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

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

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

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

In this Month’s issue of Mother Jones, Sasha Ambramsky takes a look at the life of a real Wal-Mart worker. Aubretia Edick has worked at Wal-Mart for 8 years, and still makes under the company’s hourly average for New York. She lives on $195 a week, after taxes and deductions.

Former CEO Lee Scott was making more than that every minute.

America on $195 a Week [Mother Jones]:

“I’ll take a sandwich to work and that’s about it,” says Aubretia Edick, who is 58 and works in the pharmacy department of a Wal-Mart in Hudson, New York. “I drink a lot of tea. Once in a blue moon I’ll go into Save-A-Lot and I’ll get some meat. Eggs is kinda like a luxury kind of thing.”

Edick first landed a $6.40-an-hour gig at Wal-Mart back in 2001, and over time her wages inched upward, reaching $10.50 last year. But with inflation factored in, it isn’t that much better than when she first started. To make matters worse, while Edick was technically full time, her manager often slashed her hours due to the slowing economy. In mid-2008, she was grossing roughly $297 a week—$195 after taxes and deductions.

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Back in April, the Denver Post conducted a survey of grocery prices at Wal-Mart supercenters in several Denver neighborhoods. Over a number of weeks, the survey found Wal-Mart charged more for groceries at its stores in low-income neighborhoods than in higher income areas. As the article noted, “It’s not cheap being poor.”

A survey done recently in Florida corroborates those findings. WKMG in Central Florida went to several Wal-Mart stores in neighborhoods of varying income levels and found consistent price disparities at each. In each case, products were cheaper in higher income areas.

This trend points to a pricing scheme that takes advantage of lower income shoppers who can’t afford to drive to a competing store for groceries. Wal-Mart might claim to help people “Save Money” and “Live Better,” but there’s nothing charitable about taking advantage of consumers already struggling to get by. To those of you with multiple Wal-Marts in your area: have you noticed this trend?

Wal-Mart Price Discrepancies Investigated [WKMG-TV (Fla.)]

Apparent cost discrepancies at Central Florida Wal-Mart stores were investigated after the Problem Solvers received a tip from a viewer alleging different prices for the same items.

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Ah, to be a Walton. While most of America struggles to keep their houses, afford basic food items and preserve their dwindling retirement funds, the Waltons have made a big leap up on Forbes’ list of the top 400 richest Americans and now comfortably reside in slots four through seven on the list of top ten wealthiest people in the country. That’s up from their rank last year - when Jim, Rob, and Christy were tied for 12th place, with their sister Alice coming in right after them at 15th.

Sam Walton’s four children aren’t the only Walton family members on the list: E Stanley Kroenke and his wife Ann Walton Kroenke also make an appearance, as does Sam’s niece, Nancy Walton Laurie. Taken together, the family is worth over $100 billion.

That’s more than an average Wal-Mart worker could earn in ten thousand lifetimes. Many of Wal-Mart’s hourly employees live in near-poverty, often earning so little that they qualify for government assistance. Basic life needs - housing, food, health care - are often out of reach, even for employees working full time. The Walton family’s wealth is obscene in comparison.

Wal-Mart executives have refused to raise wages for the company’s lowest earning employees, stating that such increases would cut in to company profits. Obviously, profitability is not a problem. As Wal-Mart sees record sales and the Walton family climbs to the top of America’s economic ladder, the company should be ashamed for not sharing its wealth with its lowest-earning workers.

The 400 Richest Americans [Forbes]