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Ear to the Ground

Wal-Mart Employees Are Restless

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Posted on Jul 2, 2008
Wal-Mart
cnbc.com

Wal-Mart may face up to $2 billion in fines after a Minnesota state judge found a total of 2 million contractual violations by the retail giant.

Wal-Mart may be fined by a Minnesota judge for violating the state’s employment laws. The fines are for ‘‘contractual violations,” a fancy way of saying that Wal-Mart denied rest breaks to workers at least 1.5 million times.

For more information about Wal-Mart royally screwing its employees, check out Wal-Mart Watch.


The New York Times:

A state judge in Minnesota has ruled that Wal-Mart Stores violated state laws on rest breaks and other wage matters more than two million times and as a result could face more than $2 billion in fines. The judge has threatened to impose a $1,000 penalty for each violation.

The judge also ruled on Monday that Wal-Mart owed $6.5 million to 56,000 current and former employees because of contractual violations, including a failure to give workers promised rest breaks at least 1.5 million times. The judge also found that Wal-Mart managers in Minnesota had systematically broken the law by having employees take in-house training while off the clock.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said William R. Sieben, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, who filed the lawsuit nearly seven years ago. “It’s only through a decision like this that Wal-Mart can be held to its contractual agreements and to complying with Minnesota law.”

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By cyrena, July 3, 2008 at 6:16 am #

“.. But let’s face it, Wal-Mart isn’t the only business abusing workers. In nearly 40 years of working as an employee and as a business owner, I’ve never seen a more biased and crooked worker environment. But that’s just my opinion ... backed by experience.”..

You’re right on the money here GW=McHammered.

Not just Wal Mart. But, it hasn’t always been this bad with the others. In fact, the thousands of other corps who do the same thing to their employees have moved to these Wal Mart tactics more since Regan deregulated everything, including the American worker.

Then we got bush I, followed by Wal-Mart/NAFTA Clinton, and then of course the current shrub just legalized rape (of slave labor) the same way he legalized torture. But still, it’s been on-going for a while, and not just Wal Mart.

Wal Mart is so much more noticeable in their violations because they started out that way. They’ve NEVER honored any labor laws. The others are less noticable because they’ve gradually changed over the past few decades. So many corps that used to deal somewhat reasonably with their employees simply started screwing them more gradually. The end result is the same.

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By Outraged, July 3, 2008 at 2:39 am #

With the exception of upper mgt. ALL Wal-Mart employees are volunteers.  Since according to Merriam-Webster:

“(1): one who renders a service or takes part in a transaction while having no legal concern or interest, (2) one who receives a conveyance or transfer of property without giving valuable consideration”

Wal-Mart asserts itself as a business, however in actuality this is false, since THE BULK of its’ employees are BY DEFINITION volunteers. The stipend “employees” receive should be treated as such.  In this regard Wal-Mart should follow the rules set out for non-profits and their “proceeds” should benefit society in some fashion.

If employees are not given VALUABLE CONSIDERATION then they are in effect, VOLUNTEERS.

From wikipedia, a non-profit organization is: “

A non-profit organization is a legally constituted organization whose objective is to support or engage in activities of public or private interest without any commercial or monetary profit. NPOs are active in the environment, humanitarian aid, animal protection, education, the arts, social issues, charities, health care, politics, religion, research, sports or other endeavors…..

....Many non-profits are operated by either volunteers, paid staff or a combination of both, usually reserving the senior executive positions to paid personnel while the entry-level and field positions are frequently held by volunteers. Additionally, an NPO may have members or participants or beneficiaries or students etc. as opposed to customers in for-profit organizations.

One should not generalize about the comparative cost of a “nonprofit” versus “for profit” organization; there may be internalized profit in a nonprofit organization. In fact, most successful NPO’s generate a surplus of funds (more income than expenses) that can be held to generate additional income and pay operating expenses when other income streams weaken. With a number of NPO’s, the only distinction between them and a for-profit company is that ownership lies in stake-holders, and not investors. Any net income is used to further the organization’s goal (whether that be paying for programs or investing for security), rather than being distributed to share-holders, partners or owners.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-profit_organization

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By GW=MCHammered, July 2, 2008 at 2:59 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Is the judge aware of overtime hours rollover too? Work 60 hours in a week and some stores roll it over into the next week ad infinitum. Oh and sure, the employees ‘volunteer’ for this benefit. Just ask management. But let’s face it, Wal-Mart isn’t the only business abusing workers. In nearly 40 years of working as an employee and as a business owner, I’ve never seen a more biased and crooked worker environment. But that’s just my opinion ... backed by experience.

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By slumlord, July 2, 2008 at 2:41 pm #

i guess theyre trying to bring that ol’ slave labor home. i’d really like to live in a middle america town for a while. the contrast it seems to have to coastal cities is incredible. where i live, if someone wasnt allowed a break, they would tell walmart manager x to go screw himself but i realize in smaller towns with less opportunity this would be a bad idea. the flip side is that the sueage probably wouldnt come up.

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