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According to Bloomberg, Wal-Mart has won preliminary court approval to pay as much as $85 million to settle 30 wage/hour lawsuits. The lawsuits claimed the company didn’t pay employees for all hours worked, forcing them to miss breaks and forgo overtime pay.

Late last year, Wal-Mart announced that it would settle 63 wage and hour class action lawsuits that have been pending against the company for several years. There were just under 80 such suits pending against Wal-Mart at the time, so it represented a pretty large legal housecleaning. This $85 million settlement covers just under half those cases as part of the larger agreement made back in December, which could cost the company up to $640 million before all is said and done.

Following the initial settlement, we noted that what these cases revealed through evidence and employee testimony was a “corporate culture” and systematic approach geared towards cutting labor costs, by dictating managers hire below the “preferred” staffing levels and rewarding managers for keeping labor costs down. Steven Greenhouse on TPM has pointed out that while store management is ultimately responsible for setting schedules, pressure often comes from the top:

Robert Eckert, a former assistant store manager at several Wal-Marts in California, said: “They tell you that working off the clock is against the law, is not allowed by Wal-Mart, and then they tell you to get the job done. But they didn’t give you the budget to get the job done. It is clearly understood that if you don’t make payroll, it’s a serious issue and you can lose your job over it.”

For more information on wage theft in general, you should check out Kim Bobo’s “Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Working Americans Are Not Getting Paid - And What We Can Do About It.”

As for the $85 settlement, a Federal Judge in granting temporary approval called the wage theft agreement “fair, reasonable, and adequate.” Merely adequate for the workers, perhaps, but no doubt a “steal” for Wal-Mart.

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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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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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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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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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Wage theft. The illegal practice is rampant at restaurants, nail salons, car washes, nursing homes and farms, according to federal labor department surveys. Large corporations including Wal-Mart, Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, Target, McDonald’s and Burger King have faced lawsuits over allegations of wage theft.

Wal-Mart is of course a prime example. While the seemingly endless list of wage/hour suits against the retailer is systematically shrinking as Wal-Mart settles case after case - wrapped up and tied neatly with a bow - the spectre of the hundreds of millions the company had to pay out in settlements will hang over the company for the near future. And according to Kim Bobo, author of a newly published book, “Wage Theft in America,” wage theft is a national epidemic.

“Greed is nothing new, but what’s changed is that we don’t have adequate enforcement to deter and penalize wage theft,” she said. There are fewer than 750 federal investigators currently policing fair wages for 130 million workers nationwide, compared to 700 investigators for 15 million workers in 1941.

According to Bobo, wage theft is pretty common. Having read file after file from Wal-Mart cases, I could have told you that, but it’s surprising just how far the practice reaches. Some companies will do anything to make a profit - especially in this economy - even if it means siphoning money away from their own workers, many of which fear for their jobs and have few resources with which to protect themselves.

As many as 10 million American workers have suffered wage theft, forfeiting an estimated $40 billion to $50 billion annually in wages rightfully owed to them by employers who steal tips, pay less than minimum wage, refuse to pay overtime, classify full-time employees as temporary independent contractors and take illegal deductions.

Help wanted: Long hours, no pay [Albany Times Union]

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On August 7, 2007, Charleston County Circuit Court Judge Perry M. Buckner III ruled Wal-Mart would have to face a class of more than 100,000 South Carolina employees claiming wage and hour violations - the workers filed suit in 2001 claiming Wal-Mart forced them to work through breaks and off the clock. Complaints of understaffing were front and center, as workers were forced to skip breaks, work before shifts or stay after clocking out to pick up the slack.

The case is Carter v. Wal-Mart and is part of a long list of wage and hour lawsuits, the resolution of which have seemingly been priority #1 with Wal-Mart’s legal team. Carter is one of 63 long active cases that were pending against Wal-Mart until two months ago, when the company announced it had agreed with attorneys for plaintiffs on a settlement agreement. South Carolina workers will get $49 million as part of the Carter settlement, which was approved by Judge Buckner on Tuesday and formally announced this morning.

The settlement will conclude more than six years of litigation concerning Wal-Mart’s employment practices in South Carolina. Wal-Mart in the settlement agreed to maintain electronic systems, surveys and notices to protect workers’ rights. “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,” said plaintiff’s attorney Brad Hutto of Williams & Williams in Orangeburg, S.C.

The settlement reached back in December could, as a whole, cost the company up to $640 million before all is said and done.

Wal-Mart Paying $49 Million To Settle South Carolina Wage & Hour Lawsuit [Northwest Arkansas Morning News]

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Labor officials are praising ol’ President Obama’s first signed piece of legislation.

“We are heartened that this legislation was made a top priority of the new Congress and administration, because it demonstrates a return to the common-sense values of hard-working Americans,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in a written statement.

The legislation, titled the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, focuses on Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., [550 U.S. 618 (2007)], a Supreme Court decision holding that regardless of when a worker discovers a pay disparity, any legal action needs to be filed within 180 days of the initial decision to pay the worker less. For Lilly Ledbetter, an employee at Goodyear Tire and Rubber for over 19 years, she didn’t realize she was getting a lower salary and lower pay raises then her male counterparts until after she left the company - and only then because an anonymous note was left in her mailbox.

The court said Ledbetter couldn’t sue under the 1964 Civil Rights Act because the alleged discrimination occurred more than 180 days before she filed her claim. The law signed today restarts the clock for bringing claims each time a worker’s job is affected by a discriminatory act. In Ledbetter’s case, that would be each time she receives a pay check.

Corporate labor lawyer Lawrence Lorber (say that 3 times fast) pointed out that the Lilly Ledbetter Act may be just a prelude to what Labor is really interested in - passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to form unions.

“The Ledbetter bill is the lowest-hanging fruit of all the items on labor’s agenda,” Lorber said. “The victory is not necessarily a harbinger of what will happen on Employee Free Choice, which could be World War Four between labor and business.”

You can read President Obama’s statement on the legislation, and check out Lilly Ledbetter’s Obama campaign ad here…

Obama Signs Lilly Ledbetter Act [Washington Post]

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A settlement in a Minnesota wage and hour class action has moved a step closer to reality, gaining court approval that would allow Wal-Mart to pay over $54 million to close the lawsuit Braun v. Wal-Mart. The settlement includes not only back pay to employees, but also a payment to the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry believed to be the largest payment of its kind in Minnesota history.

From Bloomberg, via the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

The Minnesota hourly workers said Wal-Mart forced them to work off-the-clock in training and denied full rest or meal breaks in violation of state wage-and-hour laws. In the first phase of the case, Dakota County District Judge Robert King Jr. ruled July 1, following a nonjury trial, that Wal-Mart broke labor laws more than 2 million times and ordered the retailer to give employees $6.5 million in back pay.

Wal-Mart will pay $14 million of the $54 million settlement to the State of Minnesota - the Minn. Dept. of Labor was a plaintiff in the case, and the payment covers Wal-Mart’s violations of Minnesota wage and hour laws.

As for the settlement, this one was reached before a certain other settlement agreement was reached by Wal-Mart. Between the $54 million here, the $33 million payed out to the DOL, $400+ million in previous judgments and settlements, and the $350-$640 million that will be paid out as part of Wal-Mart’s most recent multi-litigation settlement, these wage cases could end up costing the company over $1 billion.

Minnesota to get $14 million from Wal-Mart settlement [Bloomberg, via Minneapolis Star Tribune]

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On December 23, 2008, Wal-Mart announced that it would settle 63 wage and hour class action lawsuits that have been pending against the company for several years. That number represents approximately 86% of the 73 wage/hour and overtime class actions currently pending against Wal-Mart.

What these cases have revealed through evidence and employee testimony is a “corporate culture” and systematic approach geared towards cutting labor costs, by dictating managers hire below the “preferred” staffing levels and rewarding managers for keeping labor costs down. It has been suggested that Wal-Mart’s motivation for settling these lawsuits is not simply to avoid costly defeats in the courtroom, but to tie up issues that might be used by supporters to argue for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

Thousands of employees have sued Wal-Mart for unpaid overtime and unfair break practices, so-called “wage and hour” suits. Download our fact sheets to learn more about these suits, and the most recent settlement.

Wal-Mart Wage and Hour Settlement (PDF)

Wal-Mart Wage and Hour Litigation Stipulation Regarding Stay of Proceedings (PDF)

Wal-Mart’s Wage and Hour Violations (PDF)

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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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BUSTED!!!

Actually, as a recently joined member of Netflix, I have to admit I might not be impartial on this story. After all, they do deliver movies right to my door, allowing me to overcome my lifelong fear of video stores.

But that aside, the lawsuit appears to be some pretty serious stuff. From the Los Angeles Times:

The two companies agreed in 2005 that Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, would close its online rental business and refer customers to Netflix, which would promote Wal-Mart’s DVD movie sales, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco.

Sounds like a case of a couple companies engaging in some “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” behavior. The complaint suggests clandestine meetings, beginning with a dinner shared by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and then-Wal-Mart.com CEO John Fleming in January 2005, in which discussions began as to how the two could reduce competition in the DVD sales and online DVD rental markets. You can check out the whole complaint here. Its like reading The Bourne Identity...if it was written by lawyers. Bland, legalese-loving lawyers. But seriously, it is pretty interesting, and at 24 pages its not tooooo long, so check it out.

Wal-Mart, Netflix sued over online video rentals [Reuters]

Wal-Mart, Netflix conspired to create monopoly, suit alleges [Bloomberg via Los Angeles Times]

Resnick v. Wal-Mart, Netflix (Complaint)

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Come holiday season, what do you get the company that seemingly has everything? How about a settlement to its seemingly endless chain of wage and overtime suits.

We ring in the new year with this news, that Wal-Mart has chosen to settle a massive number of wage/hour and overtime class actions. The terms of the settlement could eventually cost Wal-Mart up to $640 million to settle 63 of the nearly 80 such lawsuits out there. So why, after years of fighting these suits tooth and nail (winning some while others have ended in rather large judgments against the company), has Wal-Mart finally decided to settle? At least one law professor quoted in the Wall Street Journal has an idea:

Paul M. Secunda, an associate professor at Marquette University Law School, suggested Wal-Mart wanted to settle the lawsuits not just to avoid potentially more costly defeats in the courtroom, but to resolve issues that might be used to argue for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. The legislation, expected to be considered by Congress next year, is fiercely opposed by Wal-Mart because the company worries it will make it easier for workers to unionize. Secunda said: “This is part of their overall strategy to get their labor house in order, and compared to what unionization might cost them, I think they probably realized it was a small price to pay.”

A small price to pay indeed. Wal-Mart has prevailed in getting class actions such as these decertified more times than the company has lost, though when it has and Wal-Mart has gone to trial, the judgments in just a handful of cases have totalled over $300 million. Settling 63 for just over $10 million each might not be so bad, especially if it earns the company some good street cred. Could a settlement in Dukes v. Wal-Mart be next??

Wal-Mart and Plaintiffs’ Counsel Announce Settlement of Most Wage and Hour Class Action Lawsuits Against the Company [Press Release via MarketWatch]

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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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When we hear about Wal-Mart being in the ‘top-five’ of something, we usually assume it’s in CEO salary, quarterly earnings, highest number of lawsuits pending against them or worst places ever to buy bassinets.  Today it’s among the worst corporations on worker’s right to organize. The International Labor Rights Forum [ILRF] released a report today called: “Working for Scrooge: 5 Worst Companies for the Right to Associate,” and guess who made the list?  We weren’t surprised either.  Wal-Mart has a very real history of anti-union propaganda and bigotry. 

The report cites several of the more highly-publicized anti union stories such as Jonquiere, Quebec where a tire and lube shop was shut down after workers successfully unionized it and Jacksonville, Texas, where the meat department of a retail outlet successfully unionized and Wal-Mart responded by shutting down the meat department in every Wal-Mart, nation-wide.  Will the newly-unionized Saskatchewan outlet meet the same fate?  We sure hope not…

Other finalists included: Dole, Del-Monte, Russell Athletic, and Nestle.  The union-busting must be stopped.  Write your local representative and tell them to support the Employee Free Choice Act today! 

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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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The family of Jdimytai Damour has filed suit against Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.  The death, which The Oregonian (Ore.) called preventable, occurred on Black Friday.  While no amount of money can ever replace a lost loved-one, the hope is that Wal-Mart will respond by taking appropriate safety measures in future situations like this one to protect the Associates they claim to care so much about. Our hearts go out to the family of Jdimytai Damour. 

Victim’s kin file suit in Wal-Mart stampede death [Associated Press]

The family of a New York man who was trampled to death the day after Thanksgiving by a stampede of bargain hunting Wal-Mart shoppers has filed a wrongful death lawsuit.

The family also filed notice that Nassau County, on Long Island, and its police department will be sued.

The lawsuit against Wal-Mart and the Long Island mall where it is located was filed Wednesday in state Supreme Court in the Bronx on behalf of Elsie Damour Phillipe. Phillipe is the sister of victim Jdimytai Damour (DHMEE’-tree Di-MOHR’), and is the court-appointed administrator of his estate.

Damour, a temporary worker hired for the holiday season, was crushed to death when some 2,000 customers stormed into the Valley Stream store.

None of the defendants in the lawsuit immediately responded to requests for comment.

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Six days after Jdimytai Damour’s tragic death, a clearer picture has emerged of not only its immediate causes but the broader question of who is responsible.

On the death itself:

[Nassau County, NY Police Commissioner] Mulvey said yesterday that Damour’s cause of death was “positional asphyxiation” consistent with having pressure applied to his chest… “He was trampled to death,” Mulvey said. [Newsday.com, 12/2/08]

The official autopsy does not lie; it clearly took a massive flood of people to knock over and crush a 270-pound man. Other articles point out how the death was preventable:

“This incident was avoidable,” said Bruce Both, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1500, the state of New York’s largest grocery worker’s union…"Where were the safety barriers? Where was security? How did store management not see dangerous numbers of customers barreling down on the store in such an unsafe manner?[CNN, 11/30/08]

Clearly, Damour lacked training and was ill-prepared to handle the onslaught he faced, further reiterating Wal-Mart’s tendency to under-train and under-staff:

[The family’s attorney] Hecht said Damour had been working at the Wal-Mart only for about a week and was hired through an employment agency that provides temporary staffing. Damour had not been trained for any security assignments and had no background in crowd control, he said. [AP, 12/1/08]

This Wall Street Journal story summarizes Wal-Mart’s culpability:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. should have had better crowd control to prevent the death of a worker who was trampled the day after Thanksgiving amid the bargain-hunting frenzy whipped up by the sales known as door-busters, according to local police and a lawyer for the worker’s family.

Unfortunately, it’s not the first time:

Wal-Mart faced several lawsuits from customers who claimed they were hurt by out-of-control shoppers seeking talking Furby dolls in 1998. [Wall Street Journal, 12/2/08]

It’s also important to keep in mind that Damour’s death, while the most severe event this Black Friday, was not the only one; it mirrored other, less serious incidents across the country that easily could have been far worse. For example, in Mississippi:

Allison Burchyett…said she was punched in the stomach by another female shopper who swiped a camera out of her hands at about 4:45 a.m. Friday. [DeSoto Times-Tribune (Miss.), 12/2/08]
News coverage of Damour’s death over the past few days has reflected mixed assignments of blame. Of course, many sources cite the crowd’s collective responsibility and that of the individuals within it.

One columnist wrote:

EXCUSE THE journalistic license, but I’m trying really hard to imagine what must have been in the minds of those impatient, early morning shoppers who trampled a security guard to death during a Black Friday sale at Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, N.Y. [Philadelphia Daily News, 12/2/08]

However, other sources place the responsibility squarely on Wal-Mart’s shoulders, pointing out that they and other retailers incited a climate of reckless bargain-hunting. A letter in the New York Times indicts corporate America as a whole:

Though blame for this tragic incident rests primarily upon the barbarians who rushed the door, corporate America must shoulder some blame for creating the hype surrounding the ritual known as Black Friday that causes some aggressive and nasty people to do horrible things. [NY Times, 12/1/08]

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A Wal-Mart employee in Oregon has accused Wal-Mart of demoting her because - of all things - she took time off during the Christmas shopping season to undergo an emergency hysterectomy.

According to her complaint, which was filed last week in Oregon’s federal district court, Lynda deBarros had worked for Wal-Mart since mid-2000 and over the last 8 years had received consistently positive evaluations resulting in increased responsibilities. She had advanced from photo technician to assistant manager, and then was transferred to a new store to oversee its construction.

DeBarros began experiencing health problems in October 2007, of which I will let The Oregonian do the describing:

On Nov. 14, 2007, deBarros went to her gynecologist because of excessive menstrual bleeding, documents show. DeBarros “had a strong family history of cancer and was very worried that cancer was the cause of her excessive vaginal bleeding.” On Dec. 3, 2007, her doctor recommended an emergency hysterectomy, which was scheduled for Dec. 10. When deBarros notified her boss, Kenneth Hutchison, about her medical condition, the suit said, he scolded her and told her to go to the doctor on her time, not his.

The moral of the story is apparently this: don’t have emergency health issues during the holidays, as deBarros was advised to postpone the procedure because it was Wal-Mart’s “busiest time of the season” and they needed all hands on deck. All that excessive bleeding she was experiencing? Yeah, you just tough that out until the holiday shopping season is over...you’ll have plenty of time for your emergency surgery after the new year.

Two weeks after returning from FMLA leave, deBarros was demoted from her assistant manager position to a simple associate position. This is the second time in two months an FMLA case has made news in a major state paper - in October a West Virginia woman filed suit against Wal-Mart alleging she was wrongfully fired after she used her FMLA leave to care for her young son who had a rare bowel disorder, requiring 12 months of hospitalization and several surgeries. Despite working for Wal-Mart since 1994 with positive evaluations, Arlene Jett was reprimanded for absenteeism after taking her first FMLA leave. Both cases are ongoing.

Employee in Oregon sues Wal-Mart [The Oregonian]

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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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