Sacramento, CA. Wal-Mart Ponies Up $4 Million In Unpaid Overtime
Right in the middle of its worst stock plunge in the past year, Wal-Mart generated more bad headlines today with the announcement that once again the giant retailer was paying out millions of dollars to workers who were underpaid. It was announced today that Wal-Mart has agreed to pay more than $3.9 million to about 50,000 of its current and former employees in California, because the company owed them overtime and other wages over a five year period of time. The settlement was negotiated by the California Labor Commission. As part of the settlement, Wal-Mart also will pay $198,900 in civil penalties to the state. This settlement goes back two years ago, when Wal-Mart “voluntarily” notified the state Labor Commissioner that the corporation had made “errors” in its payroll that caused thousands of its workers to be underpaid. The payment errors affected all of Wal-Mart’s California workers from February 1, 2002 through January 19, 2007. The underpayments were connected to overtime and other wages. Wal-Mart at the time promised that it would mend its mistake, and pay the workers what they were owed. “This is a matter we discovered and reported ... and the situation has been corrected,” said a Wal-Mart spokesman. “Everyone who was owed money is being paid with interest and we have added safeguards so that these errors don’t happen again.” According to the :Labor Commissioner, some of the affected workers already have a check in the mail, but some have waited years for what was owed to them.
California’s Labor Commissioner praised Wal-Mart for setting “a positive example for other employers who may be out of compliance, because it illustrates how they can work with us to properly compensate workers as well as meet legal requirements.” According to media reports, 90% of the workers were owed $20 over the past five years. But a little bit of money denied to a lot of workers ends up saving Wal-Mart millions of dollars.
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Posted by Al Norman on Wednesday, August 15 | 0 comments | Permalink
California Wal-Mart Workers who were Underpaid Overtime get their Money
From “Wal-Mart to pay $3.9 mln in back pay in California” [Reuters]
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has agreed to pay more than $3.9 million to about 50,000 current and former employees in California who were underpaid overtime and other wages, the state’s labor commissioner said on Tuesday.
The world’s largest retailer also agreed to pay $198,900 in civil penalties to the state, Labor Commissioner Angela Bradstreet said in a statement.
In 2005, Wal-Mart voluntarily notified the labor commissioner that errors in its payroll processes had led to underpayment of overtime and other wages. It pledged to correct the problem and pay affected workers all they owed.
“This is a matter we discovered and reported ... and the situation has been corrected,” said Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley. “Everyone who was owed money is being paid with interest and we have added safeguards so that these errors don’t happen again.”
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Posted by Web Team on Wednesday, August 15 | 29 comments | Permalink
Perris, CA. Wal-Mart Sued Over Greenhouse Gas Law
Wal-Mart likes to foster the image of an environmentally green company, but its impact on greenhouse gases has attracted a lawsuit in Perris, California. The City of Perris is located in the heart of Southern California, between San Diego and Los Angeles. Perris describes itself as “a fast growing community with prime available land, an able work force and plenty of affordable housing…(with) miles of frontage on Interstate 215.” Some of that prime land was grabbed by Wal-Mart, but now the city’s appetite for sprawl has brought it some legal problems. The city already has a Wal-Mart discount store on North Parris Boulevard, and no less than 13 Wal-Mart’s within 20 miles, including a superstore 16 miles away in San Jacinto. There is easy access to cheap Chinese goods in Perris. A group called The Center for Biological Diversity filed suit late last week, challenging the city’s approval of the Perris Marketplace, a 520,000-square-foot development that includes a 24-hour Wal-Mart Supercenter, and will generate as many as 40,000 daily vehicle trips. The lawsuit challenges the project’s failure to consider measures to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, as required by California law. According to the Center’s press release, “The California Environmental Quality Act, the state’s flagship land-use planning and environmental statute, requires state and local governments to assess and reduce the significant environmental impacts of new projects. Greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming are one of the greatest threats facing Californians’ future, and the law provides an opportunity and a legal mandate for cities to consider options to reduce such emissions and evaluate global warming solutions at a range of scales. ‘The city refused to meaningfully address the greenhouse gas emissions generated by the Wal-Mart Supercenter,’ said Center staff attorney Matt Vespa. ‘Wal-Mart’s public-relations department wants you to believe the company is aggressively fighting global warming, but at the end of the day their project fails to meet even the minimum standards required by California law.’ California is particularly vulnerable to global warming, with projections of temperature increases of 8 to 10.5° F, a 90-percent loss of the Sierra snowpack, 22 to 30 inches of sea-level rise, and a four- to six-fold increase in heat-related deaths in major urban centers by the end of the century. Research indicates that the worst of these impacts can still be avoided, but only if action is taken now to sharply reduce emissions. ‘Wal-Mart is one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas polluters. Its annual greenhouse gas emissions, including its supply chain, are equivalent to almost half of the emissions of the entire state of California,’ said Vespa. ‘It is fundamentally unfair to allow approval of a new Wal-Mart Supercenter without the basic environmental review required by the California Environmental Quality Act.’”
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Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, August 14 | 0 comments | Permalink
Parking Lot Safety Examined
Wal-Mart Wants Outdoor Lighting Issue Reconsidered [Yakima (Wash.) Herald-Republic]
They’re baaack.
Saying it wants to ensure customer safety, Wal-Mart is disputing yet another condition placed on the giant retailer’s plans for a new superstore in the West Valley.
This time the issue is outdoor lighting, which mainly involves the store parking lot but is also a concern to neighbors.
“Right now it’s not well lit, and we all feel that’s very unsafe,” Wal-Mart spokeswoman Jennifer Holder said Friday during a phone call from her regional corporate office in Seattle.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, August 13 | 0 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart Drags Its Feet
Wal-Mart presses on with Snohomish County plans [HeraldNet (Washington)]
The world’s largest retailer is moving along with its plans for more Snohomish County outlets.
Wal-Mart was poised two years ago to saturate Snohomish County with at least four new stores between Arlington and Mill Creek. Rumors flew about additional locations in the area.
Today, the retailer’s added just one store, while two approved sites sit empty and another is tied up in the appeals process.
Wal-Mart’s still coming to more corners of the county, the retailer says, but it’s taking more time than planned.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, August 13 | 0 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart Goes Big on California’s Central Coast
Wal-Mart says ‘Super-size me’ [Pacific Coast Business Times]
From Paso Robles to Ventura, Wal-Mart wants to stock Supercenters on the Central Coast’s shelf of consumer offerings.
None of Wal-Mart’s six locations in the Tri-Counties, including Paso Robles, Arroyo Grande, Santa Maria, Lompoc, Oxnard and Simi Valley currently operates as a “Supercenter,” the company’s largest retail offering.
But Wal-Mart has been making a big push to change that, with hopes to build new stores in Ventura and Atascadero and expand its current site in Paso Robles.
“The interesting piece is that the average superstore in the United States averages 185,000 square feet,” said Aaron Rios, senior manager of public affairs for Wal-Mart. “All three of the projects we are proposing on the Central Coast are significantly underneath that number.”
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, August 13 | 0 comments | Permalink
CALIFORNIA SITE FIGHT: WAL-MART HOPES TO OPEN IN ONE MONTH
Wal-Mart aims for September 19th opening [Vallejo (Calif.) Times-Herald]
AMERICAN CANYON - The legal battle to keep a Wal-Mart Supercenter from opening here is officially over, city officials say.
The final deadline to appeal a Napa judge’s recent decision to let construction resume on the 194,000-square-foot big-box store has passed, ending a years-long journey through the court system.
“There are no legal constraints left to the store’s opening,” City Attorney William Ross said.
Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Losco-toff said the company is targeting Sept. 19 for its first day of business.
“We are certainly excited to be moving forward,” Loscotoff said. “We appreciate the support we received from the American Canyon community and their patience as we pursued the Supercenter.”
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Posted by Beth Gostanian on Friday, August 10 | 0 comments | Permalink
WASHINGTON SITE FIGHT: CONSTRUCTION ON YAKIMA STORE HAS YET TO START
Wal-Mart Construction still hasn’t Started [KNDO-TV (Wash.)]
Wal-Mart did win the war with West Valley residents who are against the store, but the mega-retailer is still awaiting a decision on lighting for the parking lot from the hearing examiner.
A hearing has not been scheduled at this point, but should happen some time in the next few weeks.
The City of Yakima tells us that Wal-Mart still has not applied for any building permits, but are expected to do so once the hearing examiner makes a decision on the lighting requirement for the parking lot.
So assuming that gets resolved without a hitch, then at the earliest, Wal-Mart is still a month and a half away from starting construction.
Posted by Beth Gostanian on Wednesday, August 08 | 0 comments | Permalink
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