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This piece originally appeared at The Huffington Post:

More bad headlines for Wal-Mart, the sexist employer. The company was nailed again by its own employees--this time in Kentucky.

In Wal-Mart’s Annual Report to shareholders there is a two page note simply called “Legal Proceedings.” In it, the company summarizes “a number of legal proceedings” which, “if adversely decided...may result in liability material to the Company’s financial condition or results of operations.” In addition to the well-known collection of wage and hour ‘off the clock’ class action lawsuits, are the gender discrimination lawsuits, including the massive Dukes v. Wal-Mart case which began 9 years ago. Damages sought by the women in the Dukes case could be so large that Wal-Mart admits, “the Company cannot reasonably estimate the possible loss or range of loss that may arise from the litigation.”

Less well known is another lawsuit that was originally filed in the summer of 2001, just two months after the Dukes case. This case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. The lawsuit, EEOC (Janice Smith) v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. was brought by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of Janice Smith and all other women who made application or transfer requests since 1995 at the Wal-Mart distribution center in London, Kentucky, and were not hired or transferred into the warehouse positions for which they applied.

The EEOC sought backpay for these women not selected for hire or transfer, and injunctive relief. According to Wal-Mart, the Kentucky complaint charges that the retailer based its hiring decisions on gender---which is a violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights act. Wal-Mart told his investors that it could not “reasonably estimate the possible loss or range of loss that may arise from this litigation.”

But this week the EEOC helped quantify that loss. The federal agency announced that Wal-Mart had agreed to pay $11.7 million in back wages and compensatory damages, plus its share of employer taxes, and up as much as $250,000 in administration fees.

According to the EEOC, Walmart’s London Distribution Center denied jobs to female applicants from 1998 through February 2005. Wal-Mart hired male entry-level applicants for warehouse positions---but excluded female applicants who were equally or better qualified. Wal-Mart routinely would tell female applicants that order filling positions were not “suitable” for women, and that they hired mostly 18- to 25-year-old men for these positions.

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It’s been a rough few weeks for Sam’s Club employees. First came the announcement that ten Sam’s Club stores would close and the 1,500 employees who worked there could lose their jobs. Then, yesterday, Walmart announced they would be laying off 11,200 workers. Most of those being laid off demonstrate products in the stores. Walmart’s spokesperson made it clear that this wasn’t about the economy, or the employees performance, rather, they were outsourcing the jobs to Shopper Events a company who’s only purpose is to demonstrate products in Walmart stores.

Walmart has suggested that the 10,000 employees they are firing can apply for a job with Shopper Events, who will be hiring roughly 10,000 employees to fill the gap left by the lay off. It sure sounds a lot like Walmart is asking 10,000 of their employees to reapply for their own jobs.

Here’s our official statement:

For Immediate Release: January 25, 2010

Walmart Sam’s Club Lowering Worker and Community Standards

Layoffs Raise Important Questions About Commitment to its Workforce

(Washington, DC) – The following is a statement from Wake Up Walmart: 

Walmart launched another assault on living and working standards in communities across the country yesterday, by laying off more than ten thousand Sam’s Club employees.  The company is outsourcing jobs, many of them part-time, to a company based in Arkansas.

Workers report that Walmart called them into mass meetings where they were offered boxes of tissues and told they were no longer needed by the nation’s largest private employer.

The mass layoffs raise serious questions such as whether or not older and more senior workers were targeted for lay off.  Why hasn’t Walmart made a clearer path to employment with Shopper Events for these 11,000 associates – which they clearly have the power to do?  And for workers hired by the outsourced company, what kind of jobs will Shoppers Events provide to the new applicants?  Why is Walmart telling workers they must agree not to pursue age discrimination claims in order to qualify for severance pay?

Walmart and Sams Club workers seeking additional assistance and answers are encouraged to contact Walmart Workers for Change at 866-587-2299 or log on to http://www.walmartworkersforchange.org/.

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Walmart has had their trouble with wrongful termination in the past. They’ve fired folks for being disabled, or being in the military, or any number of other reasons, but this is the first I’ve heard of someone being fired simply for being of a particular faith.

It seems Mohammed Zakaria Memon was working as a consultant at Walmart Headquarters. As a practicing Muslim, he would take a few quick breaks throughout the day to pray. As part of his prayer, he would perform a short ritual called the “wazu”, which entails washing before prayer. Apparently, though, the people at Walmart headquarters didn’t like Mr. Memon sprinkling water on himself and complained. That’s when the company he worked for pulled him from the project and then fired him for poor performance, despite only good reviews in previous projects.

The whole situation is pretty sad. There is no reason that someone should lose their job because of their identity, and it seems pretty clear this was about identity. It wasn’t about the time lost during work, because it was only a few five minute breaks a day, and when the complaints started, it was suggested that he go to his hotel (thirty minutes away) to pray. It shows a basic lack of respect at Walmart’s corporate headquarters.

You can read the article here.

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Each week, our speak out website continues to be resource for employees around the country. The daily stories, commentary, and input from these people provides inspiration for other employees to discuss the company’s unfair policies.

This week, we received numerous heart wrenching, outrageous, and shameful stories that will surely make your blood boil. This week’s stories include discrimination, the move to part-time status, overworked associates, and the bogus claim that Wal-Mart is helping communities.

Our first story comes to us from an anonymous worker in Texas who witnessed discrimination against a disabled associate…

I work for a Wal-Mart store in Texas. I was made aware of a situation involving a mildly mentally disabled worker and a new district manager with a reported ‘zero tolerance’ towards disabled employees. This particular disabled employee has been a loyal and hard-working asset to our store for many years now. One day I realized that I had not seen this employee for a couple of weeks and asked around the store to see if anyone knew where he was. I was told by multiple store employees that he had been forced to leave his daytime shift and go overnights by the new district manager because he was not ‘the face’ that he wanted to represent Wal-Mart. This particular disabled employee was given no reason or choice in regard to this decision. Needless to say, he was extremely disturbed by this course of action.

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In today’s Wall Street Journal, Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus acknowledges he sees in the retiring Justice David Souter a jurist with a “moderate or restrained record” – one which plaintiffs’ lawyers and unions would hope to avoid in a replacement. Earlier today President Obama announced his nominee to replace Justice Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court – Sonia Sotomayor, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit – and the question now: Is this a good thing for businesses like Wal-Mart?

The primary reason for asking this question at this time is because there exists the very real possibility that at some point in the relatively near future, Wal-Mart’s lawyers will be defending their client before the very Court that Judge Sotomayor is being nominated to.

Just two months ago, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals re-heard en banc arguments in the well-traveled Dukes v. Wal-Mart sex discrimination case – plaintiffs are hoping the full court will affirm a previous Ninth Circuit decision that upheld the lawsuit’s ability to proceed as a class action. If that happens, Wal-Mart will have two options – accept the decision and proceed to trial, or appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Should Wal-Mart come out on the short end of the Ninth Circuit and find itself in front of the Supreme Court, Sotomayor could be the newest of the nine justices the company will have to convince in order to have Dukes’ class action status removed. Judge Sotomayor’s voting record is now being parsed, and certainly as the vetting process moves forward, we’ll learn more about what kind of effect she could have on a potential Dukes decision. Most view her record as decidedly moderate, though she has implied in the past that the gender and ethnicity of judges should and does influence their judicial decision-making.

As a woman and a minority, could this be a bad omen for Wal-Mart? We’ll see...until then, however, we’ll have to make do with some of her career highlights, which you can find after the jump…

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Wal-Mart has made no secret how badly it wants to sell products to Latin America and Hispanics living in the U.S.

It has opened several Hispanic-themed stores in the U.S. and bragged that it has cornered the Hispanic market more than other racial demographics. It is aggressively expanding in Central and South America. Wal-Mart even sponsored a “Latino Summit” last week.

Unfortunately, the company can’t seem to get its house in order at home. As you read here last week, the EEOC is currently suing Wal-Mart management in California for allowing its Latino employees to be addressed with racial slurs like ‘wetback.’ And this is hardly the first case of racial discrimination that Wal-Mart has seen. A quick sampling of the some of the others from our research files:

Hernandez v. Sam’s East, filed 12/7/2007 (case ended in settlement)
Plaintiff is Hispanic and was constantly belittled and harassed because of it. She was the only Hispanic at the store - worked as Manager of the Optical Department. She complained about the harassment and was fired.

Hernandez v. Wal-Mart Asspciates, filed 10/10/2008 (case was still open as of recently)
Plaintiff is a Hispanic woman who worked in the automotive department - she was told that females should be greeters, and was fired when she complained of harassment.

Marek v. Wal-Mart, filed 2/1/2008 (case was still open as of recently)
Plaintiff’s manager harassed her for being Hispanic. She complained about her treatment, and was fired for moving payroll hours - something her manager told her to do.

Sagastume v. Wal-Mart Stores East, filed 6/4/2008 (case was still open)
Plaintiff’s salary was cut, and she was denied requests for transfer or promotion while non-Hispanic managers received both. She was also ordered not to hire Hispanic employees.

It’s more of the same from Wal-Mart: a glossy new image, but the same old business. Will the Hispanic community buy it?

The following post by Al Norman was originally posted on the Battlemart Blog and at Huffington Post:

Al Norman: Wal-Mart’s ‘Wetback’ Problem [Huffington Post]:

The Wal-Mart corporation has been carefully nurturing its image as a strong supporter of the Latino community in America, opening stores designed for Latino shoppers, and hosting economic summits for Latino businesses. So it was especially embarrassing for the corporation to find itself in the national headlines late last week as the target of a lawsuit filed on behalf of its own Latino workers.

On May 7, 2009, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), representing Hispanic employees at a Sam’s Club in Fresno, California, filed a lawsuit against Wal-Mart, charging that the workers had been subjected to a hostile work environment. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court, alleging that Sam’s Club managers allowed their Latino workers to be verbally harassed repeatedly, including the use of derogatory words against workers of Mexican origin, like ‘wetback.’

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OBAMA ESTATE TAX CHANGES TO CURB WALTON FAMILY WEALTH?

• Changes Proposed to Estate Tax Techniques [Wall Street Journal]
  One particular strategy the Obama administration wants to rein in has allowed some wealthy families to pass on tens of millions of dollars to their heirs free of gift and estate taxes, especially since the Internal Revenue Service in 2000 lost a high-profile legal challenge. In that case, the IRS challenged a trust set up by Audrey Walton, ex-wife of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. co-founder Bud Walton. She used a vehicle, known as a grantor-retained annuity trust, or GRAT, that potentially allows the grantor of a trust to pass on much of the appreciation of an asset to heirs free of gift tax.
  

WAL-MART SPONSORING 'LATINO SUMMIT'...

• Latino Economic Summit Website Launched to Serve as Resource Center for Latino Businesses [Latino Economic Summit Press Release]
  The Summit was sponsored by Wal-Mart and LATINO Magazine and gathered over 180 Latino business and community leaders who had key opportunities to have one-on-one dialogue with the panelists and revealed opportunities for Latino businesses to thrive in the midst of the ongoing economic turmoil.
  

...WHILE BEING SUED BY THE EEOC FOR DISCRIMINATION AGAINST HISPANICS

• Al Norman: Wal-Mart's 'Wetback' Problem [Huffington Post]
  The Wal-Mart corporation has been carefully nurturing its image as a strong supporter of the Latino community in America, opening stores designed for Latino shoppers, and hosting economic summits for Latino businesses.
  

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It’s been almost two weeks since the news broke that Mike Duke signed an anti-gay petition in Arkansas. And unsurprisingly, the internet community isn’t forgetting. The scandal doesn’t appear to be going anywhere.

The right wing, socially conservative agenda of Wal-Mart’s executive management and controlling family is no secret. But as Wal-Mart moves in to the 2ist century is it clearly trying to project a softer, more friendly image. Its spending millions to portray itself as a progressive “green” company. Likewise, it is banking on entering dense urban centers like New York, L.A. and Chicago—all cities with high LGBT populations.

We’d venture to say that this publicity isn’t helping those efforts.

(In related news, a conservative group in Arkansas is trying to push a law to block petition-signers information being revealed in the future after knowthyneighbor.org posted the list of anti-gay adoption signers two weeks ago.)

Check out a sample of what’s been flying around the blogosphere over the last week:

Another Reason to Skip Wal-Mart [L.A. Progressive]
The CEO of Wal-Mart, just like Mormons, can exercise his right to free speech and expression however he sees fit. I too have that right — and will exercise it by refusing to give the company that pays him my business and by saying so.

It’s Been A While Since I’ve Railed On Wal-Mart [Begging 4 Attention]
We also now know the new CEO of Wal-Mart, Mike Duke, has signed an anti-gay marriage petition in his residence state of Arkansas. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and everyone else is entitled to not shop at Wal-Mart. Here’s how I fight back: I shop at Target.

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A new lawsuit has been filed by the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) against Wal-Mart.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claims some Hispanic employees at a Fresno Sam’s Club were subjected to a hostile work environment. The suit filed yesterday in U.S. District Court against parent company Wal-Mart Stores Inc. alleges that managers failed to stop repeated verbal harassment, including the use of derogatory words, against employees of Mexican origin.

The EEOC attempted to reach a settlement, but when an agreement could not be reached, a lawsuit was filed. The EEOC filed two lawsuits against the company in 2008, and settled two more. The current suit is seeking compensatory and punitive damages and the creation of a formal complaint procedure.

EEOC sues Fresno Sam’s Club on behalf of Latinos [San Jose Mercury News]

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To anyone who has read this blog, Wal-Mart’s conservative Republican agenda is no secret. For years, the Walton family and company execs have used their power and money to advance a political agenda that is almost always at odds with their associates and customers.

Over the weekend, the website knowthyneighbor.org revealed that Mike Duke signed a petition to put an anti-gay adoption ban on the ballot in Arkansas. (Mike Duke’s signature below was pulled off the actual PDF provided by the Secretary of State.)

We still don’t know a huge amount about Mike Duke. We know that he has donated to conservative, uber-religious Republicans like Mike Huckabee and John Boozman - as well as John McCain for President in 2008. We know that he has never shown that his political agenda is out of line with the Waltons - who selected him to succeed Lee Scott as the 4th CEO of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Why does this matter? Because the extreme right-wing agenda of the Walton Family and company executives permeates the entire company.

This is a company who’s executives dressed up in drag and mocked women at a national meeting. This is a company that has repeatedly cowed to religious groups who urged them to pull support from any LGBT organizations. This is a company who has a slew of sexual discrimination cases against it, and was labeled “do not buy” by the Human Rights Campaign for its treatment of its LGBT associates.

It’s an unfortunate trend - for those of us who hoped Mike Duke might start to lead Wal-Mart in a different direction, and for Wal-Mart execs who won’t find this publicity helpful in their quest to expand their universe of customers. 

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Between chronic cataracts and glaucoma, he’s been sightless since birth. Yet every weekday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. at a Wal-Mart in Metro Detroit, you can see Norris Hull (pictured, right) handle the switchboard, ride herd on managers, make announcements and show customers to the dressing rooms - counting by touch to make sure how many items they’re taking in.

Norris Hull’s story would, in the best of worlds, serve not one but two purposes. It is, of course, a much-needed feel good story - especially when that story is written by a Detroit newspaper serving a still proud but mightily struggling community. It isn’t that we have to be smiling anytime we read about someone overcoming adversity to be a positive influence on his/her community, but we are nonetheless, especially when we read passages like this:

What raises eyebrows is how he affects the people around him—the co-workers who watch out for him when he’s walking the aisles, the customers who call him by name, the managers such as Whigham-Johnson, who tells him, “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

But more important then the smiles and warm fuzzies we take from Norris’s story is the lesson that Wal-Mart takes. We’ve documented case after case of Wal-Mart forcing disabled employees off the schedule by requiring them to take medical leave. The company has been in trouble in the past for seeking disability-related information on job applications, and last year the EEOC filed two lawsuits within weeks of each other for discrimination under the ADA. What someone really needs to do is take the story of Norris Hull and send it to each and every Wal-Mart executive and store manager in the United States, to remind them to take a hard look at every applicant and employee that crosses their path and judge them on their ability and potential, not their disabilities.

“I like to laugh. I like living,” he says. Sometimes he’ll dream that he can drive a car, but when he wakes up he hops back on the MetroLift bus, and that’s fine...He’s not out to be anybody’s inspiration, he says; he’s simply carrying on the best way he can. When duty calls, you answer.

He may not aim to be anyone’s inspiration, but if he inspires Wal-Mart management to view their employees with with open mind, that certainly counts as a good step in our book.

Blind man shows coworkers that sight isn’t prerequisite to job well done [Detroit News]

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Last week we told you that we’ve been hearing from more and more workers who want a union. We wrote how many in mainstream media will naturally tend to look at this story as big Union vs. Company. But that’s not the real story - the real story is the workers on the ground who are desperate for change.

Today, Wal-Mart Workers for Change released this great new video which tells the real stories of Wal-Mart workers around the country who are fighting to join together for better treatment from their employer.

Like Aubretia Edick and dozens of others on walmartspeakout.com, these workers had the courage to stand up and tell their story on camera. We wish them the best - and will continue fighting to pass the Employee Free Choice Act so that it can more easily become a reality.

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This was actually a little nugget turned up by The Writing on the Wal - the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund has filed a friend of the court brief supporting the plaintiffs in a historic, nationwide sex-discrimination lawsuit filed against Wal-Mart Stores.

They filed their brief before the Ninth Circuit heard arguments in Wal-Mart’s en banc appeal last week. A snippet from the Wichita NAACP blog:

LDF argued in its friend-of-the-court brief that accepting Wal-Mart’s position is not only bad policy, but also would be a radical rewriting of civil rights law. “When Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the clear intent was to expand protections against workplace discrimination by extending the remedies available to victims of intentional discrimination to include money damages. Wal-Mart is attempting to undermine those protections,” said John Payton, LDF President and Director-Counsel.

LDF was joined on the brief by a broad coalition of civil rights non-profits, including the Asian American Justice Center, Latino Justice, PRLDEF, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Legal Momentum, NAACP, National Partnership for Women & Families, National Women’s Law Center, and Women Employed.

We’ll most likely be waiting for quite a bit of time while the Ninth Circuit decides whether to reverse its previous decision that allowed Dukes v. Wal-Mart to proceed as a class action. Still, it’s impressive to see such a broad group of civil rights groups stand up on the side of Betty Dukes.

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At 5 p.m. this afternoon, Eastern Standard Time, Wal-Mart will try for a third time to halt the Dukes v. Wal-Mart sex discrimination lawsuit, as a panel of 11 judges from the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear Wal-Mart’s latest attempt to stop this case from moving forward as a class action.

On initial review, the Ninth Circuit voted 2-1 to allow the case to proceed to trial as a class action. Wal-Mart appealed, however, and just about a month ago the federal court agreed to rehear the case en banc - that is, a hearing where all judges of a court will hear the case, rather than just a panel of three. In this Marketplace story, attorney on each side give their opinions as to why the case should (or should not) proceed:

Ted Boutros (Wal-Mart): We have a tradition in this country that individuals get their day in court. Class actions are an exception to that that need to be used carefully so as not to defeat people’s rights.

Debra Smith (Equal Rights Advocates): It’s exactly the type of case that the federal judiciary envisioned being a class action. It’s David versus Goliath, you know, it’s classic.

As of right now you can check out the en banc status page of the Ninth Circuit for updates. A California Legal blog, the UCL Practitioner, is providing updates as well, and has provided this nice tip:

This morning’s Daily Journal reports on the upcoming argument and provides the names of the eleven judges on the en banc panel...According to the article, seven were appointed by Democratic presidents.

So there you go, seven out of eleven judges on the panel appointed by Democrats...take that for what you may. And we’ve already learned which side the EEOC and the Obama Administration are pulling for. We’ll keep you updated as we find out more on the hearing.

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THE Wal-Mart lawsuit - Dukes v. Wal-Mart, the largest discrimination class action in U.S. history - now has a new advocate. And let’s just say, it’s kind of a big one.

The federal government (through the EEOC, or Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) had to this point elected not to get involved in the Dukes lawsuit. Yesterday, however, despite retaining many holdovers from the Bush Administration, the Commission finally threw it’s opinion into the ring. The EEOC filed an Amicus Brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, saying it was filing the brief because “this court’s resolution of issues relating to punitive damages and back pay in class cases may directly affect the commission’s enforcement of Title VII” of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, “particularly its systemic litigation.” The staff in charge of deciding whether to intervene in the Dukes case is currently made up of two Democrats and two Republicans.

“If Wal-Mart’s arguments were accepted, it could effectively preclude a claim for punitive damages in most if not all Title VII pattern-or-practice cases including those brought by the Commission,” the EEOC wrote.

The EEOC isn’t actually taking a stand on the merits of the case itself - the Commission is only supporting the class action moving forward, deeming the issue important enough to its functions to intervene and assert its voice.

“If Wal-Mart’s arguments were accepted, it could effectively preclude a claim for punitive damages in most if not all Title VII pattern-or-practice cases including those brought by the Commission,” EEOC Attorney Barbara Sloan wrote. “It would be ‘nonsensical’ to prevent victims of particularly egregious discrimination from proceeding collectively.”

Needless to say, attorneys for plaintiffs welcomed the news, while Wal-Mart’s legal team and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce were less than pleased. The EEOC news comes about a month after the Ninth Circuit announced it would re-hear the class action certification decision en banc - when one party requests an hearing en banc, it means they are requesting a hearing where all judges of a court will hear the case, rather than a panel of them. That hearing is currently scheduled for March 24.

Obama Administration Sides With Wal-Mart Workers [Bloomberg]

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Plaintiffs in Dukes v. Wal-Mart continue to count on the testimony of former Wal-Mart executive vice president Thomas Coughlin - he who has been convicted of embezzling $411,218 from the company - to help buoy its sex discrimination class action. This according to a rather choppy and meandering article from the Madison County Record in Illinois. Nothing really new here, but the piece does include a time-line of events leading up to the current status of the Dukes case.

Coughlin is currently under house arrest - his defense attorneys successfully argued that prison time could kill him considering his poor health. You can read more on Coughlin here and more on the Dukes case here.

Lawyers in $11 billion Wal-Mart case counting on embezzler’s testimony [Madison County Record]

SAN FRANCISCO - Retailer Wal-Mart stands strong while other businesses fall, but class action lawyers aim to knock it down with an $11 billion lawsuit.

Their star witness, former Wal-Mart executive vice president Thomas Coughlin, earned their respect by embezzling $411,218 from his employers.

Coughlin spent 27 months in home confinement and remains on probation.

Lawyers at the nonprofit Impact Fund in Berkeley and associates around the nation count on Coughlin to swear that Wal-Mart discriminated against female workers.

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From IPS (Inter Press Service): When a woman was interviewed for a job at a local Wal-Mart in the Mexican capital, the first thing she was asked was whether she was pregnant – a question she did not know at the time was illegal.

The woman, who goes by the fictional name of Paulina, is just one of many cases IPS cites in describing the growing problem in Mexico of discriminatory behavior towards women.

“I had to present a certificate of my state of health to get the job,” Paulina tells IPS in the parking lot of one of the U.S. retail giant’s stores in Mexico City. Paulina’s case is an illustration of the persistence of discriminatory practices that violate the labour rights of women in Mexico, even though they represent 42 percent of the workforce in Latin America’s second-biggest economy.

In the U.S. under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, pregnant women cannot be treated differently than other workers experiencing a temporary disability. In effect, they are treated as being temporarily disabled under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and are therefore subject to certain protections. And despite that fact, Wal-Mart has still been the subject of numerous disability-related lawsuits, many of which we have documented here. Several years ago, Wal-Mart was forced to settle with the EEOC after the company failed to hire a woman based on her pregnancy. In Mexico, however, there aren’t nearly the protections that exist here to the north - and a recent report by the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Project has focused on Wal-Mart in particular:

The report, “Lo barato sale caro: violaciones a los derechos humanos laborales en Wal-Mart México” (roughly, “cheap is costly: violations of labour and human rights in Wal-Mart Mexico"), concluded that the corporation violates rights in terms of wages, health, security, hours, overtime pay and labour benefits. It also blocks the creation of trade unions under the argument that its employees are considered “associates...” One of the authors of the report, PRODESC researcher Shaila Toledo, pointed out that women workers suffer discrimination and exploitation, such as being required to take a pregnancy test before they are hired, and being bypassed for promotion.

With Dukes v. Wal-Mart slowly moving forward here in the U.S., this doesn’t speak well for Wal-Mart’s claim to be changing its ways in North America.

LABOUR-MEXICO: “They First Asked if I Was Pregnant” [IPS]

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The speak out stories keep rolling in. Our latest entry comes from a New Jersey department manager. From low wages to managerial abuse to recalled products, things don’t seem to be going well at this Garden State store. Read the story below for a full account.

“I am a department manager at a NJ store and in every single morning meeting (which are held on the sales floor in front of customers); we are yelled at for whatever the “catch of the day” is. We have a skeleton staff because they are firing and cutting hours. We are now being verbally abused each morning. Also, during the day, managers are screaming at us to go unload trucks, get carts from the parking or run registers over the walkies.

All the customers hear everything that is said to us in the meetings and over the walkies. No one lives above the poverty level. You have to take 2 days off to be paid for one sick day. A scam if you asked me. You have to work for nine, not eight hours because management will force you to take an unpaid lunch hour. The benefits are expensive and awful. There are mice and cats running around and if the customers knew where the food sat before it went out on the floor, they would not shop there. In addition, nothing is made in the USA – everything is made in China and the quality is very poor. We now have a huge number of recalls due to lead being in a lot of products and appliances being recalled for overheating or leaking dangerous fumes. We at our store have notified the ethics department because we cannot handle the abusive harassment anymore.

The store manager does not want any more women managers. He said women are the troublemakers. The open door policy is a joke, if you have something you need to address with them it comes back to bite you. We get no cost of living raises and the most you can get once a year is .60/hour. That is the most and they are not giving that anymore. Almost 50% of our store is now out looking for another job. Most are going to give Target a try. Please as a consumer, do not shop at Wal-Mart, it is not a USA minded company and the products are overpriced and inferior and some are dangerous.”

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Wal-Mart picked a fitting time to settle a major class action lawsuit over racial discrimination against African-Americans.

The blogosphere has been bubbling lately over Wal-Mart’s heavy handed exploitation of Black History Month. Nothing celebrates black culture and history like buying a Coke at Wal-Mart, right?

The Wal-Mart ad team might have gotten a little savvier than they once were, but this month’s Black History push still has the old embarrassing flavors that we’re accustomed to. Most notably - Wal-Mart has decked out its entire myspace page (see pic above) in black history, and it was caught yesterday recycling last year’s stock photography in a black history ad. 

Not that we’re too surprised that Wal-Mart is using every opportunity to peddle its kumbaya PR. The Wal-Mart ad team must have seen a world of possibility in this year’s Black History month. America just elected our first African-American President, with whom Wal-Mart is looking to make a good impression - (not to mention the makeup work it needs to do after telling its employees not to vote for him.) At the same time, Wal-Mart is using the recession to redouble its efforts to crack the urban and African-American markets - most notably Chicago - that have once rejected it.

But has Wal-Mart been a good thing for African-American communities? Wal-Mart has always been owned and operated by white men, and has long history of racial and gender discrimination. It’s real: we see these cases, and hear these stories all the time. Moreover, the company has driven down wages and benefits and pushed untold thousands of local retailers out of business - perpetuating an economic race to the bottom that by any measure hurts America’s lower and middle classes the hardest.

Feminist Musings posts a nice rant:

We can just ignore all of the poor workers of colour that are being underpaid and exploited, as we stroll pass the greeters with huge smiles on our faces.  Don’t stop and think for one moment about the fact that most black owned businesses are small and that Walmart makes a concerted effort to bring about the closure of every single mom and pop business the minute it opens up a new store. Let’s pretend that the opening up of a Walmart does not immediately drive down the price of commercial property, thus making it nearly impossible for small business owners to even sell what is left of their businesses at a reasonable rate. 

Will it pay off for Wal-Mart?

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Wal-Mart is trying to clear out its legal closet by buying off scores of “old” lawsuits brought by its own workers that have been sitting on the racks for years. This week, a judge in Colleton County, South Carolina approved a Wal-Mart settlement in a $49 million class action lawsuit---one of as many as 76 similar wage and hour class action lawsuits filed across America against the nation’s largest private employer.

Wal-Mart has the largest selection of lawsuits of any retailer in American history. The South Carolina case, known as Carter v. Wal-Mart, was originally filed roughly six years ago. In a prepared statement approved by Wal-Mart, the lawyers representing the plaintiffs said, “We are pleased with the preliminary approval of the settlement by the Court. We hope that Wal-Mart’s industry-leading compliance model will set an example for the retail industry.” As part of the settlement, Wal-Mart agreed to continue to maintain electronic systems, surveys, and notices that will protect the rights of workers. “This lawsuit was filed years ago and the allegations are not representative of the company we are today,” a Wal-Mart spokesperson said in a press released dated February 18, 2009. “Our policy is to pay associates for every hour worked and to make rest and meal breaks available. This is a commitment we make to the more than 1.4 million associates who choose to work for Wal-Mart and serve our customers and members every day. We have worked hard to have the right communication, processes, and systems in place to help ensure we live up to this commitment.”

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