Canada’s high court, looking festive after the holiday season, is back to its full compliment of 9 judges. The court has been a judge down for six months now, ever since the retirement of Judge Michel Bastarache. Thomas Cromwell, a Nova Scotia judge, will fill out the Court, which will return to session this month.
Among the cases on their docket? Weighing Wal-Mart’s claim that it did not close a Jonquière, Que., store in order to crush a fledgling union, an issue that came up again late last year.
Wal-Mart employees laid off in Jonquière in 2005 are to have their case against the U.S. retailer heard Jan. 19. The workers claim the giant retailer killed their jobs after they exercised their Charter right to organize themselves into a collective bargaining unit in 2004. Shortly after the workers certified a union to represent them – the first successful union drive at a Wal-Mart outlet in North America – the company closed the store, citing financial reasons, putting 190 employees on the street.
A loss for Wal-Mart certainly won’t look good for the company as it fights to slow progress of the Employee Free Choice Act south of the Canada border...meaning, here. As we noted a couple days ago, Wal-Mart already appears to be doing anything it can to resolve issues that might come back to haunt the company in the EFCA fight - such as settling its vast array of wage and hour cases.
Supreme Court set to tackle Wal-Mart case [Toronto Star]
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
On Monday, Lee Scott is scheduled to give the keynote address to the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) national convention. Afterwards, he’ll do a question and answer
session with the CFO of the NRF on Monday, and they’re looking for people like you to submit questions.
On February 1st, Lee Scott is out the door and will be replaced by Mike Duke. This is undoubtedly the last chance you’ll have for something like this. Let’s ask him about his record at Wal-Mart and ensure that he doesn’t get a series of softball questions.
Questions are due by tomorrow, and can submitted via the link above - which sends them to
Good luck, we hope yours gets picked!
Posted by Media Team | Permalink
A pair of stories - infant formula in Texas and continuing tax issues in Connecticut.
First, from Texas. Texas Wal-Marts are asking customers to check the dates on any infant formula sold within the state, after the office of the Attorney General learned that the retail giant had been selling expired product. There doesn’t appear to be a lawsuit on the horizon...the AG’s office simply asked Wal-Mart to remove the expired formula from shelves, inform customers, and make restitution. That most likely means refunds, but state penalties are not out of the question either.
The second story comes from Connecticut, where the neverending double taxation story has gotten life breathed back into it yet again. Here is our most recent post on the subject. And this, from the Hartford Courant:
Sue Drobinski of New Britain says that despite Wal-Mart entering into an agreement to follow state laws on taxes involving even exchanges, its employees in New Britain are not following the law.
I sent her email to state Consumer Protection Commissioner Jerry Farrell Jr. this morning, who has responded that his legal department will contact Wal-Mart to bring up this and other similar complaints.
Read on for more on both stories…
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
Life in the minority isn’t easy. When you’re in the minority and a recipient of threats and abuse because of your minority status, life gets even harder. But when you bring these issues and concerns for your own safety to the attention of your employer, and they do nothing, thats called the tipping point.
And so it was for Louay Kezy, a Michigan man who has filed a $12 million lawsuit against Wal-Mart after being on the receiving end of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab abuse at work. Kezy’s attorney, Nabih Ayad, relayed Kezy’s story to the Detroit News:
“They demeaned him, harassed him, called him names. They accused him of being a terrorist,” Ayad said. “Supervisors ordered him to do jobs that were unrelated to his duties. They allowed a joke, a game to continue where co-workers would toss a ball near him and pretend it was a grenade, a bomb. Wal-Mart allowed this hostile environment to continue and they fired him when he complained.”
Dearborn, Michigan, has a very large Arab and Muslim population, and with that in mind Wal-Mart opened an experimental store there in March which offers a special line of products geared toward the Arab American and American Muslim communities in the Metro Detroit area. Unfortunately, the same respect shown to customers may be missing with regards to employees.
“It is absurd that his supervisors think they can take this action against an Arab American without consequences right in the middle of the largest Arab community outside of the Middle East,” Ayad said. “That Wal-Mart can take their money as consumers but allow an Arab employee to be abused is absurd.”
This is a refrain we’ve heard all too often. Issues of discrimination within Wal-Mart seem to follow the company like paparazzi on Britney Spears.
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
Another one bites the dust: 150 associates in Hull, Quebec are the most recent Wal-Mart workers to unionize.
Congrats to UFCW and Wal-Mart’s Canadian Workforce. The pace at which stores are being unionized now entirely changes the ballgame. Over the past few years, Wal-Mart has been able to shut down a few unionized stores here and there with little consqequence other than bad press. But with stores becoming more rapidly unionized, this won’t be so easy. At a minimum, if Wal-Mart does choose to shutter every unionized store, it’s going to take a major bite of it’s Canadian business and growth plan for the future.
Another Wal-Mart unionized in Quebec [UFCW Press Release]:
HULL, QUE., NEWS RELEASE--(Marketwire - Dec. 18, 2008) -
Over 150 Wal-Mart workers in Hull, Que., have become the ninth group of Canadian “associates” to join the country’s largest private-sector union after a Dec. 17 decision by the Quebec Labour Board awarded bargaining rights for the Hull location to the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada (UFCW Canada).
“After nine times, the message coming from Wal-Mart workers in Canada to Wal-Mart executives in Bentonville, Arkansas, couldn’t be louder or clearer: Canadian Wal-Mart workers want to be union members,” says UFCW Canada National President Wayne Hanley.
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Posted by Eric Bull | Permalink
We thought this story was over last week when Wal-Mart fessed up to charging illegal sales tax in Connecticut. We were wrong.
The Hartford Courant is reporting that, despite acknowledging the wrongdoing and vowing to change its ways when it comes to double-charging sales tax, the message has yet to filter down to, you know, the people that matter. Namely, employees. The following is an excerpt from a letter submitted to the Courant:
I find it absolutely incredible that no salesperson knew the “corrected” policy. I hope the assistant manager refunded my sales tax because she really knew it was the right thing to do, or if she just did it to please the customer. In any case, I’m happy I got my money back. Of course, it’s not the money, it was the principal of the whole thing. I’m still amazed at the whole thing and it has “tainted” my thoughts of their store and my willingness to continue shopping there.
I’d say this was a one-time deal, and we’ll never read about these sales tax shenanigans again. But…
The Courant has forwarded the complaint to the Connecticut Consumer Protection Commission.
Despite promise of reform, Wal-Mart still violating Connecticut tax laws [Hartford Courant]
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
We’ve covered Wal-Mart’s wage and hour (and overtime) issues many times over, culminating with last week’s $54 million settlement in Minnesota. We all get that Wal-Mart would prefer its employees work through breaks. And we certainly know that when it comes to paying employees for overtime, well, Wal-Mart would prefer that be optional.
California wage laws are, not surprisingly, fairly strict. And now, with that state facing a financial shortfall, the LA Times is reporting that business groups and GOP lawmakers are using wage and hour law as a bargaining chip in negotiations over how to fix a $14.8-billion hole in the state budget. The argument is that state laws like those in California - the ones mandating breaks for workers working at least 6 hours in succession, and requiring an employer to pay time-and-a-half once a worker has worked more than 8 hours in day - are expensive for employers to follow and force them to flee the state for friendlier confines. Places where breaks are voluntary [for the employer] and overtime exists only in a fantasy dreamland.
Not surprisingly, California Democrats and labor officials in the state disagree.
Employers’ latest efforts to tie both the meal break and overtime issue to contentious budget negotiations are aimed at reversing basic worker rights, said Art Pulaski, executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation.
“It’s about trying to help Wal-Mart and other big corporations get away from the long-established understanding that people should get a meal break at work” or be paid extra for extra hours, Pulasksi said.
“This has nothing to do with the budget or stimulating the economy,” said Barry Broad, a lobbyist for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and other labor unions. “It doesn’t help the economy to lower 20 million people’s wages during a recession.”
It has been suggested that if state lawmakers can’t come to a consensus and close out these budget negotiations, a state government shutdown in the spring is a distinct possibility.
Overtime pay, rest breaks become bargaining chips in state budget crisis [LA Times]
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
An employee just wrote in to tell us that her/his Wal-Mart store is now claiming to take employee safety more seriously. ‘Safety Managers’ from Bentonville were touring the store and watching workers all day, and all employees were required to attend a mandatory meeting where safety guidelines were read. Apparently management wasn’t trying to hide the fact that this was all motivated by the company’s exposure over the Damour tragedy in New York.
The best line is at the bottom: the store manager insisted that paying for management to fly all over the country and read aloud the company’s already existing safety guidelines is proof the company cares so much about the workers.
Even thought the he/she clearly doesn’t believe Wal-Mart is making an honest attempt to create a safer workplace, we’d encourage any attempt by Wal-Mart to better protect its workers - even if it unfortunately had to a take tragedy to make it happen.
Read the whole thing:
I just wanted to update you on the steps Walmart is taking to minimize the fallout from Black Friday. When I went in on Monday, there was a note beside the time-clock about a mandatory “safety meeting.” Mandatory meetings are very rare because if they happen to fall on a person’s day off, then that person will receive overtime when they clock in for this meeting if they have been scheduled for 40 hours. We were also told that safety managers from the Home Office would be touring the store and observing all day. They were at our store all day, and management (especially the Loss Prevention Manager), were nearly spastic. They kept reminding us to work safely, keep all the exits clear and to be sure and speak to every customer that was within 10 feet of us. (Sam Walton had the 10 foot rule.)
I went to the meeting this morning. All the store manager did was read a several page document that was given to him by the District Manager. There was nothing new or different about the information. It was all the same old spiel that we have heard countless times about cleaning up spills promptly, safe use of ladders, safe lifting procedures, etc. However, he kept stressing over and over that Walmart cared about our well-being and safety and even said that he couldn’t stress this enough…since we are super-busy this time of year, I was sitting there thinking that this whole thing was a colossal waste of time and wondered why in the world Walmart would issue a mandatory meeting, when we were needed to be on the floor with customers and keeping stocked. Then, at the very end of the meeting when he had stressed for about the 4th or 5th time how much Walmart cared about us, he brought up the incident in New York. That’s when I did a mental “Ah-ha!” That’s why they are supposedly so worried about us. He mentioned that the worker was a temporary worker and that the whole situation had been mishandled. Then, to make a point about Walmart really caring for us, he told us that Walmart had gone to great expense to fly all the District Managers around the country for meetings so the expense alone should tell us that Walmart really cared about our well-being. He also said that they had come up with the pages he read to us at those meetings. Walmart really cares about us and can prove it by paying out a ton of money flying upper management all over the U.S. Really?? I would be more convinced they cared if they offered me a decent health care plan...............but what do I know?
--Anonymous
Posted by Media Team | Permalink
subrogation - n. assuming the legal rights of a person for whom expenses or a debt has been paid.
Subrogation, and the story of former Wal-Mart employee Debbie Shank, broke into the news with a vengeance just a little over one year ago after Wal-Mart Watch brought her story to the attention of the Wall Street Journal. A collision with a semi-trailer truck eight years ago left Debbie Shank permanently brain-damaged and in a wheelchair. Hoping to help cover Debbie’s nursing home costs, her husband Jim sued the trucking company that hit her. The family won a modest settlement, after which Jim received a call from Wal-Mart’s attorneys. Wal-Mart’s health plan, through a little-known clause in its health plan, sued the Shanks for the $470,000 it had spent on her medical care, and a federal judge ruled in Wal-Mart’s favor. And hence, the issue of subrogation and the Shanks became a national story in both print and broadcast media across the country.
The story ends, or at least has settled, on a more positive note. On April 1, 2008, Wal-Mart dropped all pending litigation against the Shank family. Thanks in part to the hundreds of people who wrote in to the company, as well of the contribution of many major news outlets, Debbie’s family will keep the money currently being held in trust for her future care, though how long that will last remains to be seen.
The story has now added another chapter, however. Individuals suffering catastrophic injuries like those that resulted from Debbie’s violent traffic collision will no longer have to worry about the threat of subrogation. Wal-Mart Watch has confirmed that Wal-Mart’s 2009 health care plan exempts the company’s right to subrogate against a covered person completely in cases of: 1) paraplegia or quadriplegia; 2) severe burns; 3) total and permanent physical or mental disability; or 4) death. In all other cases, the plan also limits the right to recover to 50% of a settlement (Including attorney’s fees).
You can read our press release after the jump. At the bottom you’ll find links to Wal-Mart’s 2008 benefits plan, plus the 2009 amendments.
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
I would say that this story is surprising, but with Wal-Mart’s track record in these cases, that really, reeeeaaaalllllly would be disingenuous. As reported this morning, Wal-Mart will pay over $54 million as part of a settlement of a class-action lawsuit in Minnesota over wages and hours. The case is Braun v. Wal-Mart, a case in which Dakota County District Court Judge Robert King Jr. ruled on back in July, holding that Wal-Mart broke Minnesota labor law more than two million times over a six-year period by forcing employees to work without breaks and without full pay.
At the time, Judge King ruled that in addition to penalties, Wal-Mart owed workers at least $6 million in back wages. Under a Court order, a jury was expected to decide the amount of punitive damages and penalties in October, but settlement discussions pushed that date back.
Wal-Mart will pay up to $54.25 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that alleged the discount giant cut workers’ break time and allowed employees to work off the clock in Minnesota. The class includes about 100,000 current and former hourly workers who were employed at Wal-Mart Stores and Sam’s Clubs in Minnesota from Sept. 11, 1998, through Nov. 14, 2008. Wal-Mart has also agreed to maintain electronic systems, surveys and notices to stay compliant with wage and hour policies and Minnesota laws.
Needless to say, this is really just the latest in a disturbing pattern of Wal-Mart’s disregard for the law. Not only can’t Wal-Mart’s workers be very happy that retailer has decided overtime pay to be voluntary, but Wal-Mart also has a fiduciary obligation to its investors and shareholders to comply with labor regulations, and not, you know, keep doing stuff like this.
You can check out our fact sheet on Wal-Mart’s wage and hour shenanigans, if you’d like. Go ahead, click on it, and put in a little overtime on this story.
Wal-Mart To Pay $54.25 Million In Minn. Settlement [Associated Press via WCCO.com]
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
Wal-Mart has, unsurprisingly, been the target of more lawsuits than one can count over the years. The company’s treatment of its workers and “save money at all costs” mentality has resulted in a flood of legal challenges ranging from single plaintiff suits to multi-million dollar class actions.
Dukes v. Wal-Mart is of course one large example (the largest class action in American history, actually), as are the myriad wage/hour/overtime class actions the company faces. Recently, we also reported on Wal-Mart’s poor treatment of its disabled workforce.
Wal-Mart Watch will be focusing on these individual stories, highlighting cases that warrant further attention because of the insight each gives in its own way on how Wal-Mart feels about its employees.
John Lennex v. Wal-Mart Stores East, L.P.
John Lennex was hired by Wal-Mart on September 7, 2004, as a Bicycle Assembler. You take your kid into Wal-Mart, buy him the latest Huffy bicycle (now conveniently made overseas, since Wal-Mart forced the bike manufacturer to go broke), and John Lennex will put it together for you. Or he would have, had he not been fired.
Lennex has coronary artery disease. He requires a defibrillator to regulate his heart beat, and is limited in his life activities. He is recognized as have a life-limiting disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act. And when he was hired, his managers were well aware of his condition.
When he was hired, bicycle assemblers were also allowed a certain comfort in their job – that is, they were actually allowed to sit on a stool while they built their bikes. When he received a new department manager in 2005, however, this changed. His new supervisor, Tye Wilson, told the employees to say bye-bye to stools or chairs. Despite knowing of Lennex’s disability and the fact that stools were readily available, AND that Lennex had performed his job admirably to that point, Wilson refused a request by Lennex for a reasonable accommodation that would let him continue to sit.
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
There are two important economic discussions going on right now in America, and too rarely are they tied together as they should be.
Not a day goes by without talk in the media of the ‘Wal-Mart Economy’ and Wal-Mart’s role in a recession. Similarly, with the proposed auto bailout being debated on Capitol Hill, we’ve heard endlessly about the supposed failures of GM, Ford and Chrysler to adjust and adapt.
Everyone tends to agree that more Americans are now forced to shop at Wal-Mart - whether they love or whether they hate it. Likewise, the talking heads know that the Big Three are suffering - whether or not they need to be bailed out, or are getting what they deserve.
But the two aren’t separate stories.
A couple of columns by the Washington Post Writers Group over the past two days have done a great job of laying out the differences between Bentonville and Detroit – and what that has meant for the American economy.
Warren A. Brown writes mostly about cars. A lot of his column defends Detroit’s efforts to make greener cars, but more importantly (for this blog post at least) - he draws a more realistic picture of what’s been happening in America:
“Here is where newspaper columnists—Thomas L. Friedman of The New York Times comes to mind—routinely dismiss the idea of federal aid to an ailing Detroit, suggesting that the city and its automobile industry be consigned to the scrap heap of history, having failed dismally in their core mission to design and develop the kinds of cars and trucks Americans really want.
It is sophist nonsense, of course, the kind of tale spun by people who haven’t bothered to check the numbers, and who have paid even less regard to the history of their supposed knowledge.
The truth, all things considered, is that Detroit has done reasonably well. The American Three—General Motors, Ford and Chrysler—still hold an estimated 47 percent of a home market that is wide open to competition from car companies all over the world. Until July of 2007, domestic automobile manufacturers historically held more than a 50-percent U.S.-market share. But in a country where consumers have made Wal-Mart the retail king—that’s Wal-Mart, one of America’s biggest importers of foreign goods—that was bound to change.
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Posted by Eric Bull | Permalink
A Missouri City (Texas) woman convicted of a sex crime is out to prove that she has rights after being fired from her job at Wal-Mart.
Rebecca Vlasek, she of the inspiring mug shot, has filed suit claiming discrimination against our little Wal-Mart. Why you ask? Well, I’ll tell you.
Picture it: Brenham, Texas...1999. A sultry high school teacher pleads guilty to felony sexual assault of a minor. The charge: having a relationship with a 14-year-old female student. The result: 10 years on probation and the thrill of getting to register as an official pervert within the state of Texas. You can check out her rap sheet here and here.
So why is Vlasek complaining now? Well Wal-Mart, it turns out, discovered some time ago that it has quite a few sexual offenders working within its friendly confines. And, as it also turns out, every so often one of these offenders decides to, how shall we say, engage in some recidivism? Like this, and this...AND this........AANNNND this.
The result is that Wal-Mart, since adopting a new criminal background check policy, has fired approximately 800 employees who are registered sex offenders. Vlasek (pictured more recently), however, isn’t complaining about those that were fired...no, she’s complaining about the 25 or more (male, she claims) employee offenders Wal-Mart ISN’T firing. That’s right - according to her complaint, Vlasek is alleging that she has received disparate treatment because of her gender. We’ll see whether the court buys the arguments that Vlasek was fired not just because she “had relations” with a 14-year-old girl but because she is a woman...AND that Wal-Mart retained those other 25 or so offenders specifically because they’re men, and not for some other reason.
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
AS A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF WAL-MART, I was aware that my store had a “loss-prevention team” - which basically consisted of two obvious plain-clothed, unarmed “security officers” that walked around the store watching people shop, trying to catch shop-lifters. These guys were likely moonlighting at Wal-Mart on their days off from bouncer-duty at the bar. Nevertheless, occasionally they would catch someone stealing, and that’s where it all gets fuzzy. Let me make it perfectly clear, these guys ARE NOT law enforcement officials so the level of actual ‘enforcement’ they were legally allowed to use always seemed unclear. From what I understood, they were not allowed to physically intervene in a theft situation, just ‘escort’ them to the back, and call the police. They were not allowed to slam you face-first onto the ground.
Apparently a loss-prevention officer for a Wal-Mart in Spartanburg, S.C. never got that memo. WYFF-TV in South Carolina reports that a video-survellience camera captured footage of loss prevention officer, Joseph Gregorie bear-hug a 58-year-old woman, he suspected of shop-lifting, and slam her face-first into the ground. Talk about your all-time, total losses of composure. The woman sustained minor facial injuries and was taken to an area hospital. Wal-Mart was vague when talking to WSNA-TV in South Carolina about their loss-prevention protocol:
“...the spokesperson said their employees do follow certain ‘asset protection’ protocols, but she said she could not go into details about those protocols because of this investigation.”
UPDATE: if you didn’t already see it, check out the comment below from loyal reader Rob. He reports seeing a similar situation at a store where he worked.
Wal-Mart Employee Charged With Assaulting Shopper [WSNA-TV (S.C.)]
A Wal-Mart employee faces charges after police say he slammed a woman suspected of shoplifting face-first into the ground.
It happened late Tuesday night at the Dorman Centre Wal-Mart in Spartanburg. According to police reports, Joseph Gregorie, the store’s loss prevention officer, saw a 58-year old Greer woman concealing items in a bag. Gregorie says when he confronted her, the woman dropped the bag and tried to run away. The woman, Deborah Blackwell, tells police that Gregorie “bear hugged” her and slammed her face-first into the ground. She suffered a large contusion on her left eye and an injured hand and had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance. Gregorie told police that he grabbed Blackwell and she lost her balance and they both fell. But after reviewing surveillance video, the investigating officer said it shows Gregorie “throwing her to the ground”. He took the evidence to a judge who signed arrest warrants for both Gregorie and Blackwell.
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Posted by Luke West | Permalink
We’ve been talking all week about the looming fight between Wal-Mart and the Obama Administration over labor reforms which might force Wal-Mart to treat its employees a little more fairly and give workers a little more say in the terms of their employment.
But we shouldn’t look at this as just a fight between Lee Scott and Barack Obama. There are 1.4 million Americans in the middle of this fight as well.
How has Wal-Mart been responding to the state of its workforce? Last week, Lee Scott was quoted talking non-specifically about his company’s response to the EFCA threat:
“We’re going to run this business,” Scott said. “Our associates are going to be productive. We’re going to reach out. We’re going to have relationships with our associates. We’re going to care about them and we’re going to serve our customers.”
("We’re going to care about them”?....that’s the best you can do, Lee? Anyone else think that sounds eerily like he’s admitting that he’s not caring about them now?)
But regardless, over the next year Wal-Mart execs will continue to tell us that all Wal-Mart employees are happy and productive and that all 1.4 million U.S. “associates” are one big warm fuzzy family. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. We know because every day we hear otherwise from Wal-Mart employees. Here’s a few more stories we’ve received lately.
Read these and more - in their entirety - on walmartspeakout.com:
“Why do you work overtime when you know that they will not pay you?”
“I have posted here a number of times before and I am always amazed that I have new bullets for my anti-Wal-Mart weaponry. No, my store doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to denying overtime pay.”
“Benefits” is a Loose Term to Wal-Mart
“When I was hired at Wal-Mart about 7 months ago, I was told by the hiring manager that Wal-Mart has the best benefits and I would receive then after 3 months. I believed him, but was in for a very rude awakening.”
Deaf Employee’s Request: Ignored
“I tried to apply for a promotion and they required me to do an interview over the phone, which was difficult considering there was no accommodation made for my disability.”
Posted by Media Team | Permalink
The Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board (SLRB) has agreed to hear a complaint by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW Canada) accusing Wal-Mart of engaging in unfair labor practices as defined by Saskatchewan law. What’s more, the SLRB has ruled that Wal-Mart’s actions outside the province of Saskatchewan can be taken into account in assessing whether it is engaging in unfair labor actions within the province.
This means that the SLRB can take into account the example of Jonquiere, Quebec, when ruling on UFCW Canada’s complaint. It was in that small town, just over 100 miles north of Quebec City, that Wal-Mart announced it was going to shut its doors after workers voted to make the Jonquiere store the first unionized Wal-Mart in North America. The closure put 190 employees out of work, served as a warning for workers at other Wal-Mart stores who may have considered unionization against the company’s wishes.
Board chair James Seibel said the board was not required to determine whether Wal-Mart had acted illegally in Quebec to consider whether its actions “intimidated employees in Saskatchewan” from exercising their right under the province’s Trade Union Act to “organize and be represented by a bargaining agent of their choosing.”
“The fact that the actions of Wal-Mart upon which the allegations are based were committed outside the geographic confines of Saskatchewan does not mean that they cannot constitute (a) violation of the restriction on intimidation of its employees in the province,” Seibel ruled.
As the UFCW Canada complaint moves forward in Saskatchewan, it will be interesting to see if Wal-Mart’s actions in Quebec play a significant role - the company’s labor issues have yet to fade away there. According to the National Union of Public and General Employees:
The ruling is the latest in a series of setbacks for Wal-Mart in Canada. The company recently shut down a second operation in Quebec – a tire and lube shop in Gatineau – after failing to stop a union contract from being imposed there. Meanwhile, a Supreme Court of Canada case arising from the Jonquiere closure is scheduled to be heard within months.
We’ll keep you posted.
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
Reader W.D. sent us a note over the weekend, with an interesting strategy to help struggling Wal-Mart employees: give them a tip.
It’s not a cure-all to the Wal-Mart problem, but it’s an interesting idea - and it would certainly shame any manager who knew it was happening. It’s great to have readers who are so keenly aware of the Wal-Mart dilemma to think of things like this:
“I shop at Wal-Mart. I never believed a boycott would be effective in changing their grotesque management system. I always believed a boycott would only hurt workers and cause more pain. After years of struggling within when I stepped into the front doors of Wal-Mart an idea suddenly hit me on how I could directly help employees while shopping for products I probably didn’t need. This idea I had would directly help some employees but the action of the idea would hopefully shame management. I decided I would implement it when checking out. I got to the register, the lady working at the check out stand was an older woman around sixty years of age, very friendly. When she finally gave me the total $68.38, I handed her my credit card. She ran the card through, and I decided to put my idea into action. When I finished signing my receipt, I reached into my pocket and handed her a $10.00 bill. She asked me what that was for, I responded that it was her tip. She said they don’t accept tips. I asked her if she believed the customer was always right? She said “yes” and I responded “well, I know you don’t get paid a fair wage for what you do, so I want to give you a tip”. She didn’t know what to say, I just said “please take it”. The lady behind me was laughing and said “take the tip cause I am going to tip too” and then she said “awesome”. The lady finally took my tip and said God Bless you. I told her if management gives her any problem, give the tip to them and tell them to disperse it and that I demanded you take it. I was concerned she would get in trouble for taking it.
So far I have tipped five times when visiting a Wal-Mart. I tip based on the restaurant scale, 20% on the dollar amount. During the last five times, I have had one manager ask me what I was doing. I told him why I was tipping, he just stared at me and smiled.
Start tipping your check out clerk. If not money, buy them a wal-mart gift card. Let’s shame management into action.
Just doing my part.”
What do you think?
Posted by Eric Bull | Permalink
Several stories over the past two days have outlined the oncoming fight between Wal-Mart and the Obama administration over labor reforms, primarily over the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) - but also health care reform and a slew of other potential legislation.
This is no suprise for anyone. Wal-Mart isn’t stupid, it read the writing on the wall and has been preparing for a democratic win and a push for labor reform for a while. It’s been donating more money to politicians (including democrats) to curry favor, as well as funding major anti-EFCA initiatives (not to mention explicitly telling its employees to vote for John McCain.)
Other big business - retailers especially - will be play major roles in the fight, but no American Business’s model is more threatened by labor reform right now than Wal-Mart - which looks to be ground zero in the upcoming battle with the new administration.
A labor attorney quoted in Reuters sums it well:
“You’ll see an all-out battle at Wal-Mart” by labor, said attorney Richard Hankins, who leads the labor and employment practice at the law firm of Kilpatrick Stockton.
Jonathan Birchall at FT tells about the Obama administration could hit Wal-Mart on health care as well:
On healthcare, Mr Obama’s platform included setting a minimum contribution level for businesses to their employees’ healthcare plans - an approach that has been opposed at state level by big non-unionised retailers, including Wal-Mart...The retailer, with more than 1.3m staff, has said it wants to work on healthcare reform with a new administration.
And if Wal-Mart hadn’t already made it clear enough how much it refuses to change or pay its workers a dime more, check out the gall on Lee Scott - quoted by the Associated Press at the recent analysts’ meeting:
“It’ll be generations in the impact it [EFCA] has on this country. And it won’t be positive. I guarantee you that. It will not be positive. But for Wal-Mart, in the short term, and in the longer term on a relative basis with our peers, we’re going to run this business,” Scott said. He continued, ”We like driving the car and we’re not going to give the steering wheel to anybody but us.”
Will the next four years see better wages and benefits for Wal-Mart’s 1.4 million employees? Will it loosen Wal-Mart’s grip on the steering wheel? We look forward to finding out - and blogging about it.
Posted by Eric Bull | Permalink
Starting now, Wal-Mart Watch will be periodically updating you on some of the new comments submitted to our Employee Speak-Out site. These comments are sent in from visitors to our site who are former or current employees of Wal-Mart and its sister companies, who have been victims of the systematic abuse and discrimination that Wal-Mart is known for inflicting upon its employees. Remember that if you have a story to tell about working at Wal-Mart, we encourage you to tell us about it - we’ll put it up on the web and let your voice be heard.
As we look forward to the next 4 years, we hope that this website will be among the many tools that Wal-Mart workers use to help change Wal-Mart and their lives for the better.
Workplace stress leads to tragedy for pregnant worker:
“I was a manager in the housewares department. I just got my separation notice from them for not returning to work from my leave of absence. There is a reason I didn’t return; I feel they are responsible for the death of my baby.”
Anonymous on Age-Based Termination:
“Wal Mart is systematically targeting anyone over 40 years of age for firings through systematically assigning the heaviest, most back breaking jobs to that class of people in the facility. Managers are encouraged to pressure senior employees into quitting and firing to ensure that young strong backs are maintained in the facility.”
I attended a meeting that was conducted by a market manager. We were not told to not vote for Obama
Posted by Luke West | Permalink
Hey, Wal-Mart? Do you feel the winds blowing today? Ah, yes, the winds of change. Indeed, that key demographic of Wal-Mart women across the country surely voted their pocketbooks and their consciences - and helped the electorate hand a decisive victory to Senator Barack Obama.
You can bet the Walton family and CEO Lee Scott weren’t doing a victory dance last night when the election was called for Obama. Oh, sure the company’s pr and gov relations guy, Leslie Dach has tried really, really, really, really hard recently (especially as things were looking really promising for Obama) to convince everyone that Wal-Mart was “non-partisan” – even going so far as to air infomercials for both candidates in the company’s stores. But, those “non-partisan” activities, like so many things Wal-Mart does are mere distractions from what the company was really up to.
In August, the Wall Street Journal exposed Wal-Mart’s mandatory meetings to attempt to instruct its employees to vote against Democrats and Senator Obama – oh, sure they nuanced the message in some settings, but the point was clear. And, the company implemented a plan at the beginning of 2008 to train all of its managers how to fight the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) should Obama be elected. During the presidential campaign, we saw anti-EFCA ads (and anti-Obama – walking the legal line in various forms) from several different organizations - including (but, not limited to): the Workforce Fairness Institute; Center for Union Facts; The Center for Consumer Freedom and of course, the Employment Policies Institute. Since these groups don’t disclose all of their contributors, it’s hard to prove that Wal-Mart gave them money, but we have a pretty good idea that Wal-Mart invested a nice chunk of change in their efforts. Maybe someone should ask Wal-Mart.
For the past eight years, Wal-Mart has had a free pass to trample workers’ rights - in part due to the ineffectiveness of the NLRB – and in part due to a system that has favored employers. The company’s business model of paying appallingly low wages, offering catastrophic, unaffordable health care plans, forcing employees to forgo overtime pay, manipulating employees’ schedules as punishment for standing up to the company, discriminating against employees and a host of other issues – evident from a multitude of lawsuits - and from the mouths of employees themselves - is finally in jeopardy.
Yep, change is coming. With an Obama presidency and the Democratic gains in Congress, average Americans – including Wal-Mart workers - will once more have a say and stand a chance of getting a fair shake. Wal-Mart knows it – and fears it.
Expect to see the company increase its lobbying expenditures in the next few months and ramp up its efforts to mislead its employees about EFCA – which by the way, could finally give its employees the ability to stand up to the company. And, expect to see even worse treatment of employees to send a clear message to them about who is still in charge (and Wal-Mart just doesn’t ever seem to learn on this front).
Posted by Media Team | Permalink
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