And for even more corporate influence Read Here (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-nassar/wal-mart-kicks-an-injured_b_110291.html)!

Absolutely disgusting!!
It's why i shop a place called Fred Meyers. same multi-retail business model as Wally world but they continue to use union employee's and treat thier people decently.

Even more reason for me to not shop there. Though I already try not too, with one purchase there in the last 2 years. I've already passed this article on to a few people I know.

Article really doesnt give a lot of details.

And why would teh guy still have a bullet in his ankle? why don't they take the damn thing out?

I don't shop there, haven't in years and won't if I don't have to. WalMart has been trying for 7 years to develop a piece of farmland near me and the community has been fighting it every step of the way. Why have another one when 2 others are in the county less than 5 miles away? I loathe them.

A little more detail here:

http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2008/06/29/News/346885.html

"The claimant's allegations of a foot injury affecting his mobility are quite clearly supported by observed bullet fragments embedded in his foot," the court said in its first opinion in the case.

Just all the more reason why I shop at Target besides the fact that I feel dirty just walking into a Wal-Mart.

The Walmarts in my area ARE dirty. The last one I stepeed into was so cluttered with shit all over the isles it looked like a hurricane had been through there. We were on our way to Ozzfest and we forgot a cooler, we saw a Walmart off the highway and pulled in quick, got the cooler and left just as quick as we entered.

The problem is the caliber of people who shop there, they look at stuff and just drop it on the floor with no care to pick it up or put it back. And the employees don't bother to police up the isles or put stuff back so it just piles up and looks junky. I have issue the Walmarts here b/c they display all their wayfinder signs in Spanish and English. I feel like I've entered a different country when I walk thru the door so I just don't go.

I used to like to shop at Target but now they are too far away for me to spend the gas so I shop closer to my little corner of the world and online when I find free shipping and try to help the smaller guys in neighborhood. For me it's not so much where the product comes from it's the image the company has and their business practices that irk me as well as keeping a clean store. I just can't stand walking into a store that feels dirty or wrecked with no order and no control of its' customers.

Well, here is another bit of news regarding Wal-Mart, only this one sides with the little guy.

http://www.twincities.com/ci_9758800?nclick_check=1

I am sure this is going to be appealed and dragged out as long as possible, rather than the Wal-Mart family conceding anything until they are flat up against the wall.

The Walmarts in my area ARE dirty. The last one I stepeed into was so cluttered with shit all over the isles

Well, between you stepeeing in them and others leaving shit in the aisles, I suppose it would appear to be a dirty place. :rolleyes:


Sorry, couldn't resist.:devil

Link doesn't work for me Byl.

Here is a copy/paste for ya, Tal. Sorry, I missed the ad in the middle. :o


Wal-Mart loses Round 1 in Minnesota labor suit

$2B in penalties could follow $6.5M wage-and-hour ruling
By Julie Forster
(jforster@pioneerpress.com?subject=TwinCities.com: %20Wal-Mart%20loses%20Round%201%20in%20Minnesota%20labor% 20suit)
Article Last Updated: 07/02/2008 12:01:02 AM CDT


jforster@pioneerpress.com
Is $6.5 million just the beginning?
While a Minnesota judge ordered Wal-Mart Stores to pay that amount for shorting its workers on rest breaks and meal breaks and for allowing them to work off the clock, the next phase of a class-action wage trial has the potential to be much more punishing for the world's largest retailer.
In a 151-page decision made public Tuesday, Dakota County District Judge Robert King Jr. found that the Arkansas-based retailer repeatedly and willfully violated Minnesota labor laws or its contract with its employees by not giving them rest breaks or meal breaks and by shaving time from paid rest breaks.
King also found that Wal-Mart failed to maintain accurate time records and didn't pay employees for training.
Tuesday's award accounts for back wages and the value of the breaks workers were shorted. But King also found more than 2 million violations of state labor law, which could result in penalities of $2 billion.
If a jury awards penalties for those statutory violations, the money would go to the state.
For workers covered by the suit — an estimated 56,000 who worked at 46 Wal-Mart and 13 Sam's Club stores in Minnesota — any significant award depends on persuading a jury in the next phase of the trial to assess sizable punitive damages against Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart said it was reviewing King's decision for possible appeal.
Internal audits conducted by Wal-Mart provided key
evidence for four former Wal-Mart workers who brought the class-action lawsuit on behalf of Minnesota employees of Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores from September 1998 to January 2004. Auditors had determined that stores were not in compliance with company and state regulations when it came to breaks. The auditor's report was shared with executives. "Wal-Mart management responded to the audits with no action," King wrote in his decision. "In essence, they put their heads in the sand."
He determined that Wal-Mart's failure to properly pay workers was "willful" given the fact the retailer was on notice from numerous sources — not only the audits but from surveys, meetings and employee complaints — of the wage and hour violations, yet failed to correct the problems.
Nancy Braun, 53, who worked for the Wal-Mart in Apple Valley for more than a year, ran the store's grill alone for some of that period. She said she had to beg people to cover her so she could use the restroom. In some cases, a replacement didn't come soon enough. At other times, she would ask a maintenance worker to stand by the counter to tell customers she would be back. In addition, she was called back to work before she could finish her lunch breaks.
After she resigned, Braun started the class-action lawsuit in September 2001.
"The stand I was making on this lawsuit was for Wal-Mart to follow the policies and procedures of the Minnesota statutes," she said Tuesday. "Let your employees take their breaks as they are supposed to and let them take full breaks they are supposed to get. They are entitled to that break."
The decision and subsequent award should send a message to Wal-Mart, an attorney for the plaintiffs said.
"Not only does this award help our individual clients but it sends a message to Wal-Mart that it must pay for its mistakes and that there are consequences for willfully depriving its hourly workers of their contractual benefits and statutory rights," said Justin Perl, an attorney with the Minneapolis law firm of Maslon Edelman Borman & Brand and one of the lead attorneys in the case.
Wal-Mart on Tuesday denied that workers missed breaks and said if they did, it was voluntary for reasons outside of work. If employees were working off the clock, they were doing so without the retailer's knowledge.
"Our policies are to pay every associate for every hour worked and to make rest and meal breaks available for associates," said Daphne Moore, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman. "Any manager who violates these policies is subject to discipline, up to and including termination."
During trial, far more employees testified they received proper rest breaks and meal breaks than otherwise, she said. A number of employees who testified said they voluntarily skipped or cut short their breaks.
"We discourage that practice," but Wal-Mart should not be penalized when an employee voluntarily does it, she added.
A key question now: How will last week's U.S. Supreme Court decision limiting punitive damages against Exxon Mobil Corp. for the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska influence this case?
The court in the Exxon case pared to $500 million the $2.5 billion in damages the oil giant had been ordered to pay. The justices said punitive damages should be "reasonably predictable" and not exceed a sum equal to compensation already paid.
David Larson, a labor and employment law professor at Hamline University in St. Paul, said the judge and jury in the Wal-Mart case won't be bound by the Exxon Valdez decision because the cases involve two different areas of law.
"But it's certainly worrisome because it is sending a message to lower courts about how they should think about punitive damages," Larson said.
Still, he said, because the core awards in employment cases involve just back wages, they are typically small. And because punitive damages are meant to deter and punish, the jury shouldn't be bound by a one-to-one ratio — compensatory (back wages) to punitive in determining the amount of the award.
"Given that the purpose of punitive awards is to punish and deter wrongdoers, limiting punitive damages to a one-to-one ratio in an employment area will simply not accomplish that goal." Larson said.
Wal-Mart is the world's largest retailer, generating profits last year of more than $1.4 million every hour — or $12.7 billion annually. Its 2007 sales topped $378 billion.
Other similar cases involving Wal-Mart might be a guide to how the second phase of the Minnesota trial might go.
In Philadelphia, workers sued over unpaid breaks and overtime and, after a jury trial in 2006, were awarded $78 million, which later rose to $188 million. Wal-Mart lost a $172 million verdict in California in 2005 to workers who claimed they were illegally denied meal breaks. Both cases are under appeal. The company also settled a Colorado suit for $50 million.
The Minnesota wage-and-hour case was originally filed in September 2001 by Braun, Debbie Simonson, Cindy Severson and Pamela Reinert. All are former Wal-Mart employees who claim that Wal-Mart denied them meal and rest breaks and that they were forced to work off the clock by managers under pressure to keep payroll costs down.

stepeed is a hybrid form of peeing and stepping at the same time! ;)

I keep seeing stories like this and I dont know maybe its different in other places, but its not like that here. ive worked for Wal Mart ( at the distribution center) for the last 9 years and we don't have issues like that. They are adamant about making sure noone is working off the clock and are taking breaks on time.

I make good money especially for this area. The benefits are decent and we are treated well. We have very little turn over.

I know the stores are a different world, but the stores here aren't bad at all.

Ahh but I think you nailed it. You work distribution and not at the customer end of things. And yes, I think location does influence things. This is also true for other stores located in high population cities versus surburbia.

New York is fairly liberal with their labor laws. Its a different animal in many different states.