California Attorney General Jerry Brown - a former California Governor, CA Secretary of State, Mayor of Oakland, and President of the Patrick Stewart fan club - announced a settlement with Wal-Mart today in which the retailer was fined $1.4 million and ordered to implement a “get it free” program for California consumers. This after an investigation found that the store overcharged for numerous items at checkout.
Actually, the investigation and settlement announcement was a joint venture with San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, who has a much shorter but waaaaayyyyy more interesting Wikipedia entry than AG Brown. In fact, Dumanis, a Republican, is the first openly gay or lesbian District Attorney in the county, and the first Jewish woman to hold the post. Fancy that.
Anyway, back to the story we’re here to tell. Apparently, Investigators conducting random price-checking across the state found that 164 Wal-Mart Stores in 30 counties had made scanning errors. On average, customers who were overcharged paid an extra $8.40 at checkout.
Christine Gasparac, a spokeswoman for Brown, said state investigators concluded that “these were systemic problems,” not just run-of-the-mill mistakes.
“Systemic problems” might sounds bad to some, but one person’s systemic problems are another person’s financial opportunity. As the LA Times blog puts it - if Wal-Mart’s price scanners are wrong, you can make a quick $3. So the moral to this story - and every blog post I write today will have a moral - is to shop at Wal-Mart, cross your fingers that their registers go insane, and then collect a cool handful of George Washingtons.
Wal-Mart now promises to give back $3 to customers any time a pricing mistake is discovered. If the mispriced item sells for less than $3, you get it free. The refund program begins immediately and will last for four years, but it’s up to shoppers to spot any disparity between what a product is listed for on the shelf and what’s rung up by the price scanner.
The company was also ordered to pay $1.2 million in penalties; $190,621 to reimburse costs to numerous state agencies and prosecutors’ offices; and $50,000 to a consumer-protection prosecution trust fund.
Wal-Mart to pay $3 if price-scanning errors occur [Sacramento Bee]
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
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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Posted by Corey Himrod | 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
George Gombossy and the Hartford Courant continue to follow this issue, which has taken a turn in favor of the consumer. Numerous complaints made to the Courant caused both Governor Rell and Attorney General Blumenthal to take notice. The complaints were from consumers charging that major retailers have been violating state law by charging a second sales tax when merchandise paid for with cash is exchanged. Governor Rell ordered the state revenue department investigate the practice, and now AG Blumenthal has sent a letter to Wal-Mart telling the company’s general counsel in an oh-so-kindly way to please knock it off with the double taxation.
“Wal-Mart should refund any consumer who was denied a refund of sales tax on returned goods or charged a sales tax on even exchanges,” Blumenthal wrote to Sam Reeves, Wal-Mart’s division general counsel.
My favorite part of this story so far though has come from our good friend, Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Fogelman, who defended Wal-Mart’s policy.
Spokesman Dan Fogleman said Monday evening that although he has no idea what Connecticut sales tax law is, his company is following it.
That’s right - despite his cluelessness to the law and the company’s refusal to discuss why the accusations of so many customers are wrong, Fogelman can guarantee Wal-Mart is following state tax law to the tee. I love blanket statements with nothing to back them up.
Blumenthal Targets Wal-Mart on Sales Tax [Hartford Courant]
Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
On the heels of the recent passage of the Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act, Wal-Mart Watch today is releasing a report which exposes a conscious strategy by Wal-Mart to flout the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and discriminate against the company’s employees with disabilities.
To accompany the report, Wal-Mart Watch is also releasing a new video in which a mother tells how her daughter, who has a cognitive disability, was essentially terminated when she was required to take a leave of absence while Wal-Mart considered her request for a schedule accommodation.
The report, entitled “Reasonable Accommodation – Denied,” reveals Wal-Mart’s deliberate use of a “leave of absence” tactic to remove employees with disabilities from employment with the company. The report is the culmination of an exhaustive study by Wal-Mart Watch of more than 700 federal discrimination lawsuits filed against Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. since January 1, 2004 to present – including more than 100 filed by persons with disabilities.
“Reasonable Accommodation – Denied” profiles many currently pending lawsuits and reveals two very disturbing trends. First, Wal-Mart intentionally uses a tactic the report describes as the “leave of absence trick” - requiring employees with disabilities to take an unpaid leave of absence as a method for ultimately removing them from employment with the company. Second, Wal-Mart repeatedly refuses to comply with federal law and provide ADA-mandated accommodations for employees and applicants with disabilities.
Download the full report PDF here, and make sure read similar employee stories about Wal-Mart’s discrimination against employees with disabilities at www.walmartspeakout.com.
Posted by Eric Bull | Permalink
According to the ABA Journal, Wal-Mart general counsel Tom Mars says he is considering initiatives to lower associate billing rates at the company’s outside law firms “to some point where they reflect value.”
Actually, that’s probably not a completely horrible idea. First-year and low-level law firm associates make, well...let’s just say one makes about as much in one year as 7-8 Wal-Mart “associates” do. Sure, they went to law school and work long hours, but does that qualify them to make up to $160,000 per year? Tom Mars says: “No...NOOOO, DAMMIT!!!! Now get off my lawn!!”
Earlier this year, Wal-Mart issued a memo to its law firms announcing a moratorium on across-the-board rate increases. So you may be wondering where Wal-Mart gets the brass balls to announce these “initiatives” and “moratoriums” and such? Probably because they employ half the private attorneys in the United States? I mean, seriously, without paying all the lawyer fees that they do, Wal-Mart could probably just start giving store product away. Really. Note to Tom Mars: If you stop breaking the law, you won’t have to worry about lawyer fees. Its a strategy, and I stand behind it.
After Freezing Fees, Wal-Mart GC Considers Cutting Associate Billing Rates [ABA Daily Journal]
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
Well, my faithful blog readers, after two years of working on Wal-Mart issues and more than a year as the main editor of this blog, our Friday Blog Round-Up today will be my last post. I hope you all continue reading, commenting and working to challenge Wal-Mart’s business practices. Enjoy the writing of my Wal-Mart Watch colleagues and try to keep the infighting to a minimum. As for now - on to the week’s blogs!
BLOGGERS WEIGH IN ON “EMPLOYEES SPEAK OUT”
Real Voices, Some More Wild Stuff [Working Life]
Wal-Mart Watch has set up a website where you can actually hear and read about the actual workers who have to put up with the oppressive behavior of The Beast. This is part of the picture: the Great Robbery that we have all endured for a number of decades--wages not going up (even though productivity goes up), no health care, no pensions--plays out, day-to-day, in those aisles at Wal-Mart.
The voice of the workers (Part 1) [Writing on the Wal]
What you get there is a look behind Walmart’s PR curtain to see what employees are really thinking, but too afraid to tell their supervisors since they don’t have a union to protect them. Indeed, let’s start this series there, in the category that Wal-Mart Watch calls corporate culture.
After the jump, union-busting in Canada, bottle water, Nike’s suit against the Bentonville behemoth and Sarah Palin.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt | Permalink
Nike Inc., the world’s largest athletic shoemaker, has sued Wal-Mart for allegedly selling footwear that infringes one of its patented designs. Or so says the footwear giant, who filed a patent infringement suit against the retail giant on Monday in federal district court in Illinois.
The case revolves around two of Nike’s designs, both having been patented back in late 2004. As you can see by photos included in Nike’s complaint, Wal-Mart’s shoe looks like a pretty spot-on match, at least design-wise. Kudos to Wal-Mart’s apparel design team - if your own products aren’t selling, why not copy those that do? And who wouldn’t want a shoe with pogo springs right in the heel?! I couldn’t find the offending models online, although most of Wal-Mart’s own athletic shoes appear to retail for between $10-25...I would guess the original Nike version sells for just a little bit more. Several Nike models, in fact, use the copied design and generally retail for $90 and above. You can draw your own conclusions, though my guess is that these two shoes are similar on face value only - it wouldn’t surprise me if for $15, Wal-Mart’s springs were filled with marshmallow or tiny foam peanuts.
The retail mega-chain has faced a couple of infringement suits already this year - recently by Pepe Jeans, and prior to that by Adidas, which settled its case with Wal-Mart in September. You can read more about those two instances here, here, and here.
Read Nike’s complaint here.
Nike sues Wal-Mart, alleges patent infringement [Rueters]
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
Check out this week’s issue of the Wal-Mart Watch Weekly Update for Elected Officials – a compilation of Wal-Mart news from across the country and beyond.
This week’s issue focuses on Wal-Mart and the current economic crisis. You’ll find stories on how Americans are shifting to thrift stores in order to save money, and whether September’s retail sales figures reflect a downturn in consumer spending. You’ll also find an article from CNN Money discussing whether the state of the economy will affect Wal-Mart’s hiring, especially with the holiday season coming up.
In addition to the economy, you’ll find stories on Wal-Mart’s move to small stores. Are Wal-Mart’s Marketside Stores the wave of the future? And in health care news, Wal-Mart is rolling out electronic personal health records to all of its employees, and has announced changes to its health plan for 2009.
And finally, check out our “Stateside” and “Wal-Mart International” sections to find out what’s going on with Wal-Mart around the country and across the globe.
Wal-Mart Watch Weekly Update for Elected Officials [October 10, 2008]
Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
Wal-Mart’s senior counsel, Tom Mars, gave a speech this week on diversity in the company’s legal department. Because Wal-Mart has never had any diversity-related legal issues.
Mars used a “luncheon honoring the winners of the second annual survey of best law firms for women” as a time to showcase Wal-Mart’s gender diversity and commitment to flexible schedules. (The survey also examined the best companies for working mothers, and Wal-Mart didn’t make the list.) The fact that Mars was invited at all seems like an unintentional joke: not only is Wal-Mart currently involved in the largest class action gender discrimination lawsuit in history, but the company’s scheduling policies have also been condemned as bad for working mothers and hard on families.
Mars’ speech reveals a dichotomy within Wal-Mart: store employees and corporate employees are separated by a wide gulf, and different rules, benefits and salaries are applied to each. Women may very well make up a significant part of Wal-Mart’s corporate legal department, as Mars insists, but women working in Wal-Mart’s stores still face discriminatory promotion practices and lower wages than their male counterparts. That’s not something ANY working mother should support.
Law Firms Get Rated on Female Friendliness [New York Times Shifting Careers Blog]
Two weeks ago, on the same day that Lehman filed for bankruptcy protection more than 300 corporate lawyers showed up at the Mandarin Hotel in New York City for a luncheon honoring the winners of the second annual survey of best law firms for women sponsored by Working Mother Magazine and Flex-Time Lawyers. The high attendance in the face of such economic turmoil suggested that work/life issues and the promotion of female lawyers has genuinely become a pressing business issue for the legal industry.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt | Permalink
For the second time in as many weeks, Wal-Mart has been accused of violating federal law by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
In the first lawsuit filed earlier this month in Illinois, the EEOC accused Wal-Mart of violating employment provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This time around, the suit involves not disability but age discrimination. The ADEA - or Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 - prohibits employment discrimination against persons 40 years of age or older in the United States. After an investigation, the EEOC determined Yvonne Loskot was fired from the retailer’s De Soto, Missouri, store because she was too old and made too much money.
According to the EEOC complaint filed in federal court in Missouri’s eastern district, Loskot was 67 when she was fired. According to a story from the St. Louis Business Journal, Wal-Mart has claimed Loskot was let go for violating an unspecified company policy.
Loskot, who worked for Wal-Mart for a decade, earned $18 an hour as a certified optician, making her the highest-paid employee in the De Soto store’s optical department.
Agency accuses Wal-Mart of age discrimination [CNN Money]
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
Several retailers including Wal-Mart have been named in a nationwide class action for their participation in selling polycarbonate plastic baby bottles and toddler training cups containing the controversial hormone BPA.
This whole BPA - or Bisphenol-A - controversy is not a good thing. BPA is a key compound used in polycarbonate plastics, which are clear and nearly shatter-proof (a good thing), and also possibly toxic and poisoning us and our children daily (apparently bad...very, very bad). These plastics are used to make a variety of common products including baby and water bottles, sports equipment, medical devices, lenses, CDs, and household electronics...a fact that, in the interest of full disclosure, actually made me check the bottom of my water bottle this morning to make sure I wasn’t slowly killing myself.
The lawsuit in question was filed in Georgia, and you can read the (very long) complaint here, in which defendants are accused of manufacturing and selling materials made with BPA despite knowledge of likely adverse affects. In addition to Wal-Mart, retailers such as CVS, Target, and Kroger have been named in the suit. Also named were manufacturers of the bottles themselves, including Evenflo, Gerber, and Playtex. The best part of this whole thing - not only have over a hundred studies been produced in the last decade warning of the adverse affects of BPA, but apparently in deeming the compound safe the FDA decided to rely on only two, both of which were produced by the American Plastics Council. So kudos to the FDA for that.
The lawsuit has been filed in the U.S District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. You can read the release on it below.
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
Apparently, what’s happening at Cheney and Science Hill High Schools is not an isolated incident.
This weekend, more reports have come in about Wal-Mart undercutting high school athletics programs by selling school logo clothing without permission and refusing to donate any portion of the proceeds to the school.
The Cheney Free Press looks at more schools around Washington state, and finds the exact same problem occurring.
Reporter Paul Delaney quotes several upset school officials, and after pressing Bentonville, has published the first response yet out of Wal-Mart: “We want as many students as possible to be able to show their school spirit,” and “All permissions and approvals required for logo apparel are met.”
How kind. I’m thinking maybe that the high schools should come up with some clever slogans and start selling their own Wal-Mart merchandise. Wal-Mart lawyers wouldn’t have any problem with that, right?
Wal-Mart vs. area schools [Cheney Free Press (Wash.)]:
Medical Lake athletics director Chris Spring was just a little surprised recently when one of the high school’s secretaries, Lynae Strieb, walked into his office with a pair of plaid pajama pants embroidered with the Cardinal logo.
“Who ordered those?” Spring asked. Strieb replied that nobody ordered the garment and that she found them - along with other items featuring logos from both her school, as well as those of Cheney High - at the Airway Heights Wal-Mart.
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Posted by Eric Bull | Permalink
While the FEC investigates Wal-Mart’s possibly-illegal attempts to influence the votes of its employees, writers at the Legal Times discuss what those mandatory meetings exposed. While obviously making clear how much Wal-Mart fears unionization - and how much its managers exaggerate the impact of Democrats and the Employee Free Choice Act - the meetings also exposed the national need for stronger laws against employee intimidation.
Chained to Office Politics [Legal Times]
Imagine you work for the largest company in town. You live from paycheck to paycheck like a large portion of lower- to middle-wage workers and can’t afford to be without a job for long. Your company has pretty high turnover, and it has a reputation for firing people it labels troublemakers, people who don’t fit into the corporate culture.
Now imagine that at a mandatory work meeting, your supervisor warns you that Congress is considering legislation that will make it easier for unions to come into your company. A union here would be a disaster, the supervisor warns, and would mean layoffs, or even worse, closing down entire locations. Unions are bad news. And just to top it off, if a Democrat gets into the White House, we can be sure that bill in Congress will become the law. So think about that, he says, when you’re in that voting booth.
This speech might make you a little nervous about what your supervisor thinks your political leanings are. You might be very careful about what you say to be sure it can’t be interpreted to support the Democrats, particularly if your company has the reputation of firing people who support unionizing. And since your employer is the biggest in town, you watch what you say no matter where you are. You can’t afford to have anything get back to the company.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt | Permalink
Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in the world, with just over 2 millions employees on its payroll. So when the company does something wrong, there are usually a lot of people involved and for that reason, Wal-Mart often finds itself the subject of class action lawsuits.
An article today from Bloomberg News notes that there are currently over 70 lawsuits currently pending against Wal-Mart which deal with wage-and-hour violations alone. A 2005 federal law, which ruled that any lawsuit involving parties from multiple states and damages exceeding $5 million must go to federal court, means some of the cases filed since 2005 and currently pending against Wal-Mart will be combined. This had included class action suits from Delaware, South Dakota, Nevada and Alaska, until U.S. District Judge Phillip Pro denied their class status in June. Today’s article asserts that Wal-Mart stands to benefit from the 2005 law, which could make it harder for employees to collectively litigate against the company.
Whether Wal-Mart “shaved” time off employees’ schedules is not up for debate here: Judge Pro explained each wage-and-hour violation will simply be treated individually. Wal-Mart continues to look for ways to spend as little as possible on payroll, even if this means unfairly compensating employees for their hours worked. Rulings such as this one make it more difficult for employees to change Wal-Mart as a whole, but the company should stop breaking labor laws in the first place and pay its workers fairly.
Wal-Mart Shareholders Benefit From Judge’s Pay Ruling [Bloomberg News]
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., facing as much as $2 billion in damages in a Minnesota employee-pay trial, may be shielded from similar cases in the future thanks to a 2005 federal law.
The statute requires federal courts to handle class-action lawsuits of $5 million or more when plaintiffs and defendants are from different states. Because judges have been less willing to certify these cases as class actions, the law may save Wal-Mart as much as $5 billion, said Robert Bonsignore, lead workers’ attorney in Nevada suits against the world’s largest retailer. That’s equivalent to 77 percent of Wal-Mart’s $6.5 billion first- half profit.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt | Permalink
Today we received a letter from Jeff Jordan at the Federal Election Commission responding to the formal complaint Wal-Mart Watch filed against Wal-Mart for holding meetings warning employees not to vote for Democrats.
Wal-Mart will be notified with our official complaint within five days, and the FEC has promised to notify us when “final action” is taken. We’ll let you know when we hear more.
Read the full response letter here, and read the original complaint letter here.
Posted by Eric Bull | Permalink
Is this the end of the Tom Coughlin vs. Wal-Mart legal saga?
Whether Wal-Mart wanted it publicly known or not, its terms of settlement with Tom Coughlin have been posted online. Tom Coughlin was was convicted of embezzling money from the company, but was still fighting to receive his $17 million benefits package. Jury selection was to begin today for the trial, which looked to possibly drag on and bring the company a barrage of unwanted press.
$6.75 Million in retirement benefits, even though you stole from the company - that ain’t bad. We can think of a lot of Wal-Mart employees who deserve it more.
Posted by Eric Bull | Permalink
Yesterday, the New York Times’ editorial rebuked Wal-Mart for its worker intimidation during this federal election cycle. The NYT editorial refers to the front page WSJ story on Wal-Mart mobilizing its managers to vote Republican in the upcoming elections. The Times chastises the company not only for its relentless anti-union efforts, including numerous citations by the National Labor Relations Board, but also for its blatant violation federal election laws.
According to the Times, “Telling workers who are paid by the hour — Wal-Mart department supervisors are hourly workers — how to vote is prohibited under the Federal Election Campaign Act…The Federal Election Commission should investigate the allegations swiftly and aggressively. The ‘rogue executive’ defense is a well-trodden excuse that should fool no one. Providing workers with a list of members of Congress who, in Wal-Mart’s view, support bad legislation that would worsen workers lives seems indistinguishable from telling them who to vote against.”
Recap: “indistinguishable from telling them who to vote against.” This type of coercion has proved an integral part of Wal-Mart’s business practices. One can only hope that the FEC will fulfill its duty to investigate, particularly when the nation’s largest private employer has attempted to silence one of the few measures its workers have to speak out against it.
Read the full reprimand below. Well done New York Times…bravo.
Mixing Politics and Wal-Mart [New York Times]
It is hardly news that Wal-Mart will do whatever it takes to keep unions out of its stores, from closing down a unionized outlet to firing pro-union workers. The National Labor Relations Board has already ruled several times that Wal-Mart has violated the law by retaliating against workers for supporting a union.
Facing the prospect that union-friendly Democrats could win both the White House and Congress, the retail giant is now turning its attention to this year’s election.
Last week, several labor groups filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, accusing Wal-Mart of violating election rules. They acted after The Wall Street Journal reported that thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads had been called to mandatory meetings and told that if Democrats won in November they would likely pass a law to make it easier to unionize companies. According to The Journal, Wal-Mart executives warned that could force the company to cut jobs, while workers would be forced to pay union dues and might have to go on strike.
Telling workers who are paid by the hour — Wal-Mart department supervisors are hourly workers — how to vote is prohibited under the Federal Election Campaign Act.
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Posted by Joel Nezianya | Permalink
According to the Wall Street Journal’s recent story, corporations are permitted “to advocate for specific political candidates to its executives, stockholders and salaried managers, but not to hourly employees.” By many accounts, hourly employees were present in Wal-Mart meetings advocating against voting for the Democratic presidential nominee in November, and the company may have violated federal regulation if this is the case. Several groups have lodged formal complaints with the FEC, asking for an investigation
To help us sort through the nuanced finer points of federal election regulation, we turn to the bloggers of the Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal, all of whom have written on the matter. The Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog notes “Companies aren’t permitted under federal election law to expressly advocate to hourly employees the election or defeat of specific candidates,” but goes on to say Wal-Mart may have violated federal labor regulations as well:
According to a digital recording of a Wal-Mart meeting made by a Wal-Mart employee and reviewed by the WSJ, the meeting leader told employees that their wages may be reduced to minimum wage for up to three months before a contract is negotiated, that union authorization cards violate workers’ right to privacy by including their Social Security numbers on them and that if a small unit within a store votes to unionize, the entire store will be unionized.
“The statements are not correct representations of what the law would require even under the current law,” said Jeffrey Hirsch, a labor lawyer in Boston. “It would be a violation of the national labor relations act to say those things.”
Steven Greenhouse at the New York Times Politics Blog goes farther with this argument, pointing out that Wal-Mart’s behavior in this case is only the latest example of a company-wide anti-union policy:
Wal-Mart, which has 1.4 million employees nationwide, has a reputation for fighting fiercely against unionization efforts. Wal-Mart officials say that store managers are told to comply with the law when they battle against unionization drives, although labor leaders cite numerous National Labor Relations Board decisions finding concluding that Wal-Mart had improperly fired union supporters or engaged in other illegal anti-union tactics.
“For years, Wal-Mart has been intimidating and harassing its workers who want to form unions,” said Mary Beth Maxwell, executive director of American Rights at Work, a union-financed advocacy group. “Now they’ve adapted their union-busting tactics to influence our federal election system.”
And finally, the Washington Post’s “The Trail” Blog helps explain why its important to address these issues, especially at Wal-Mart:
“Wal-Mart may be the world’s largest retailer, and America’s number one private employer, but it is not above the law,” said Meghan Scott, spokesperson for WakeUpWalMart.com. “Wal-Mart has intimidated its workers and attempted to scare them into voting against a particular party and candidate, and from what workers tell us, these meetings haven’t stopped. This behavior proves that Wal-Mart is willing to go to any lengths to put profits ahead of its workers.”
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt | Permalink
Today, several labor groups asked the FEC to investigate Wal-Mart. Last week, Wal-Mart Watch submitted a formal complaint to the Federal Election Committee last week, requesting an investigation of Wal-Mart’s political intimidation. From the letter:
As reported in the Wall Street Journal on August 1, 2008, in a piece entitled “Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win,” Wal-Mart has been mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors across the country to warn them of a Democratic victory in the November general election. More specifically, it has been reported that Wal-Mart has been informing its employees that a Democratic victory in November could lead to the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which in turn would allow workers to form unions without the fear of being fired and allow a simple majority of employees to certify a union to act as their representative.
Wal-Mart representatives deny any wrongdoing, and only an FEC investigation would answer this question for sure. Meanwhile, controversy still remains over Wal-Mart’s fear-mongering insistence that unions will bring fewer jobs and yet lower wages to the company’s employees. Its attempt to intimidate employees out of standing up for their rights is doubly shameful, and while we await an FEC investigation, the company’s anti-union misrepresentation and propagandizing should not be overlooked.
Wal-Mart Should Be Probed Over Political Meetings, Group Says [Bloomberg News]
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. should be probed by federal regulators over reports that company officials broke the law by advising employees against voting Democratic in the November elections, a worker advocacy group said.
Wal-Mart Watch has requested the Federal Election Commission investigate media reports that Wal-Mart managers advised employees against voting for Democratic candidates, according to a letter to the FEC dated Aug. 6. Managers told employees that a Democratic victory could lead to the formation of a union, which might impose fees on workers, the letter said, citing a Wall Street Journal story.
“These are serious actions taken by Wal-Mart which are in violation of federal election law, and we request that you investigate them to the fullest extent possible,’’ wrote David Nassar, executive director of Wal-Mart Watch, in the letter.
Wal-Mart denies breaking the law.
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Posted by Media Team | Permalink
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