’s clear: the majority of voting Littleton residents want to keep South Santa Fe Drive Wal-Mart-free.
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, June 20 | 26 comments | Permalink
View Wal-Mart Watch's videos on YouTube