WAL-MARTyrs's topics - tribe.net

Why do so many shop there?

2008-06-24T22:28:06Z

I can't figure it out. Every time you ride past a shit-mart, the parking lot is full. - hmmm.. start a converstion about hating shit-mart and people talk about how they hate it... but .... go on about how they HAVE to shop there! puhleeeeeze! Is saving a few pennies going to buy you a house? NO! Is it going to send you or your child to college? NO Is it going to pay your car off? NO!

Everyone needs to boycott shit-mart! If everyone would just get together and not shop there for a week, it will open some eyes!

I haven't been in a shit-mart for over a year now. I say, down with the devil!!!! bwahahahaha!!!!!

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 10 replies

a more lighthearted form of protest

2005-11-29T01:59:06Z

i'm all about battling walmart the old fashioned way, in hearings, at the ballot box, and on the street, but here's a link to a more lighthearted, and definitely more fun, action to temporarily disrupt shopping as normal at walmart:

http://toiletpaperonline.typepad.com/the_blog/2005/11/walmart_dance_p.html

makes me *almost* wish i lived close enough to a walmart to organize something like this... but not quite.

amberina

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 0 replies

walmartmovie.com

2005-11-18T16:23:03Z

this movie is in production right now and is going to be released on november 13th. if anyone is interested in holding a screening party or becoming a field producer just visit the site and sign up... the more people involved the more impact it will have:

"WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price takes the viewer on a deeply personal journey into the everyday lives of families struggling to fight goliath. From a small business owner in the Midwest to a preacher in California, from workers in Florida to a poet in Mexico, dozens of film crews on three continents bring the intensely personal stories of an assault on families and American values."

http://www.walmartmovie.com

oh and anyone who knows me is cordially invited to my house for the screening ;Þ

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 2 replies

employee sabotage

2005-06-27T05:38:59Z

i am a newly hired cashier/photo lab girl, and am collecting ideas for insiders sabotage...got any good ones?
i dont intend to be there too long, but am certain they would punish me to the fullest extend of their powers for doing something...so I dont wanna get busted!

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 3 replies

How 2 participate

2005-06-25T23:00:21Z

Curious as to how to " Play the game " of " Shopping for others " ?

Read this:

My " Shopping Trips " consist of theme shopping ...
First of all, let me tell you I have NO, NO intention of buying one damn thing there so these " shopping trips " are PURELY for my amusement ...

I'll head on in and nod kindly @ the senile handicapped " greeter " ( ... and PLEASE do not get me wrong, I think it is WONDERFUL to employee the handi-capped & elderly, ... BUT what I HIGHLY RESENT is how Wal-fart ONLY puts them in the position of " greeter " so that Wal-fart looks good ... they don't give a rat's ass about these people ! )

Then I grab me a cart and choose a theme for the day:
My favorite theme when I am in a bad mood is :
" Today is shitty "

I then head on over to toiletries first ... here I place 3 or 4 packages of ex-lax in the cart ... then its off to plumbing for a plunger & a drain snake ...

Next comes household goods where I load up on toilet paper ... if I'm in an especially bad mood I head to home improvements for a toilet seat and a hideous toilet seat cover ... fuzzy pink ones are my favorite ...

Wal-marts with groceries are the best because you can then stroll on over there and load up on " theme " foods to go with whats in your cart ... sometimes I choose only brown foods like Chocolate pudding, tootsie rolls & Hershey kisses ...

After amusing myself to no end I head on up to the endless row of empty registers ... After finding one actually manned by a cashier I wait until I get my turn ... as soon as I get to the head of the line I pretend I've left my wallet in the car and tell the cashier I'll be RIGHT back !

By this time I usually have a nice big grin on my face imagining the thoughts that will run through the Walmart employee tasked with putting all that junk back where it belongs ...

... And I never feel guilty because I figure I've freed some poor employee for an hour or so to stroll around with the cart I filled and put things back , thereby allowing them an hour or so of easy work ...

It's also a nice way of wasting the resources of Wal-Mart ...

PLEASE join us in " Shopping for Others " on April 20th 2004 !

Let's see if we can get the media involved ...

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 28 replies

Another Trick to Try

2005-06-25T22:48:11Z

I've come up with a few union-themed ideas, since that seems to be very prescient these days. One, is to obtain a number of union pamphlets. Carefully distribute them among the merchandise, so they will appear randomly as the day goes on.

Another, is to get a group of associates together, and congregate at a suitable location within the store. Then begin singing "Solidarity Forever", and see how long it takes them to react:)

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 2 replies

Does anyone have a link to a Job Application @ Walmart?

2005-04-30T17:47:51Z

I want a link to review thier application. If you have one please post it.

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 1 reply

PBS on Walmart

2005-04-14T03:53:56Z

If your local PBS station runs this show, please take the time to watch and learn why WalMart isn't the great store everyone thinks it is ...

http://www.pbs.org/itvs/storewars/stores3_2.html

" People are surprised that Wal-Mart would even want to locate a store at Ashland, with another one 10 miles away. But that's part of the Wal-Mart saturation strategy. They place their stores so close together that they become their own competition. Once everybody else is wiped out, then they're free to thin out their stores. Wal-Mart has 390 empty stores on the market today. This is a company that has changed stores as casually as you and I change shoes. "

- Al Norman, Sprawl-Busters

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 19 replies

Working women

2005-03-12T07:44:24Z

So my local paper, the Las Vegas Review Journal, runs a column by syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell. He is a pretty dreadful guy, but his most recent column (Sunday, July 25) was one of his worst: http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?columnsName=tso

My response is this:

It is unfortunate that the Las Vegas Review Journal chooses to run articles by syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell. Mr. Sowell ’s column in this past Sunday ’s edition (July 25, 2004) clearly betrays how misinformed he is about the general status of working women in this country, and the status of female employees at Wal-Mart in particular. He made three claims: 1) Women simply do not want the same jobs traditionally held by men, 2) if hiring women is so cheap, Wal-Mart would have hired lots of us instead of hiring men at a higher cost, and 3) the best thing a woman can do for her career is stay single and childless.

First, someone should inform Sowell that in 2004 women are not only interested in doing work traditionally done by men, we are actually doing work traditionally done by men. The women in the class action suit against Wal-Mart want to get paid the same as their male counterparts for the work that women already do at Wal-mart. Richard Drogen, a professor emeritus of statistics at the University of California, Hayward found that full-time female Wal-Mart employees make $1,150 less per year than men in similar jobs, a 6.2 percent gap. Women store managers make an average of $89,280 a year, $16,400 less than men.

Second, someone should explain to Sowell that 65% of Wal-Mart staff are women, yet they earn an average of 37 cents less than men. Wal-Mart is, in fact, hiring women instead of men to keep costs down. How do you think Wal-Mart keeps their prices so low?

And, third, when Sowell writes, "The most blatant fact about male-female differences is often ignored by those on the hunt for discrimination: Women have babies," someone should tell Sowell that he has again missed the point. Women are already doing the same work as men, putting in the same hours of men, yet they earn less than men. In my voting district, nearly 25% of all households are headed by single women with children. These women need to put bread on the table, and they need to save for their children ’s college tuition. I imagine many women who have taken part in the class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart are similar to the women in my voting district. These women are not selfish money-grubbers as Sowell implied. They simply want compensation commiserate with what their male counterparts, and their male counterparts ’families, receive.

If your local newspaper publishes Sowell's column, I urge you to send a letter of complaint to them, as well as Sowell's syndicate, Creators Syndicate (info@creators.com). You can use my letter above if you wish.

-Jessica

P.S. Don't shop Wal-mart.

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 2 replies

OH GOD YES!!

2005-01-19T03:03:27Z

^ *coming from a atheist!*

Finally i find people that think about Wal-Mart the same way i do!

Thanks to **Heather** and judging a book by it's cover!
lol

**************newly (self)appointed Wal-Martyr*************

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 0 replies

More on the class-action suit

2004-09-17T05:49:56Z

Hello all,

Wanted to post a link to this article - it is a good run down of the class action suit against Wal-Mart alleging sex discrimination.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/19901/

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 0 replies

MERCHANTS FIGHTING WAL-MART

2004-08-13T20:08:15Z

FIGHTING WAL-MART
More than toy soliders in this brutal fight

• Having seen several top stores like FAO Schwarz and KB Toys fail to keep up with leader Wal-Mart, toymakers themselves want to stand their ground in this price war.

Anne D'Innocenzio
The Associated Press

February 25, 2004

NEW YORK -- Led by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., discount retailers won a war with other toy stores this past holiday season. Now toymakers, a casualty in that bitter fight, have decided to make their own stand.
To protect themselves and toy retailers they see as key to their profits, some manufacturers plan to deliver fewer hot toys to Wal-Mart and to have more exclusive launches at chains like Toys "R" Us Inc. It's a rare instance of manufacturers challenging the biggest U.S. retail juggernaut and its low-price approach to business.

Wild Planet Toys' Aquapets, an interactive critter, will be at Toys "R" Us exclusively for three months this spring before it reaches the mass merchants.

"The success of Toys 'R' Us is important for the health of the toy industry," said Danny Grossman, founder and CEO of Wild Planet.

Said Jim Silver, publisher of the Toy Book, an industry magazine: "Wal-Mart is a very important part of the toy business, but toymakers don't want its low-pricing strategies to devalue their brands and their business -- and put more toy retailers out of business."

The price wars contributed to the bankruptcies last holiday season of FAO Inc., owner of the famed FAO Schwarz, and KB Toys Inc., which plans to close nearly a third of its stores.

"Whether it is exclusive launches or controlled product shipments, they are going to do whatever they can to keep other retailers healthy," Silver said.

Still, given the clout of Wal-Mart, which has a 21 percent share of the toy market, it remains to be seen whether these strategies will be effective. Many manufacturers-- who wanted to speak anonymously for fear of losing the discounter's business -- said there is only so much they can do. Setting prices with retailers is illegal under antitrust laws.

And Karen Burk, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said: "Our focus will continue to be what it has always been, and that is delivering value to our customers, and that will not change."

The pricing issue is expected to be a key concern of manufacturers and retailers at the American International Toy Fair, the industry product expo that officially begins Sunday.

Toy price wars have always been part of the holiday season, but 2003 was even more brutal than expected. In September, Wal-Mart started by dramatically reducing prices on more than a dozen hot toys, six weeks earlier than usual.

The retailer sold Mattel's Hot Wheels T-Wrecks playset for $29.74 instead of the original $49.88, while the price of Play Along's Sing-Along Care Bears fell to $14.99 from $24.99.

Wal-Mart used the toys as a loss leader to woo shoppers to other aisles elsewhere in the store.

Discount rivals including Target Corp. followed, but other stores that could not compete ended up canceling orders and advertisements.

Manufacturers are worried about 2004. "This sets the bar this year," moaned Jay Foreman, CEO of Play Along.

The $20 billion traditional toy industry suffered a 3 percent decline in sales last year, according to analyst estimates. Meanwhile, prices fell 4.3 percent on top of a 9.3 percent decline in 2002, according to the Labor Department.

Some companies like Applause LLC are determined to create a best seller even without discounters' help. The toy company, which limits its distribution to independent stores and specialty chains, is reintroducing Dream Pets, fuzzy animals originally brought to the United States in the 1950s from Japan.

"I believe that phenomenons can happen today without mass merchants," said Bob Solomon, chairman of the Woodland Hills, Calif., company.

Still, those who still want to have a good relationship with Wal-Mart will need to be diplomatic; with $256.03 billion in sales last year, the company has unprecedented power and offers a chance for big sales that manufacturers cannot ignore.

During a recent conference call with investors, Bob Eckert, chairman and CEO of Mattel, said the company is trying to lessen the impact of price wars by building "more value into our products to sell more on content and less on price."

"We expect the business environment will continue to be a challenge with ongoing retail consolidation and cost pressures," he told investors."How long it takes to get through this is anybody's guess."

Not all manufacturers are upset by what happened last year.

LeapFrog Enterprises Inc. believes Wal-Mart's price cutting of some of its educational products helped to establish the chain as a destination for the brand, said Tom Prichard, senior vice president of marketing.

The closings of other toy retailers is something that "was going to happen. Wal-Mart is bringing it to the forefront earlier," Prichard said.

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 5 replies

LA vs. Wal-Mart

2004-08-13T19:51:48Z

The Los Angeles City Council yesterday approved a proposed ordinance that would force all retailers wanting to build supercenters larger than 100,000 square feet to prove that their nonunion discount stores would not hurt jobs, wages or businesses in the surrounding neighborhood.
While Wal-Mart is not specified in the legislation, it is the clear target of proponents, who originally wanted an outright ban on all supercenters. Warehouse club stores such as Costco and Sam’s Club are exempt from the ordinance’s provisions. Final approval of the ordinance is expected by next Wednesday. Passage was made a lot more likely by the release of a study by the University of California, Berkeley, that suggested that Wal-Mart’s employment policies are costing just California’s taxpayers $86 million annually paid in public assistance to company employees. The study said that Wal-Mart workers in California, because they make insufficient salaries and get inadequate benefits, rely on the state for about $32 million annually in health-related services, and $54 million a year in other assistance such as subsidized school lunches, food stamps and subsidized housing.
Wal-Mart disputes the accuracy of the UC Berkeley study, and portrayed the Los Angeles ordinance as a victory.
"The union's failure to persuade the City to ban Wal-Mart Supercenters in Los Angeles is a victory for consumers," said Wal-Mart spokesperson Peter Kanelos. "For four years, organized labor, spearheaded by the United Food and Commercial Worker's Union, has worked to convince the city to prevent Wal-Mart from selling groceries in Supercenters. The ordinance considered by the City Council fails to meet this objective in two ways: first, the ordinance in no way restricts the sale of groceries in Supercenters and second, it allows individual neighborhoods to decide the benefits of a Wal-Mart Supercenter for themselves.” Indeed, Wal-Mart made clear that if the ordinance is passed and becomes law, it will work hard to assure that its provisions are enacted across the board, and that it is not unfairly and unevenly targeted.

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 1 reply

Cross posting from the SUV Backlash tribe

2004-07-21T21:16:43Z

Excerpt from the Toronto Star, July 21, 2004

By Rebecca Eckler

The milestones of a child's life are extremely important to parents. I remember fondly the day Baby Rowan first rolled over on her own (March 2, 2004). A month ago, Baby Rowan got her first tooth. I called everyone I knew. And yesterday, Baby Rowan got her first car. It was a proud, proud moment for me. I almost cried.
But, unfortunately for Baby Rowan, her life can only go downhill from here. Yes, the three-toothed nine-month-old now owns her very own luxury Hummer H2 SUV.
"Oh, my God, that's amazing!" said one mother in a park in Toronto's trendy Yorkville area, upon seeing the vhicle. "Where did you get that? My husband would die for one of those."
The Mclaren stroller she was pushing her child in didn't hold a candle to Baby Rowan's bright yellow Hummer. This mother's envy was palpable, as well it should have been.
Two weeks ago, the Little Tikes company announced the Canadian introduction of the first batttery-operated ride-on Hummer vehicles made especially for kids. It was developed with General Motors and is a scaled down version of GM's popular Hummer H2 SUV. The vehicle is sold exclusively at Wal-Mart and retails for about $400.
"We knew the popularity of the Hummer brand would be just as strong with children as it is with their parents," says Keith Cameron, director of sales and marketing for Little Tikes Canada...
But honestly, I've always kind of hated adult Hummer drivers. I'm always left wondering, "Why? Why do you need that car in the city, except to show that you have a lot of money?" (Really, how many Hummer drivers are actually driving up mountains in their spare time?) But when the kid's Hummer H2 SUV arrived, I couldn't get over all the bells and whistles...
Great care has gone into replicating the features of the original Hummer. There's a forward tilt hood, aircraft-style gearshift, authentic wheels, adjustable seats, chrome grill and an actual radio, that offers a five-song play list including hard rock, alternative and country music... This kid's Hummer does not come with instructions. No, this Hummer comes with an "Operator's Manual."
The real Hummer is all about status, of course, and so it is with the kiddie version. Kids looking to outdo Baby Rowan can shell out $500 for the Adventure Series Hummer H2 SUV, which is sold exclusively at Toys"R" Us and includes fog lights and two walkie talkies. The fact that the adventure series comes in a pewter colour suggests kids aren't the ones looking to invest in one of these: I'm an adult and I'm not even sure what colour pewter is!...

reply to this post

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 0 replies

wal mart sux

2004-07-20T07:25:05Z

Wal mart sux ass. I have only been there a handfull of times but it was always dirty, always un_organised, with really awfull customer serrive, and that fucking yellow dot happy face thing needs to burn in hell!!! What does it say about us when a store like this is the "All American" store? It really sux. When I was in Idaho I could not believe that people actually buy food from a store like this?? Horriefied I was! I won';t even mention being desciminated against.

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 0 replies

Will Labor Take the Wal-Mart Challenge? from The Nation

2004-06-15T18:03:12Z

quite a long article but an interesting read....

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040628&s=featherstone

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 0 replies

What's in the cart ?

2004-05-22T04:50:30Z

What are some ideas for items to fill our carts with ? Has anyone got any especially good theme ideas ?

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 2 replies

Whale-Mart

2004-04-28T00:56:56Z

Wal-Mart Tied to Whaling in Japan

April 2004

A relationship between Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, and Japan's brutal drive fisheries and whaling industries has been exposed. Wal-Mart currently owns 37% of the Seiyu Supermarket chain in Japan, with an option to increase their ownership to 66% by 2007. Seiyu supermarkets are a major distributor of cetacean products, including the meat of dolphins, porpoises and whales. As a large stakeholder, Wal-Mart has the influence to pressure Seiyu into discontinuing the sale of marine mammal products.

Japan does not regulate the sale of whale and dolphin meat in stores, which means that meat from rare and endangered species could potentially be sold among that of legally hunted species. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) analyzed DNA from samples of whale meat sold in Japanese supermarkets and found that meat from whales was not always properly labeled. Dolphin and porpoise meat was found in packages labeled "whale" and meat from whales illegally hunted in the Antarctica and other rare species were discovered.

Whales suffer unimaginable and often prolonged deaths when struck by grenade-bearing harpoons from whaling ships and thousands of dolphins are forced into the shallows and butchered annually as part of Japan's drive fisheries. These brutal facts are the basis upon which an international ban on commercial whaling was passed and people across the globe continue to decry Japan's treatment and exploitation of marine mammals.

There are also valid concerns about the consumption of cetacean products. Studies have found extremely high levels of mercury and other neuro-toxins in whale meat that could cause permanent damage to the human nervous system. Inadequate government oversight and public health information means that most Japanese people have no idea of the risks they are taking when they eat cetacean products.

Through their business relationship with Seiyu, Wal-Mart has become, knowingly or not, a supporter of the whaling and drive fisheries industries in Japan. Wal-Mart is a silent accomplice in the cruel slaughter of thousands of whales and dolphins each year.

Please take a few moments to send a letter to the CEO and President of Wal-Mart. Politely urge him to use Wal-Mart's power to stop the sale of whale, dolphin and porpoise meat in all stores owned and operated by Seiyu, Ltd. Remind him that as long as Wal-Mart is associated with Seiyu and Seiyu continues to sell these products, Wal-Mart will be seen as a participant in the slaughter of these sentient marine mammals.

Send your letter to:

Mr. H. Lee Scott
President and CEO
Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
702 SW Eighth Street
Bentonville, Arkansas 72716
Fax: 479-204-9798

Please send a copy to:

Ms. Mona Williams
Vice President of Communications
Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
702 SW 8th Street
Bentonville, Arkansas 72716
Fax: 479-204-9798

After you have sent your letter, please visit www.care2.com/go/z/12559 to sign the online petition asking Wal-Mart to sever its ties with the Japanese whaling industry.

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 0 replies

dirty bastards are picking on grandma now

2004-04-03T23:20:02Z

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/19/news-kaplan.php

and just when I thought it was impossible to sink any lower...
-Fin

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 0 replies

Wanna job @ Wal-mart? Well lemme tell you........

2004-02-11T06:29:50Z

I was in New Hudson Michigan the other day checking on one of my job sites,Wal-mart is near by. I just had to check out this Wal-mart/Welfare thing. I decide to go in for an application, I know they will arrange an interview with me. My intentions are to ask a million questions when I get this interview, not to be employed there. This is my chance.

I go in, ask the 100 year old greeter where I go for an app. "Huh?" was the response to my question. I go to Customer Service, the 15 year old there tells me there is a computer station in the Lay-A-Way department for the apps. She tells me where that department is.

On my way, to the app station, I walk pass the registers. Two are open with very long waiting lines. I see a lot of low prices and junk from Christmas. The store seems clean. The smiley faces are staring at me.

I get to the computer app station. I start filling out an application, all the norm is there. The hourly wage request comes next. I was NOT allowed to choose over $6.50 an hour. Everytime I typed in $10.00 an hour, the page would refresh and state "please choose $5.70-$6.50".

I get through that and I am now being asked if I receive social security, S.S.I, and state assistance! (Why in the world would this be on an app?!!?!??!? I hire ppl all the time, I never ask this!) I complete this section. Then the screen goes to VERY VERY STRANGE QUESTIONS! I was asked "When you drink milk do you vomit?" WTF!?!? I stopped there. I asked to talk to a manager about these questions. No one could find the manager.

I was so amazed by all this, I left.

Wal-mart isn't just a bully, they have a fetish or something.
I still don't know what to make of the milk question. This is the strangest experience I have ever had.

Why no more than $6.50 an hour? This must be a rule.

I really hope someone calls me for this interview, but I don't think they will, being that I would not answer the "fetish questions".

Now, my biggest concern is why does Wal-mart care if milk makes me sick or not? Is this a personally test? I am a bad person if milk is one of my allergies? Do they make you drink milk or something? Do they offer employees Powder Milk to keep them alive?

Would the next question have been, when you eat eggs, do you vomit?

If Wal-mart can't subsidize paychecks with powder milk and powder eggs, you don't get the job buddy!

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 8 replies

Lyrical

2004-02-11T06:16:04Z

Hello people,
here is a little on line "MC battle" I had with a dude about Wal-Mart on a Hip Hop message board. I'm sure some of you will appreciate it:)

http://pub12.ezboard.com/fplaguelanguage3808frm2.showMessage?topicID=62.topic

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 2 replies

Celebrity Boycott

2004-01-30T14:41:41Z

Shopper stopper

Melissa Gilbert wants you to stop shopping at Wal-Mart.

The “Little House on the Prairie” alum, now the president of the Screen Actor’s Guild, has sent an email to fellow actors, asking them to shun the discount store. "Wal-Mart’s low prices come at a tremendous cost,” Gilbert wrote, “not only to workers in groceries and retail but to thousands of workers in manufacturing whose jobs have moved out of the country as suppliers struggle to meet Wal-Mart’s demands for cheaper products. We all feel the pain of runaway production — so shop union, work union.”

J. Lo will, no doubt, be terribly inconvenienced ...

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 0 replies

Some Explanations ...

2004-01-27T22:55:09Z

I wanted to share this brief bit of information:

Occasionally, someone doesn't see the whole point in " Shopping for Others " & thinks we are just causing employees additional grief.

People need to understand that our desire is NOT to screw the little guys employed @ Wal-Mart, but to drain company resources while INSURING that we are providing ADDITIONAL hours for employees so that they are given enough hours to qualify for Wal-Mart's health care.

Currently, only 36 - 38 % of employees are EVEN eligible for health care because Wal-Mart makes a POINT of keeping employees hours LESS than the required amount to qualify for health care.

There isn't much difference between stocking shelves and strolling around the store putting things back. It even gives these employees a break from being behind a register or @ the mercy of rude customers.

Just wanted to provide some information that we all can use when someone doesn't see the whole picture ...

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 0 replies

In-House Audit Says Wal-Mart Violated Labor Laws

2004-01-14T18:28:35Z

now child-labor law violations, too.........there's no telling what an impartial audit might find......

j

January 13, 2004
In-House Audit Says Wal-Mart Violated Labor Laws
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

An internal audit now under court seal warned top executives at Wal-Mart Stores three years ago that employee records at 128 stores pointed to extensive violations of child-labor laws and state regulations requiring time for breaks and meals.

The audit of one week's time-clock records for roughly 25,000 employees found 1,371 instances in which minors apparently worked too late at night, worked during school hours or worked too many hours in a day. It also found 60,767 apparent instances of workers not taking breaks, and 15,705 apparent instances of employees working through meal times.

Officials at Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, employing 1.2 million people at its 3,500 stores in the United States, insisted that the audit was meaningless, since what looked like violations could simply reflect employees' failure to punch in and out for breaks and meals they took.

"Our view is that the audit really means nothing when you understand Wal-Mart's timekeeping system," said Mona Williams, Wal-Mart's vice president for communications. She said Wal-Mart did nothing in response to the audit, saying it always strives to comply with the law.

But missed breaks and lunches have become a major issue in more than 40 lawsuits charging Wal-Mart with forcing employees to work without pay through lunch and rest breaks, and several lawyers and former employees who have sued Wal-Mart said the audit only bolstered their cases. They said that many employees continued to complain of missing meals and breaks.

"Their own analysis confirms that they have a pattern and practice of making their employees work through their breaks and lunch on a regular basis," said James Finberg, a lawyer who has assisted several suits against Wal-Mart. "What this audit shows is against their own company policy and against the law in almost every state in which they operate."

Several lawyers who sued Wal-Mart also noted that over the years Wal-Mart had ordered its employees to make sure to clock out when they took lunch and breaks.

And John Fraser, who ran the federal Labor Department's wage and hour division during the 1990's, called the sheer volume of apparent violations surprising and troubling. "When you find the frequency of this kind of violation in such a large employer, such a pervasive employer, it has to be a source of great concern," Mr. Fraser said.

The audit was conducted in July 2000; a copy was given to The New York Times by a longtime Wal-Mart critic hoping to pressure the company to improve working conditions. Wal-Mart has asked various courts to seal the audit for the last two years — and they have complied — ever since the company gave copies to lawyers who accused it of making employees work off the clock.

The audit, written by Bret Shipley, a Wal-Mart auditor, indicated that time-clock records for thousands of workers showed tens of thousands of missed lunches and breaks. Ms. Williams said employees had probably taken their lunches and breaks but just failed to record them.

She and other Wal-Mart officials also asserted that time-clock records could have been wrong in indicating that minors had worked illegally during school hours. Schools might have been closed on a given weekday, they noted. "The audit that Shipley pulled together doesn't reflect actual behavior within the facilities," Ms. Williams said.

Wal-Mart officials, she said, always tried to comply with the law and repeatedly told employees to take lunches and breaks. Wal-Mart policies state that employees working seven or more hours a day are to receive a meal break and two 15-minute rest breaks. Federal law does not require lunch and meal breaks, but most states do for employees working seven or more hours a day.

Several months after the Shipley audit was finished, Wal-Mart stopped requiring employees to clock out and in for 15-minute breaks. Wal-Mart officials said they eliminated this requirement for their employees' convenience, but Frank Azar, a lawyer involved in the off-the-clock suits, said Wal-Mart did this to make sure no paper trail could show that employees were not taking breaks.

The audit warned that its findings could hurt the company. "Wal-Mart may face several adverse consequences as a result of staffing and scheduling not being prepared appropriately," it stated.

Commissioned to help Wal-Mart executives determine whether employees were taking their meals and breaks, the audit came as the company was facing several lawsuits accusing it of off-the-clock work and failing to give breaks.

Ms. Williams said that company auditors more senior than Mr. Shipley had determined that the methodology he used was flawed. "This audit is so flawed and invalid that we did not respond to it in any way internally," she said.

But several current and former Wal-Mart employees confirmed in interviews that violations of state law on child labor and breaks were a recurring problem at many understaffed Wal-Mart stores.

Leila Najjar said that when she worked for a Wal-Mart in a Denver suburb at age 16 and 17, she sometimes was forced to miss breaks, work past midnight and work more than eight hours a day even though Colorado bars minors from doing that. Time records from a court case showed that her store sometimes forced her to work illegal hours.

During the holidays, Ms. Najjar, a recent graduate of the University of Colorado, recalled, "the store closed at 11 and there were nights we had to stay to clean up until 12:30, 12:45. It was a long day, and I was tired the next day at school. And sometimes, I'd have to work 10, 11 hours on a Saturday or Sunday."

If the same rate of violations were found throughout the Wal-Mart system, that would translate into tens of thousands of child-labor violations each week at Wal-Mart's 3,500 stores and more than one million violations of company and state regulations on meals and breaks.

Company officials said such extrapolations were misleading, noting that many of the seeming time-record problems could be explained by legal behavior.

Wal-Mart employees clock in and out by swiping their identity badges, which the time clock reads electronically. Ms. Williams said employees sometimes forgot to swipe when they arrived at work or when they took lunch. Sometimes, she said, workers missed breaks not because management pressured them but, for example, because they wanted to finish early to take a child to the doctor.

John Lehman, who ran several Wal-Mart stores in Kentucky, said he was sure that large-scale violations on child labor, breaks and meals continued at Wal-Mart. In the months after the company distributed the audit internally, he said, store managers like him received no word to try harder to prevent violations.

"There was no follow-up to that audit, there was nothing sent out I was aware of saying, `We're bad. We screwed up. This is the remedy we're going to follow to correct the situation,' " said Mr. Lehman, who said he quit in 2001 because he was disgusted with the company's treatment of employees. He now works for a union trying to organize Wal-Mart workers.

"Wal-Mart stores are so systematically understaffed that they work minors just like they do adults," he said. "They don't have enough workers to take care of the business. Yes, their prices are low but then the stores are so understaffed that workers often don't have time to take their breaks or lunches."

Maria Rocha, who ran the restaurant inside a Wal-Mart in Dallas, said her workload was so great and the restaurant so understaffed that she never took breaks and often missed lunch. "It was just too busy to take a break," said Ms. Rocha, who quit in October. "There were a lot of customers, and the managers would be mad if you took a break."

Verette Richardson, a former Wal-Mart cashier in Kansas City, Mo., said it was sometimes so hard to get a break that some cashiers urinated on themselves. Bella Blaubergs, a diabetic who worked at a Wal-Mart in Washington State, said she sometimes nearly fainted from low blood sugar because managers often would not give breaks.

As for claims of child-labor violations and stores too understaffed for worker breaks, Ms. Williams said, "In a company that has more than 1 million people in the U.S. alone, I have no doubt that in some individual instances that can happen."

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 8 replies

Monkey Wrench ....

2004-01-14T13:51:10Z

Date 2003-12-29 13:36:37.0
Subject Re: you've provided me with something rare: external inspiration.
Message Rain ...

You have made my day ...
I like to look for new artful & benificial ways of telling corporate Amrica(tm) to go to hell ... By " Shopping for Others " we can ASSURE employees of plenty of working hours, thereby becoming eliglble for health insurance while artfully draining the profit margins of Wal-mart ... all the while being located in different cities all across the REAL AMERICA ...

Thank you for giving me the insperation to continue this tribe ...

Randall

Rain wrote:
> Usually, I come up with the gameplans and
> schemes in my small group and hope that the
> madness will spread in concentric circles. It's
> a rare thing for me to find someone doing things
> that I find are creatively throwing a monkey
> wrench in the machine, as it were. But, you've
> done it, baby! Thanks for the laughs and the
> ideas...
>
> I'm going to do some "creative shopping" today
> being as it's raining outside and I have the day
> off. The chores can wait...
>
>
> Rain

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 1 reply

Mike Argento

2004-01-12T23:21:48Z

This article was written by a reporter that is featured in our local paper in York, Pennsylvania called " The York Daily Record "

Shopping ’til we drop
MIKE ARGENTO
Saturday, January 10, 2004

As residents of West Manheim Township grapple with the issue of Wal-Mart invading their quiet corner of York County, they should consider a gallon jar of pickles.
That’s right, pickles.

The story of the gallon jar of pickles is featured in the current issue of the business magazine Fast Company and it tells a tale that Wal-Mart doesn’t want you to know — how the mega-retailer bullies its suppliers to the point of driving them into bankruptcy or forcing them to move jobs overseas.

Now, that might seem like an arcane point. Who cares whether a pickle manufacturer can continue making pickles? So what? If we can get a gallon of pickles for less than three bucks, what does it matter?

It matters.

First, the story of the gallon jar of pickles.

Fast Company reported that in the late 1990s, Wal-Mart fell in love with Vlasic’s gallon jar of kosher dills and wanted the item as a signature item, a product that would symbolize the Wal-Mart philosophy of offering consumers more for less. The retailer told Vlasic it wanted to sell the gallon jar of pickles for less than $3 — $2.97 to be exact.

Vlasic, for its part, was eager to do business with Wal-Mart. And why not? Wal-Mart does more business than its next six competitors combined, according to the magazine. The No. 2 retailer in the United States is Home Depot. Wal-Mart does more business in three months than Home Depot does in a year. Fast Company cited this amazing statistic: 7.5 cents of every retail dollar spent in this country is spent at Wal-Mart.

And there’s good reason for that. Wal-Mart offers wide selection and low prices — very low prices. Everybody loves a bargain. You can’t deny that.

The gallon jar of pickles illustrates that.

It turned out to be a huge success, sort of. Wal-Mart and Vlasic sold loads of pickles, some 240,000 gallons every week, according to a former Vlasic executive quoted in the article. The price was set so artificially low, though, that Vlasic made only a penny or two on each jar.

But its other sales suffered because Vlasic was competing with itself. Consumers wondered why they should spend more than $2 for a quart of pickles when they could get a whole gallon for less than $3.

Vlasic asked Wal-Mart about raising the price of the gallon jar of pickles to a modest $3.49, the article says. Wal-Mart said no way. If Vlasic didn’t want to offer a gallon of pickles for less than $3, Wal-Mart said it would find a pickle maker who would, and it would take Vlasic’s other lines out of its stores. Wal-Mart sales represented 30 percent of Vlasic’s sales, the article says. That’s a lot of pickles. So Vlasic was — and I apologize for this pun ahead of time — in a pickle.

The gallon jars of pickles, the article states, “became a devastating success.” Vlasic was selling a lot of pickles. But it wasn’t making money.

In 2001, Vlasic, headquartered in Cherry Hill, N.J., filed for bankruptcy and was subsequently sold to H.J. Heinz Co.

The story of the gallon jar of pickles is typical.

The story recounts Wal-Mart’s dealings with other suppliers that all have the same end.

Huffy Bicycles used to manufacture its products here in the good old U.S.A. But facing pressure from Wal-Mart to reduce prices and increase production, it no longer does. Huffy imports all of its bikes. The Lovable Company, a 72-year-old manufacturer of bras and lingerie, was forced out of business by Wal-Mart’s pricing practices, its former president told the magazine. Master Lock, partly in response to pressure from Wal-Mart to reduce prices to remain competitive with locks manufactured in Asia, has moved nearly 90 percent of its manufacturing from Milwaukee to Juarez. That’s in Mexico. Levi Strauss, which made a deal last year to sell jeans to Wal-Mart, is closing its last American plant this year, laying off 2,500 people and moving its manufacturing overseas.

That’s right. Partly because of Wal-Mart — the need to reduce its prices to meet Wal-Mart’s expectations — the inventor of the blue jean, a company known for its progressive employment practices (a rarity in the garment business), a company that’s an American icon, will no longer make blue jeans in America.

(Wal-Mart spokeswoman Melissa Berryhill said the company has no specific response to the Fast Company article and referred me to a piece in Inc. magazine that covered Wal-Mart’s relationship with its suppliers. That article confirmed that while Wal-Mart plays hardball with its suppliers, the company is always fair and upfront in its dealings with vendors.)

What’s all of this matter, you ask?

Let’s take a local example. Let’s say you work for Snyder’s Pretzels. Snyder’s supplies Wal-Mart with pretzels, which is a great deal because it means Snyder’s will get to sell a lot of pretzels. But what if Wal-Mart keeps lowering the price it will pay for Snyder’s pretzels in return for room on its shelves? What if Snyder’s has to keep lowering costs? What if Snyder’s starts chipping away at wages and benefits? What if Snyder’s starts laying people off?

That deal with Wal-Mart doesn’t look so good then.

This doesn’t seem to matter to a lot of people. Everybody loves Wal-Mart. It’s convenient and cheap. Who doesn’t like a bargain? Heck, at one time, you could get a year’s supply of pickles for less than three bucks at Wal-Mart.

But try this: Go to Wal-Mart and look at the labels on the clothing, or the shoes, or the tools, or any other product, and try to find one that says, “Made In America.” It might take some time.

It matters because, as one former Wal-Mart supplier told Fast Company magazine, “We’re shopping ourselves out of jobs.”

Mike Argento, whose column appears Mondays and Thursdays in the Living section and Saturdays on the editorial page, can be reached at 717-771-2046 or at mike@ydr.com.

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 0 replies

Good News

2004-01-12T18:07:38Z

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1073480489167220.xml

Hood River says no to Wal-Mart superstore

After two years of fights, the county commission rejects the retailer's plan to expand its operations

Hood River County Commissioners have rejected Wal-Mart's plans to build a 186,000-square-foot "superstore" in the Columbia gorge tourist town.

The decision Monday night elated those who have fought for nearly two years to keep the larger store out of Hood River.
From Our Advertiser

"People think Wal-Mart is unstoppable, and Hood River showed it is not," said Christine Knowles, who opposed the new building.

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 0 replies

A NEW Link !

2004-01-12T14:11:00Z

This was kindly sent to me by one of our Tribe members ...

Date 2004-01-10 09:38:22.0
Subject walmart
Message Hello Randall... I want to forward this site to you.

http://oldskoolphreak.com/tfiles/pwf.txt

Lots of resources to have fun with walmart
its called Project Wal-Mart Freedom
The guys that run the site are great group of Hackers/phreekers/jammers/activits

enjoy that link, post it to your tribes msg. board.

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 0 replies

It amazes me all these stores in this country are screwing over their workers

2004-01-12T13:20:56Z

http://www.bordersunion.org/
The borders bookstore in ann arbor michigan was on strike for quite a while, and just recently came to an agreement, on their contracts.

the farmer jack workers were just forced to concessions and yet stores are still going to be closed, the workers were given a choice of the entire chain closing or several stores closing, pay-cuts and mass amounts of lay-offs.

California has also had large amounts of striking by several stores for wage cuts.

The workers must realize that this is happening everywhere and the only way to prevent it is by uniting together.

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 2 replies

Wages @ Wal-Mart

2004-01-08T16:52:53Z

A Wal-Mart wage doesn’t go very far ...even at Wal-Mart

by Stan Cox

Wal-Mart’s shareholders converged on Fayetteville, Arkansas on June 6 for their annual meeting. According to Arkansas Business Online, "The famously colorful event often takes on the feeling of a high school pep rally, as shareholders and company executives perform the ‘Wal-Mart cheer.’" And why shouldn’t they cheer? Their company chalked up a record $56.7 billion worth of sales in the first quarter of 2003.

Wal-Mart is the nation’s biggest employer, the low-price champion, and a seller of just about everything. A healthy family with a roof over its head could supply virtually all of its other basic monthly needs with one stop at a Wal-Mart Supercenter like the one here in Salina, Kansas. To me, that raised a question: Can a family whose breadwinner works at Wal-Mart afford to supply its minimum needs by shopping there?

On a June Sunday, my adult son and daughter joined me for a visit to the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Salina. We spent an hour and a half wandering among the hundreds of red, blue, and yellow "Always Low Prices" signs. We checked many of those prices and then went home to do some calculating.

Our conclusion: A single parent employed full-time at Salina’s Wal-Mart and raising children aged 4 and 12 does not earn enough money to supply the family’s basic needs by shopping at that same Wal-Mart.

According to the personnel manager at Salina’s Supercenter, a cashier earns a starting hourly wage of $6.25. After Social Security and Medicare taxes, the paychecks for a month would total $1016 for a full-time 176 hours. (That’s 40 hours a week, which would put this cashier in a better financial position than the many employees who work 32 or fewer hours a week. Of course, hourly pay rises eventually, but the 2001 PBS report "Store Wars" found that most employees have left by the end of their first year.)

We calculated the amount that our hypothetical three-member family would spend each month if as many of its essential needs as possible were supplied by our local Supercenter. The bottom line: They would need an absolute minimum of $1158 per month to cover housing, food, transportation, health care, and miscellaneous expenses. Despite our best efforts, we exceeded our cashier’s monthly income by $142. We couldn’t have come even that close had our cashier’s family not been eligible for a State of Kansas child-care allowance that covers all but $22 per month in child-care costs for such a family living on so low a wage.

To determine needs, we used published studies on an "adequate but austere" budget for a family with one adult, one preschooler, and one school-age child living in Salina. But we slashed some of the published budget items by as much as 38%, based on the "Always Low Prices" we found at the Supercenter. And we completely eliminated anything we could do without.

Look up the details of our budget and try to decide if you could find a way to cut it and make ends meet.

"Living wage" campaigns across the country have attempted to determine and advocate for a wage level that can provide a decent life for working families. Living wages are designed to sustain a family over time. Our goal was much more modest. All we asked of our Wal-Mart wage was to get our cashier’s family to the end of the month in a central Kansas city of 50,000, assuming they were already settled in a rented apartment or mobile home and had a paid-for car, furniture, and appliances. The Wal-Mart wage failed -- even at Wal-Mart prices, even with the 10% employee discount (not applicable to food), and even with employer-assisted health insurance.

Our monthly budget allowed for a USDA-recommended "low cost food plan" on which we economized further by selecting the cheapest foods in each category. It made for an unappealing and not especially healthful diet. Gas, oil, and repairs for the car -which was used for little more than getting the cashier to work and home - all came from Wal-Mart.

Our cost-cutting left no room for "luxuries": no travel outside Saline County, no cable TV, no home telephone service, no movies, no newspaper or magazine subscriptions, no fees for community sports or classes, no saving at Wal-Mart’s in-store bank in case the car had to be replaced, no eating out (except for one meal a month at the McDonald’s located in the Supercenter). Most of what’s available at the Supercenter was off-limits to us: videos, haircuts, Christmas presents, eye care, tanning sessions, family portraits, bats and balls, small appliances, furniture, bicycles, film and developing, . . .

There is a fundamental and inevitable conflict between the interests of corporations, to whom wages are a cost, and most human beings, to whom wages are a means of survival. Nowhere in this society is that conflict better illustrated than at your local Wal-Mart. Most of its employees and most of its customers depend on their paychecks to pay the bills. But to keep its shareholders in the money, the company depends on hyper-consumption.

Wal-Mart could not survive in a town with good public transportation, where families all grow their own vegetables, cut one another’s hair, sew their own clothes, and borrow and lend tools. Like all retailers, it has to move vast quantities of merchandise at an ever-increasing pace. It does it, as the sign in the store says, by "Daring to Save You Even More." And to drive prices to rock-bottom, they have to drive down the wages they pay.

And, of course, the wages Wal-Mart pays in Kansas seem princely when compared with those paid by many of its suppliers around the world. Try going to your local Supercenter with the monthly paycheck of a Bangladeshi factory worker who makes shirts for Wal-Mart. You won’t make it to the end of Aisle 1.

Back here in America, the government implicitly recognizes the insufficiency of Wal-Mart wages. Our cashier’s family would be eligible for an Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) of $4140 in 2002. That would close the gap between the cashier’s wage and bare survival, and provide enough additional income to lift the family just above the poverty line.

EITC, food stamps, Medicaid, and state programs like Kansas’ childcare allowance are needed because corporations like Wal-Mart refuse to pay their employees a sufficient wage for the work they do. Seen from that angle, those programs are simply corporate welfare.

Make no mistake: Wal-Mart could afford to pay its workers more. Wal-Mart's $240 billion in sales last year make it bigger, economically speaking, than Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation. Look at Forbe's list of the world's top ten billionaires and you'll see that four of them are members of Wal-Mart's Walton family. And just half of the $7 billion in profit the company made last year would have been enough to give every employee a raise of at least $1.50 per hour.

In February, Fortune Magazine emphasized the unchallenged dominance of the world’s largest corporation: "Wal-Mart in 2003 is, in short, a lot like America in 2003: a sole superpower with a down-home twang." Well, if Wal-Mart represents both the future of employment and the future of marketing in America, a lot more down-home folks are going to be tumbling into that gap between Always Low Prices and Always Low Wages.

Stan Cox is a member of the Prairie Writers Circle and senior research scientist at the Land Institute, a Natural Systems Agriculture Research organization in Salina, Kan. He holds a doctorate in plant breeding from Iowa State University. He can be contacted at t.stan@cox.net

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 12 replies

America's Richest 400 Forbes 2003

2004-01-06T18:37:51Z

and guess who was @

#4. Walton, Helen R
#5. Walton, S Robson
#6. Walton, John T
#7. Walton, Jim C
#8. Walton, Alice L

I subscribe to Forbes. I remember this from last year. I do believe that each Walton has 1.8 billion. Y? because they pay the lowest wages.

I wish I was a big enough ***hole to do this with my company. My luck would be I would go out of business.

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 2 replies

Wal-Mart & Unions

2004-01-05T01:28:19Z

WAL-MART’S OPINON OF UNION MEMBERS

The material below which expresses Wal-marts contempt for workers is taken from this Wal-Mart manual:

TYPES OF ASSOCIATES ATTRACTED TO UNIONS

Unions have learned to identify certain types of individuals who are more susceptible to union exploitation that others. Here are seven types of associates who "fit" that mold.

1. THE INEFFICIENT, LOW PRODUCTIVITY ASSOCIATE

This type of associate realizes that he will not be able to measure up to the facility's standards and will be terminated because of his lack of qualitative and /or quantitative efficiency. The union organizer seeks out such an associate and this type of associate is mutually attracted to the union because they convince the associate that it will 'save' the associate's job and clothe. him with the so-called shield of "union protection' and 'job security".

2. THE INDEPENDENT, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY ASSOCIATE. This type of associate has no great financial obligations or commitments. He typically lives with his parents or is basically supported by someone else. He has nothing to lose by joining up with the union forces. He can survive through the longest of strikes and responds to the union propaganda of "everything to gain, nothing to lose. If he, in fact, loses his job in a union-caused strike by being permanently replaced or because the facility closes down, he suffers no real consequences because he did not depend on the job in the first instance.

3. THE REBELLIOUS, ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT ASSOCIATE. This type of associate is attracted to the union cause and is subject to union exploitation simply because he opposes everything associated with the establishment. Since most businesses and structural organizations are associated with the 'establishment', he is opposed to all management or bosses. He consequently becomes an antagonist to the employer and a respondent to the union propaganda. (Ironically, he will later turn against the union also because he will eventually come to resent the authority of the union. Unfortunately, this phenomenon will not occur until after he has exhausted all efforts to unionize his employer.)

4. THE SOMETHING-FOR-NOTHING ASSOCIATE. This type of associate is the typical injury-faker who has collected worker's compensation from most of his former employers. He is the type of individual who is always looking for a deal. He takes every imaginable shortcut available in his job and sincerely feels that the world owes him a living. He is the type of associate who "fudges" on his sick pay or funeral leave and bends every rule to "squeeze" a little more out of his employer. He will obviously be attracted to the union propaganda that he has "everything to gain and nothing to lose." He will completely be sold on the union's typical promises of more money, more fringe benefits, and more of everything. He will not inquire as to how the union plans to deliver nor will the employer's comments on the disadvantages of unionization touch a responsive cord in him.

5. THE CHRONICALLY DISSATISFIED ASSOCIATE. The associate might well be one of the most efficient and productive associates at anyestablishment. But this associate will find fault about everything associated with his employer. He is a hopeless griper and complainer as distinguished from a constructive critic. He is never convinced that his employer is looking out for his interests or the interests of his fellow associates. He is truly an unhappy individual. He probably was born unhappy, is going to die unhappy, and is going to be unhappy for the duration between. This type of associate is a morale destroyer. He keeps everybody. around him continually upset and agitated. It is a full-time job to dispel his negative rumors and ill-founded remarks concerning the management team. This associate will be attracted to the union campaign because the union will listen to his gripes and complaints. The union will convince the associate that it will "straighten out" the employer to his satisfaction. The damage is compounded, however, because thisindividual will reveal every skeleton in the employer's closet out ofwhich the union will further propagandize its cause.

6. THE CAUSE-ORIENTED ASSOCIATE. This associate will "jump' on any bandwagon that passes through his area. He was the same individual whojoined all of the 'off-beat' organizations in high school or college. He typically led demonstrations against everything from "red dye" to "ban the bomb". He once took a trip to India to visit his personal"guru". One can bet his last UNION FREE dollar that the "cause-oriented" associate will be equally attracted to the union effort if and when the union knocks on the employer's door. He is a frustrated leader. He views himself as a self-appointed "spokesman for all" and the union isable to capitalize on his frustrations.

7. THE OVERLY-QUALIFIED ASSOCIATE. This type of associate is out of his element. He will attempt to exert influence over his fellow associates in an effort to bolster his-deflated ego.He might well be a Ph. D. operating a grinding machine or a former accountant sweeping the floor, but his station in life has deteriorated to the point that his vanity appreciable suffers. This type of associate includes the associate who has formerly made substantially more money with previous employers. Both will be attracted to the union simply because the union will offer these individuals the recognition that they seek and will seem to offer hopes of returning them to their previous higher stations in life.

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 0 replies

" Other " Links ...

2004-01-05T00:46:05Z

http://www.walmartyrs.org/

http://www.walmartdayofaction.com/

http://www.walmartwatch.com/

http://www.walmartversuswomen.com/

http://www.wal-martlitigation.com/

http://www.breathingplanet.net/whirl/ < - ACTIVISTS !

http://kimsey.stonepics.com/walmart.htm

http://www.sprawl-busters.com/

http://wallyworldlife.com/archivedwalmart.html < - PARODY !

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 7 replies

Economic Disease

2004-01-05T00:17:42Z

This article appears in the November 14, 2003 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
See also: "Wal-Mart Collapses U.S. Cities and Towns" (Nov. 14, 2003), and "Wal-Mart Eats More Manufacturers, Jobs'' (Nov. 21,2003.

Wal-Mart Is Not a Business,
It's an Economic Disease
by Richard Freeman and Arthur Ticknor
The Wal-Mart department store chain, which employs 1.3 million people at 4,700 stores worldwide, and in 2002 became the largest corporation in the world, is levelling economies of the U.S., industrial nations, and the Third World.

Wal-Mart is a driving force behind the decadent Imperial Roman model of the United States. Unable any longer to reproduce its own population's existence through its own physical economy, the United States has, for the past two decades, used an over-valued dollar to suck in physical goods from around the globe for its survival. Wal-Mart is both the public face and working sinews of that policy. It brings in cheap pants from Bangladesh, cheap shirts from China, cheap food from Mexico, etc. Workers who produce these things are paid next to nothing.

Not since the days of the British East India Company as the cornerstone of the British imperial system, has one single corporate entity been responsible for so much misery. At the core of its policy, Wal-Mart demands of its suppliers that they sell goods to Wal-Mart at such a low price, that they can only do so by outsourcing their work to low-wage factories overseas. This causes the exodus of millions of production jobs from the United States and the setting up of slave-labor concentration camps around the globe. Wal-Mart's policy includes crushing living standards in America, forbidding its workers from unionizing, bringing in workers illegally from abroad, and bankrupting tens of thousands of stores and outlets on Main Street, ripping apart communities and their tax bases.

On Nov. 1, 2003, Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche declared that Wal-Mart and its destructive policy must be stopped. LaRouche declared a boycott against Wal-Mart, to expose it and take it down. LaRouche told a cadre school gathering of the LaRouche Youth Movement in Philadelphia, "Wal-Mart is not a company, it's an epidemic disease. Wal-Mart is one of the biggest factors in causing unemployment in the United States.... Wal-Mart is your enemy.... It's destroying our community; it represents globalization; it represents an institutionalization of the values which stink." (See full text in Feature.)

Wal-Mart has been primed for this role since 1962, when it was founded by Sam Walton in his hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas. It has such immense power in the United States, and leverage overseas, that it has run roughshod over all opposition—until now.

Sam's Club ... Over Your Head
Sam Walton started in the retailing business when he bought a Ben Franklin five and dime store in Newport, Arkansas in 1945. In 1962, he opened the first store under the name "Wal-Mart." In 1970, Wal-Mart made its first public stock offering; the issue was underwritten by Stephens, Inc. of Little Rock, an investment bank which has been identified with some shady dealings.

In 1987, a turning point came for Wal-Mart, when it opened its first superstore, called Hypermarket*USA, modeled on the hypermarkets of Europe. At that time, the average clothing or grocery store in America had 15-22,000 square feet of space. By contrast, the hypermarkets, now called supercenters, had 150-200,000 feet. The supercenter was based on the idea of one-stop shopping: In the same store, one could buy groceries, merchandise and appliances, fast food, and photo development; one could also do one's banking. Wal-Mart took advantage of an advanced inventory system; its bulk purchases of goods, which led to price discounts; and a ferocious anti-labor policy keeping wages very low.

The company set out to obliterate its competition. At the Bentonville headquarters, Wal-Mart still displays the pictures of the heads of its 24 major food and merchandise chain competitors, each framed like an FBI "Wanted" poster. It now builds one new store every 42 hours.

Figure 1 shows that Wal-Mart's annual sales quadrupled from $55.5 billion in its Fiscal Year 1993, to $244.5 billion in FY 2003 (which ended Jan. 1, 2003).

Walmart has grabbed a dominant or near-dominant position in key sectors of the retail market:

It sells 19% of all grocery-store food in the United States, making it the largest food seller. It plans to double grocery and related sales from $82 billion to $165 billion during the next five years, which would give it command of 35% of the market. It plans to open 40 supercenters in California over the next five years, which is a major cause for the grocery strike in southern California. Managements at the three major grocery stores in southern California, where 70,000 United Food and Commercial Workers (UCFW) workers are striking, have said they are trying to renegotiate lower employer contributions to health-care benefits, because they fear that Wal-Mart plans to saturate southern California with stores, and they will be unable to compete.

It handles 16% of all pharmacy-drug sales in the United States, and plans to increase that share to 25% by 2008, which would make it the largest pharmacy in America.

It controls 30% of the U.S. household staples market—paper towels, toothpaste, shampoo—and analysts predict that it will increase that share to 50% before decade's end.

It is Hollywood's biggest outlet, selling 15-20% of all CDs, videos, and DVDs in the United States.

It sells 15% of all single-copy news publications.
Reciprocally, Wal-Mart controls a large and increasing share of the business done by almost every major consumer-products company: 28.3% of Dial's (soap products); 24% of Del Monte Foods'; 23% of Clorox's (bleaches and cleaners); and 23% of Revlon's (cosmetics). It controls one-fifth or more of the business done by Proctor & Gamble (household products and soaps); Levi Strauss (jeans and clothing); and Newell Rubbermaid (household consumer rubber products). That is, Wal-Mart is all of these firms' biggest outlet, by a wide margin.

This gives Wal-Mart tremendous leverage over all its producers/suppliers, even though many of them are in the Fortune 500. Twenty years ago, the supplier of products went to Wal-Mart, and told Wal-Mart the price to charge for each product. Today, Wal-Mart "co-determines" the price; it tells the supplier what type of product it wants, how to arrange its inventory, what sort of product line to develop. Because Wal-Mart determines how much shelf space each supplier receives, it has life-and-death control over that supplier. If Wal-Mart says that it wants a product's price to be lowered by 20-25%, that supplier will be forced to outsource an increasing share of its production.

Likewise, Wal-Mart has become a conveyor belt, either directly or through its suppliers, for imported goods, mostly from cheap-labor countries. Wal-Mart imports 10% of all America's total imports from China. According to the Sept. 26, 2003 Irish Independent, "If Wal-Mart were a country, it would rank ahead of Great Britain and Russia in total imports."

Destruction of Labor
Wal-Mart uses its power to ferociously attack and decimate labor power, and it is the leading force in the mass exodus of U.S. manufacturing capacity and jobs.

The company is militantly anti-union. Reportedly it has instructed its managers never to hire workers who once belonged to a union. It also reportedly fires workers who score too high on a "union probability index." When a union tries to unionize a Wal-Mart cluster of stores, "labor experts" are flown in from Bentonville to counterorganize. Workers are ordered to sit in on weekly "labor relations classes," where management tells them why they should not join a union, and gives them badges saying, "We can speak for ourselves." At one store in Texas, where a union tried to organize, 15 surveillance cameras were installed.

The results? Wal-Mart's grocery workers earn an average $8.23 per hour—23% less than grocery workers at unionized stores. Many Wal-Mart workers are allowed to work a maximum of only 28 hours per week. More than two-thirds of all Wal-Mart workers who have a full-time job earn an annual wage that is below the poverty level for a family of three.

According to the AFL-CIO, 66% of unionized workers at large companies are covered by health insurance. According to one study, only 45% of Wal-Mart workers are covered, and according to another study, only 38% are covered.

When a worker works overtime, Wal-Mart will not credit it on his or her time sheet. In many reported cases, workers have been locked into stores after hours to work late into the night and early morning on special displays, but were not paid overtime. Thousands of workers have recorded that they have worked overtime unpaid, but Wal-Mart says it has no record of the cases. There are court suits against Wal-Mart in 36 states on this issue alone.

Mass Unemployment
There are hundreds of American manufacturing plants which have shut down, and shipped production overseas, either partially or entirely due to Wal-Mart. In addition, many other retail outlets have been forced to adopt Wal-Mart's methods. We look at a few of the hundreds of cases in which Wal-Mart was directly involved:

Newell Rubbermaid is the largest producer of consumer rubber products in the United States, and Wal-Mart sells by far the largest volume of Rubbermaid products of any retail store. In January 2001, Joseph Galli was appointed the new chief executive officer of Rubbermaid, and he and his staff had an intensive series of meetings with Wal-Mart management on what products Rubbermaid should bring on line, including Wal-Mart's not-so-subtle suggestions about the price of the products. Since January 2001, Rubbermaid has shut down 69 out of its 400 facilities, and fired 11,000 workers. The equity research director at Associated Trust & Co., C. Mark Heaseldon, bluntly stated the reason, "To be able to meet the demands from key customers, like Wal-Mart ... [Rubbermaid has] to become competitive in price." He added that Galli would have to "shift about 50% of production to low-cost countries." This could force the closure of an additional 131 Rubbermaid facilities, and the firing of an additional 20,000 workers.

General Electric is one of the five biggest companies in America and the biggest producer of appliances, such as dishwashers, refrigerators, stoves, and TVs. The biggest outlet for GE goods is Wal-Mart. During the last few years, GE has conducted a large amount of outsourcing. The IUE union, which represents GE workers, has estimated that during the last five to seven years, GE has fired more than 100,000 workers, one of the nation's biggest outsourcing massacres. Most of this work was outsourced to Mexico, China, and Asia in general.

At Masterlock, 250 union workers lost their jobs in 2000 when Wal-Mart suddenly dropped the company's products and switched to an offshore, low-wage competitor.

Levi Strauss is one of the biggest manufacturers of jeans and denim products, including the line of Docker slacks. Wal-Mart is the biggest retailer of Levi Strauss products. During the past 18 months, after meetings with Wal-Mart, Levi Strauss announced it will shut down its four remaining production plants in North America and shift the work to Ibero-America and Asia. Several hundred jobs will be lost.

Dial Soap sells 28.3% of its production to Wal-Mart. Under Wal-Mart pressure, Dial is shutting down its Compton, California plant and shifting work to Argentina.

There are hundreds of similar stories. As a result of the Wal-Mart model, combined with the depression, more than 1 million manufacturing production jobs producing consumer goods have been lost since July 2000 alone.

Overseas Slave-Labor
Meanwhile, Wal-Mart is operating slave-labor camps overseas. It does this through its suppliers and, increasingly, in its own name. One of the most infamous slave-labor camps is that in American Somoa—the Daewoosa Factory, where 230 workers, mostly young women from Vietnam and China, worked under conditions of indentured servitude. According to records, they were cheated of their meager wages, beaten, starved, sexually harassed, and threatened with deportation if they complained. On Feb. 21, 2003, in a court in Hawaii, the proprietor of the factory, Kil Soo Lee, was found guilty of 14 of 18 counts brought against him for indentured servitude. This factory sewed clothing for Wal-Mart, under Wal-Mart's "Beach Cabana" label (as well as producing for other retailers).

Wal-Mart has plundered the productive functions of the U.S. economy. It's time to shut down Wal-Mart!

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 0 replies

http://www.walmartsucks.org/

2004-01-05T00:15:51Z

http://www.walmartsucks.org/

Sample from the " Walmart Horr Stories " section of this website:

Wal-Mart Profits From Employee Death

"vicki rice" vrice@gwi.net

My husband of 27 years was a Wal-Mart assistant mgr. for l0 years. The last 4 years of his life he was working 75-80 hr weeks not the 52hrs he was hired at. Wal-Mart had started seriously short staffing their stores and the workload became horrible. The last 3 days of Mike's life I didn't see him as he had worked close to 48 hrs . On Sept. l999 Mike called 3 times for assistance with a large tv for a lady customer, no one was available to help. Mike took the tv out and loaded it by himself. He got 20 feet back inside the store where he had a massive heart attack from over exertion. Mike was only 48 and had passed a physical and stress test just 5 months earlier. I took Wal-Mart to court under NH workman's comp laws and won showing his death was work related. Last spring my attorneys told me that WAl-Mart had a secret life insurance policy on my husband with Hartford Ins. in the amount of $300,000 which they had collected on shortly after my husband died. In l993-94 Wal-Mart took out 350,000 secret life insurance policies on low level employees who also had their health insurance with them. They called these policies dead peasant policies or dead janitor policies. When an employee died WAl-Mart collected, not the families. I was shocked and outraged. My husband never knew Wal-Mart had a large insurance policy on him. If he had known he would have been so scared. He would have said they hope to kill a few of us off and profit from it. This is immoral and wrong. The # l Fortune 500 company had to help get there by profiting from the deaths of some of their employees. Sam Walton would be so ashamed of what happened to his company. My husband was a wonderful man, a king, not a peasant. Just the words dead peasant and dead janitor tells you what Wal-Mart thinks of their low level employees. The American public is becoming aware that Wal-Mart has a dark side, a very dark side, which is fueled by their greed and wanting control of the retail world. If you know of WAl-mart employees who died from l993-Jan. 2000 their families should contact the union to see if there is a classaction suit in their state on the dead peasant insurance policies. There are families out there who lost loved ones and Wal-Mart made money on it. I am now the lead plantiff in a NH classaction suit against WAl-Mart and the life insurance companies involved. My sons and I are upset and feel betrayed by WAlmart. Please let Wal-Mart know that it is wrong to put secret life insurance policies on employees and profit from deaths. Thank you

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 1 reply

The Complaint Station

2004-01-05T00:04:00Z

http://www.thecomplaintstation.com/w/walmart_toc.htm#00000004

Literally 100's of stories to back up why we despise this pathetic retailer ...

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 0 replies

Walmartsucks.com

2004-01-04T23:58:21Z

Based on its finding that the Respondents, Walsucks and Walmarket
Puerto Rico, have engaged in abusive registration of the domain
names "wal-martcanadasucks.com", "wal-martcanadasucks.com",
"walmartuksucks.com", "walmartpuertorico.com" and
"walmartpuertoricosucks.com" within the meaning of paragraph 4(a)
of the Policy, the Panel orders that the domain names
"wal-martcanadasucks.com", "wal-martcanadasucks.com",
"walmartuksucks.com", "walmartpuertorico.com" and
"walmartpuertoricosucks.com" be transferred to the Complainant,
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Background:

These domains were owned by Kenneth J. Harvey, apparently a speculator
in domain names.

Acccording to the decision:

The "walmartcanadasucks.com" and "walmartuksucks.com" web pages
each state that "This is a freedom of information site set up for
dissatisfied Walmart Canada [or UK, respectively] customers." Each site
invites visitors to "Spill Your Guts" with a "horror story relating to
your dealings with Wal-Mart Canada [or UK, respectively]". On the
"walmartcanadasucks.com" website, Respondent has posted "Wal-Mart Horror
Story #1" which recounts his version of events in respect to the
"walmartcanada.com" domain name. Each website posts a photograph of
Respondent, labeled "President", and Respondent?s biography. Each "Spill
Your Guts" page indicates "If we feel your story is interesting, it
might be included in award-winning author Kenneth J. Harvey?s
forthcoming book - "Wal-MartCanadaSucks.com" [or, on UK page, "about
Walmart"]".

Walmark indicated these domains were registered in bad faith, and
indicated:

Respondents' free speech argument is a convenient and transparent
dodge. It does not even make sense with respect to three of the domain
names: WAL-MARTCANADASUCKS.COM, WALMARTPUERTORICOSUCKS.COM, and
WALMARTPUERTORICO.COM. There are no websites attached to these domain
names. Respondents offer no evidence to support a claim that they have
made legitimate use of any of these three domain names.

The arbitrator indicated:

Respondent has appended the term "-sucks" to domain names that
are, in the absence of that term, confusingly similar to Complainant?s
mark. The addition of the pejorative verb "sucks" is tantamount to
creating the phrase "Wal-Mart Canada sucks" (and comparable phrases with
Respondent?s other "-sucks" formative domain names). The elimination of
the spacing between the terms of the phrase is dictated by technical
factors, and by the common practice of domain name registrants. The
addition of a common or generic term following a trademark does not
create a new or different mark in which Respondent has rights.

The decision noted that:

Respondent argues that addition of the word "sucks" to the base
names "walmartcanada", "wal-martcanada", "walmartuk" and
"walmartpuertorico" causes such names to lose their confusing similarity
with Complainant?s "Wal-Mart" trademark. Respondent contends that
because an Internet user or consumer viewing a "-sucks" formative domain
name would assume that Complainant is not the sponsor of or associated
with a website identified by such address, Respondent?s "-sucks"
formative marks cannot be confusingly similar to Complainant?s mark.

In support of this argument, Respondent refers to Lucent
Technologies, Inc., v. Lucentsucks.com, 95 F. Supp. 2d 528 (E.D.Vir.
2000). It is first important to note that the observations made by Judge
Brinkema in the Lucentsucks.com opinion regarding the issue of confusing
similarity are in the nature of dicta, since the court dismissed the
action against defendant for lack of jurisdiction 10. Judge Brinkema?s
opinion in Lucentsucks.com, and one decision on which she relies, Bally
Total Fitness v. Faber, 29 F. Supp. 2d 1161 (C.D. Cal. 1998), each lend
some support to Respondent's position. However, both cases are
distinguishable.

This defense was rejected, however, and the WIPO panel found on behalf
of Walmart, that various "sucks" domains were "confusingly similiar" to
the Walmart trademarks.

In Bally, the court granted summary judgment in favor of a
defendant that used the "Bally" trademark on a web page, appending the
word "sucks", to create a "ballysucks" web page. In that case,
"ballysucks.com" was not registered and was not used as a second-level
domain name. The principal issue was whether the defendant could
lawfully
express itself on its web page using the trademark "Bally" in
combination
with the word "sucks". The court held that since the "ballysucks" web
page was devoted to critical commentary regarding Bally, and the
defendant did not have a commercial purpose in maintaining the site, the
defendant had a valid free speech interest in using Bally?s mark.

The court observed that even a "ballysucks.com" domain name might
not constitute trademark infringement ("? even if Faber did use the mark
as part of a larger domain name, such as ?ballysucks.com?, this would
not necessarily be a violation as a matter of law." 29 F. Supp., at
1165). It made this observation in the context of applying the
Sleekcraft factors. In Bally, the court found the defendant's intent in
establishing its "ballysucks" web page was to criticize the trademark
holder, and this factor weighed heavily in favor of the defendant. In
the present proceeding, Respondent?s intent is different.

In Lucentsucks.com, the court observed that "Defendant argues
persuasively that the average consumer would not confuse lucentsucks.com
with a web site sponsored by plaintiff" 11 . However, the court did not
undertake any particularized analysis of the disputed domain name as
compared with the plaintiff?s trademark. Moreover, the court observed
that: "A successful showing that lucentsucks.com is effective parody
and/ or a cite [sic] for critical commentary would seriously undermine
the requisite elements for the causes of action at issue in this case."
12 No such showing had been made by the defendant in Lucentsucks.com.
The court was speaking in the abstract - and in dicta -- about a future
case in which the trademark issues would be fully litigated. Even so,
the court indicated that the defendant?s intent in registering and using
the disputed domain name would be an important element in determining
whether cybersquatting had occurred. The Panel does not consider
Lucentsucks.com to stand for the proposition that "-sucks" formative
domain names are immune as a matter of law from scrutiny as being
confusingly similar to trademarks to which they are appended. Each case
must be considered on its merits.

The Panel is not making any determination regarding the
registrants and users of other "-sucks" formative domain names (such as
"walmartsucks.com"). The record of this proceeding evidences that
Respondent did not register "walmartcanadasucks.com" and his other
"-sucks" names in order to express opinions or to seek the expression of
opinion of others. The record indicates that his intention was to
extract money from Complainant. An application of the Sleekcraft factors
in another context involving Complainant?s mark and the word "sucks"
might produce a different result than that reached here. The Panel notes
that use of a domain name confusingly similar to a mark may be justified
by fair use or legitimate noncommercial use considerations, and that
this may in other cases permit the use of "-sucks" formative names in
free expression forums.

Complainant has met the burden of proving that Respondent is the
registrant of domain names that are identical or confusingly similar to
a trademark in which Complainant has rights, and it has thus established
the first of the three elements necessary to a finding that Respondent
has engaged in abusive domain name registration.

Possible NCC action:

1. Domain names with a trademark plus the term "sucks" are not
confusingly similar to a trademark. The term "sucks" is clearly a
pejorative term, used for criticism and free speech. ICANN should not
be in the business of preventing people from creating various "sucks"
web pages.

2. Persons have a right to create both non-commerical and commercial
web pages criticizing or engaging in parody of products, firms or
organizations.

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 0 replies

Employees speak ...

2003-12-29T22:33:16Z

Dispatches from Wal-Mart's Front Lines

By Stan Cox, AlterNet
November 17, 2003

Last spring, I did a little amateur research that illustrated how Wal-Mart's wages can fail to provide for even a rock-bottom living standard – even at Wal-Mart prices. Email responses arrived over the next few days. Among the many colorful "I hate Wal-Mart" messages were notes from some critics who maintained, via arguments worthy of Dr. Pangloss, that the company's wages are just about right, because otherwise no one would work there.

As the article made the rounds of the Internet and some local newspapers, I started receiving emails from Wal-Mart employees. There was a steady stream of messages over the following months, with some arriving as recently as late October.

In relating their stories, past and present employees (er, "associates") sliced right through the abstract talk about supply-and-demand and wage inflation, and offered a good look behind the big yellow Wal-Mart happy face. They all requested that I strip from their quotes any identifying information.

Here are excerpts from what they had to say:

Thank you for bringing Wal-Mart's pitiful hourly wages into the light. Bottom line: Wal-Mart is a great place to shop, it's a great stock to own, but it's a horrible place to work if you're an hourly associate. You will starve financially.

They tell us all the time that "Our People Make the Difference" and that if wasn't for the employees our store would be nothing. So they give us little food parties and buttons we can collect – to get what? We get all of these facts about how many new stores they are going to build next year – how many more do you need? Why not give back to your employees first, seeing how we make the difference? Then build your stores.

I have worked for this unappreciative company for two years. Since I graduated high school, I have managed to go from a whopping $6.15 to $6.78, which I will not obtain until August 15.

I think the whole thing about Wal-Mart being anti-union has a lot to do with the underpaid employees or maybe not, we just might be giving the extra money back to the union, but I don't know a whole lot about unions. Wal-Mart just tells us not to sign anything because they are just after our money.

The present manager made a comment that all he can control are wages. What that means is that the lower he can keep them, the better the store profit and the greater his yearly bonus.

From a "greeter":

I have seen single mothers try to stay off welfare and make it on what they make at Wal-Mart and it has made me sick.

I have been with the company since '96 and have been in management off and on throughout the years. Wal-Mart was once a good company to work for, every year it has continued to get worse. . . I have seen a lot of great associates leave the company due to lack of caring and respect for the individual (as W-M so preaches). Wal-Mart isn't the company it once used to be. It's all about the mighty dollar now, and who cares about the little people?

I have been on food stamps for years and so are many other associates. After being with Wal-Mart for seven years and with all my experience I still can't afford to get off food stamps. I will be starting my new career soon and leaving Wal-Mart.

Full-time is 28-37 hours generally. They cut hours constantly depending on sales, sometimes as much as two hours a day. On average, the pay increase is 35 cents a year.

It is very difficult at times to live on the earnings. Normal hours would be a blessing as well. Most of us work a different shift daily (7-4, 9-6, 10-7, 11-8, 12-9, 2-11, or 10pm-7am). It can be frustrating especially to those that are married or have children. The divorce rate is extremely high...as well as the turnover rate.

If we are asked to work overtime they do not usually let us keep it. I worked a 12-hour shift one time because they were shorthanded. I was tired and worn out, but I could use the money. The next day when I came into work I was told I would have to come in one hour late, and leave one hour early to get rid of the overtime. I was not happy, but I didn't have any choice. They use us like that constantly always saying we need you, can you help us out, and then when we do it's a slap in our face.

God forbid if you are injured on the job. They do everything they can to force you out and make you quit or just flat out fire you. Their basic belief is that every accident is your fault. If you have one you are forced to go to classes on the weekend for several weeks to learn about safety and write essays on why you were injured. If you do not show up for these classes you can and will be terminated.

Whenever a union rep comes around to the store we are forbidden to even acknowledge him/her. If we are caught speaking to any one of them we are automatically terminated! They basically put down the reason for dismissal as anything they want, to avoid any publicity about the union or Wal-Mart's fight against one. The store constantly has videos and pamphlets about why we would not want a union and why it is so bad to belong to one.

Employees are also constantly bombarded with guilt to give to the Children's Miracle Network, add another $15 a month, then there is the United Way fund that we must sign an agreement on, whether or not we contribute. Most do contribute, due to the encouragement of the management, at about $25 biweekly.

As a former Wal-Mart worker, it used to make me sick to my stomach when Wal-Mart would pressure the low level, low-paid workers to donate money to Children's Network or United Way, or make the lowest-paid workers take time to do bake sales, etc. for charities... THEN WAL-MART TAKES THE CREDIT.

My husband, a Wal-Mart Supercenter pharmacist, works six days a week, 10-12 hours a day. He is the only pharmacist employed at this location. When he is at home, he is so exhausted he does little more than sleep and watch some sports on TV. He has been a pharmacist for over 26 years but after just five years of such abuse at Wal-Mart, he is now beginning to suffer the physical results of such daily toil on his body.

On occasion, day-shift people are placed on temporary duty and not given a shift differential. Some employees are working 7-8 days straight with no overtime pay because of the way the pay week is set up.

We used to have a nice little town in Bentonville, business in abundance around the square. One by one the shoe shops and dress stores all went under, crippled by the big demon.

There were other stories, too. They came from a cashier who could not get compensation for an injury that was clearly job-related; a former Wal-Mart personnel manager who refuses to shop there, having seen "gross mistreatment" of employees; employees complaining about frequent cuts in hours, often so the store can avoid paying overtime; a mother whose son has found that he can get a day off if his truck breaks down, but not if he's sick; and, finally, one employee who went from $5.25 to more than $13 an hour in five years at Wal-Mart and loves working there!

For one last quote, I'll turn to Wal-Mart's most well-known ex-"associate," Barbara Ehrenreich, who, near the end of her book "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America," reflected on her experience:

Someone has to puncture the prevailing fiction that we're a "family" here, we "associates" and our "servant leaders," held together solely by our commitment to the "guests." After all, you'd need a lot stronger word than dysfunctional to describe a family where a few people get to eat at the table while the rest – the "associates" and all the dark-skinned seamstresses and factory workers worldwide who make the things we sell – lick up the drippings from the floor: psychotic would be closer to the mark.

Stan Cox is a plant breeder, writer and thrift-store shopper living in Salina, Kansas.

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 0 replies

A Letter

2003-12-23T22:01:04Z

Cut & Paste all you like ...

Dear friend/family member,

I am writing to ask you not to buy me presents at Wal-Mart from now on. Wal-Mart engages in some of the worst labor practices in the country: paying its employees substandard wages, forcing unpaid overtime on its workers and refusing to provide affordable health insurance to its workers.

Until Wal-Mart changes its ways, I won't shop at Wal-Mart and I hope you won't either. Please join me in telling Wal-Mart we won't shop at its stores until it treats its employees better.

It only took me a few seconds to sign the Wal-Mart Pledge and I'm hoping you'll sign it, too. Click the link below to sign the pledge.

http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/petition.cfm?itemid=16041

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 0 replies

April 20 th !

2003-12-23T21:42:24Z

Greetings,

The planned day for our NATIONAL day of " Shopping for Others " is APRIL 20 th, 2004.

This is a Tuesday.

If you have the opportunity, PLEASE take pictures of your carts and upload them here in our photo album ...

Thank you for participating !

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 0 replies

Whirl-Mart

2003-12-23T21:29:32Z

Say NO to mass consumerism !

http://www.breathingplanet.net/whirl/

posted in WAL-MARTyrs - 0 replies