Lie #9: Wal-Mart Treats Its Employees Fairly
“[We’re] really paying attention to where do the associates stand. What do they need, what are they wanting from us? And then we're delivering on that.” - Pat Curran, People Division [Wal-Mart Fall Analyst Meeting, 10/23/07]
"Our relationship with the associates is a partnership in the truest sense.” [Sam Walton: Made in America, 162]
“To commit ourselves to giving the associates more equitable treatment in the company, was without a doubt the single smartest move we ever made at Wal-Mart.” [Sam Walton: Made in America, 169]
The Truth:
Wal-Mart faces the nation's largest workplace gender-bias lawsuit. In June 2004, U.S. District Court Judge Martin Jenkins granted class-action status to 1.6 million current and former female Wal-Mart employees who charge the company with paying women less and offering them fewer opportunities for promotion. The class is comprised of all current and former female employees employed between December 26, 1998, and the present. [Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., No. C01-02252 MJJ (U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California).]
Wal-Mart loses bid to block gender discrimination suit. Wal-Mart’s efforts to block the nation’s largest sex discrimination lawsuit suffered a big setback yesterday when a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled that the case should proceed as a class action. [New York Times, 2/6/2007]
Wal-Mart losses a public battle to recoup insurance losses from brain-damaged woman. Debbie Shank, the former Wal-Mart worker severely injured in a trucking accident in Missouri, gets to keep her insurance money after all. After week of intense media pressure and public outrage, Wal-Mart made the decision not to pursue over $450,000 dollars in insurance money despite winning a Supreme Court ruling. Wal-Mart policy reversal happened after Debbie Shank’s story received heavy rotation on CNN and Keith Olbermann’s Countdown. on MSNBC as a result Wal-Mart’s lawsuit against her. [CNN, 3/25/08, MSNBC 3/27-3/31/08]
Wal-Mart refuses to hire discharged Air Force pilot. After his discharge from the Air Force for a medical condition, John K. Thornton wanted to get his old job back with Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, Wal-Mart refused to hire him back, this violating the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994. Due to this obvious violation of the law, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Wal-Mart. [Daytona Beach News Journal, April 2, 2008]
Wal-Mart shortchanges Minnesota workers. Wal-Mart is facing a massive lawsuit filed by four women on behalf of 56,000 Minnesota employees for failing to provide adequate meal and rest breaks. Experts estimate that Wal-Mart owes around $50 million dollars for the unpaid work. This case is one of more than seventy wage and hour cases Wal-Mart faces nationally. [Bloomberg, April 1, 2008]
Wal-Mart secretly takes out life insurance policies on its employees. Known as “dead peasant” insurance, Wal-Mart took out Corporate-Owned Life insurance (COLI) policies on unsuspecting employees until 1995. Even thought Wal-Mart stopped taking out new policies at this time, it continued to cash in on them years later. In Texas and Oklahoma, Wal-Mart paid $15 million to settle claims it did not have an insurable interest while taking out these policies. Michael D. Myers, an attorney who has represented workers on these types of cases, had this say about employers using these types of policies: “Creepy's a good word for it...If you ask the executives that decided to buy these policies and the insurance companies that sold them, they would say this was designed to create tax benefits for the company, which would use the benefits for benevolent purposes such as buying employee medical benefits.” [Tampa Tribune, 7/3/07 and 3/10/8]
Wal-Mart faces class action lawsuit over truck driver discrimination. Nationally, 15% of truck drivers are African-American, yet at Wal-Mart African-Americans comprise only 4-6% of its fleet, which employs 10,000 truck drivers. In May of 2007, a district court judge ruled that Wal-Mart’s hiring policies created a common group of potential plaintiffs (African –American truckers who were not hired or deterred from applying for Wal-Mart positions), thus approving the creation of a class action suit. Wal-Mart’s latest attempts to avoid accountability include pushing the trial date back yet another year and denying plaintiffs’ access to the results of a company-wide demographic survey of hiring practices. [Nelson v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., E.D. Ark., Nos. 2:04-CV-00171; walmartdriverclass.com]
Wal-Mart pays two million in wrongful termination lawsuit. Wal-Mart agrees to pays two million in damages to Massachusetts pharmacist Cynthia Haddad after a jury determined that Wal-Mart fired her for complaining about unequal pay. Richard Fradette, a member of the plaintiff’s legal team, had this to say about Wal-Mart treats its female employees: “What the jury saw is that, if Wal-Mart will treat a well-educated, professional woman with such reckless disregard, can you imagine how they treat other women in the work force?” [Berkshire Eagle, 6/20/07]
Wal-Mart saves money on the backs of its employees. Thousands of employees have sued Wal-Mart for unpaid overtime and unfair break practices, so-called "wage and hour" lawsuits. The company currently faces more than 80 wage and hour class action cases across the country. [Wal-Mart form 10-k filed on 3/27/07]
Wal-Mart fails to provide domestic partner benefits. Wal-Mart remains one of the few national retailers that do not extend health care and other benefits to same-sex domestic partners. Wal-Mart’s major competitors including Target, Best Buy, Costco, Federated Department Stores (Macy’s), Walgreen’s and Sears Holding Corporation (Sears/K-Mart) all offer domestic partnership benefits. [Corporate Equality Index, 9/06]
Wal-Mart does not respond to internal warnings regarding gender bias. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. took no action on internal warnings seven years ago that it was falling short in promoting women, documents in a federal sex-discrimination lawsuit show. [Bloomberg News, 7/15/2005]
Wal-Mart misleads legislators about pushing employees to public assistance. In a letter to state legislators, Wal-Mart wrote that they "provide the mechanism for associates to remove themselves from public assistance" and that they "certainly don't encourage our associates to apply for public health benefits." Documents bearing the Wal-Mart logo, however, revealed that Wal-Mart printed and provided "Instructions for Associates" regarding public assistance enrollment. Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott has said: "There are government assistance programs out there that are so lucrative it's hard to be competitive, and it's expensive to be competitive." [Wal-Mart Letter to State Legislators, 6/20/05; Wal-Mart Social Services Documents; St. Louis Post Dispatch, 4/6/05]
Wal-Mart discriminates against employees with Cerebral Palsy. In 2002, Wal-Mart hired then 21-year old Patrick Brady, an American living with cerebral palsy, as a sales associate in the pharmacy department. After one day in the pharmacy, however, the company reassigned him to other responsibilities -- including collecting garbage and shopping carts from the parking lot. A Long Island jury found that Wal-Mart discriminated against Brady when he was transferred and asked impermissible pre-employment questions about his disability. The jury awarded Brady $7.5 million in damages, and a judge ultimately awarded Brady $2.8 million. [Associated Press, 2/24/05; Newsday, 3/24/05; New York Law Journal, 6/23/05.]
Wal-Mart pays millions over Americans with Disabilities Act violations. In 2001, Wal-Mart paid $6 million to settle 13 lawsuits charging the company with widespread discrimination and violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Even after these lawsuits, Wal-Mart has failed to improve its behavior. Since 2001, 47 ADA lawsuits have been filed against Wal-Mart. [29 U.S.C. S 706 et seq; Business Journal, 1/20/04.]
Wal-Mart employees forced to work overtime while locked stores. In May 2007, New Jersey’s Supreme Court ruled that Wal-Mart must face a class-action lawsuit by workers who claim Wal-Mart forced them to work through meal breaks, locked them in retail stores after they clocked out and coerced them into working off the clock. The company broke state wage and hour laws and breached contracts with employees, the workers say. Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, faces more than 70 U.S. wage-and-hour suits, including class actions by employees claiming the company failed to pay for all hours worked or did not compensate them properly for overtime. [Bloomberg News, 5/31/07]
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