Thursday, July 06, 2006

Wal-Mart Rolls Back Pay

Wal-Mart is in a bit of trouble in Massachusetts. A class-action lawsuit claims that Wal-Mart skimped "on work breaks and pay owed to thousands of former employees" to the tune of over 1 million times.

Of course:
Wal-Mart declined to address the allegations in the case, saying, “It is disrespectful to the court to comment on matters that will be heard in a legal proceeding. . . . we’re not going to comment.”
Wal-Mart has 70 lawsuits throughout the country claiming similiar allegations. People love to talk about how well Wal-Mart treats disabled employees.
Among his clients is a disabled woman from Chelmsford who has accused Wal-Mart of changing her time sheet to show she worked only one minute on days she worked eight-hour shifts. Except in this instance below.

“When I went to to complain, my manager just told me (my paycheck) was right, that there wasn’t a problem,” said Kelly Thompson, 32, who worked as a greeter for about a year before being terminated. “But they would never open up the books to show me. They just insisted.”

Thompson, who has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair, said she was shocked when her lawyers showed her a computer analysis alleging that Wal-Mart routinely denied her pay for the hours she worked. “I feel like I was ripped off,” she said. “I couldn’t believe they would actually do this to someone.”
And Wal-Mart marches cluelessly onward.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Does this story surprise me? Of course not! Al Norman has a story on his web site titled "Asbury, Park, N.J. nearly 30% of Americans Hold Unfavorable view of Wal-Mart."
The article written 7/01/2006 says this: "A survey of 1,000 adult Americans released this week by Rasmussen Reports of Asbury Park, New Jersey shows that 29% of Americans have an unfavorable view of Wal-Mart. Given the fact that Wal-Mart is a retailer, and not a politician, a 29% negative rating is remarkably high. Ordinarily, one would expect Americans to have no strong views one way or another towards a retailer, like Sears, or Kroger's or Kmart. They might not shop there, or not like their product selection, but Wal-Mart has become the nunber one reviled retailer in the United States."
Norman finishes up his article with this thought: "for a company that spent $1.6 billion in fiscal 2006 on image advertising, this growing level of uncertainty or disapproval of Wal-mart has got to be a major corporate disappointment." When Wal-Mart pulls tricks such as underpaying their employees, is it any wonder 29% of Americans have an unfavorable view of them? Will they get convicted of this? Probably. And like all the other lawsuits against them, they'll have to foks it over big time. They get sued on average 2 to 5 times every single day. A great company? I don't think so!!