Posted on December 26th, 2008 by Tim Eavenson | No Comments »
Filed under: ., HR Issues | 
This week, Wal Mart agreed to settle 63 suits alleging the company that created the part-time, retail work force refused to pay overtime and forced employees to work through their breaks. A spokesman said the total payout will be somewhere between $350 Million and $640 Million, depending on class action specifics.
This settlement is the latest (and largest) of Wal Mart’s payouts on recent legal actions. As we have reported multiple times this year, Wal Mart seems to be on a settlement streak on claims of wage violations and sex and disability discrimination. From the Washington Post:
The settlement ends actions pending in most state courts and in federal court in Nevada, and comes two weeks after a similar agreement was reached in Minnesota. The company will record an after-tax fourth-quarter expense of $250 million, or about 6 cents a share.
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The company two weeks ago agreed to pay $54.3 million to settle a class-action suit by Minnesota hourly workers claiming violations of wage-and-hour laws. The Minnesota judge found in July that the company broke wage-and-hour laws more than 2 million times and ordered Wal-Mart to give employees $6.5 million in back pay. In settling, Wal-Mart avoided a trial scheduled for next month in which a jury would have been asked to order the company to pay as much as $2 billion.
Considering that it hasn’t faired well in court recently, and the company’s ongoing efforts to upgrade its image, the spate of settlements is relatively expected. Still, it’s a big turnaround for a company that would fight lawsuits tooth and nail just a few years ago, it seems.
It’s also important to remember that: 1. Despite the settlement, there are still wage and hour suits pending in at least California, Massechusetts and Pennsylvania; and 2. Wal Mart reported $378 Billion in total revenue for 2008, so $600 Million is not as terrible as it sounds to the rest of us.
Posted on July 1st, 2008 by Tim Eavenson | No Comments »
Filed under: Uncategorized |
Replace my name with yours and my “name” with the ridiculous name of your choosing, and tell me you did not have this exact conversation at some point in your early teenage years:
Tim: I hate my name. It’s stupid. I don’t want to be called Tim anymore.
Mom/Dad/Gramma/Buddies: Well, what do you want to be called?
Tim: Bor.
Them: …
Bor: He’s the Father of Odin. Norse God of War.
Them: Okay, Tim.
Tim: Dammit!
Well, Wal*Mart announced last week that it doesn’t like it’s name anymore, and in an effort to be the hip kid when it goes to highschool, it wants everybody to start calling it… Walmart. They also took that little [chik] from the corner of their ads that looked like it was loading a Youtube video and put it at the end of the word (See new logo, infra).
The logo adjustment is part of a savvy marketing shift that includes new store facades and slogans and locally-grown produce and everything.
Everything but an end to labor problems, of course. Yeah, WM’s on the hook again – this time in Minnesota – for $6.5 million, PLUS fines of up to $1,000 per violation. I know what you’re saying: a grand? That’s the punchline? Well, a grand per violation. And this is Wal*Mart – er, Bor – er, Walmart – so this is a class action. 
And there are somewhere around two million violations.
That’s $2 billion plus in violations possible. Apparently, the managers up in the North Star State haven’t been paying their employees when they work over their breaks. If that sounds familiar, this happened to Wal*Mart (remember them?) in Philly in ’06 ($140 mil) and California in ’05 (>$200 mil). They also settled a similar case in Colorado for $50 million. Oh – and there’s about 70 more warming up all over the country.
The case – if you don’t let the WM fanatics get in your way – brings up a lot of policy questions about HR and Corporate L&E decisions that are not easy to answer. The management of the Stores of 10,000 Lakes say they were pressured to cut payroll costs by Walmart brass in Arkansas, and since the stores were already understaffed, they started shaving time here and there to save enough to get their own bonuses.
WM is blaming the store managers, saying it’s company policy to pay workers for every hour they work. But if you understaff your stores and then set corporate policy to shave payroll figures, is that deliberate on the corporation’s part? Is it business judgment?
I don’t know. A company should be able to cut costs as needed to be as profitable as possible. But if you’re understaffing your stores, and working people as hard as retail employees work (which is really, really hard, if you were privileged enough to avoid such employment), situations like this are next to inevitable.
All I’m trying to say is people aren’t going to think your cool if you show up with a new name and some fancy clothes and the same personality.
Posted on April 11th, 2008 by Tim Eavenson | No Comments »
Filed under: Uncategorized |
One video shows Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton telling the board of directors in the 1980s that too few women were in management. Another shows Chief Executive Officer H. Lee Scott Jr. discussing sexual harassment cases in 1999, the Wall Street Journal reports. ABC News has posted the Walton video clip along with one of a Wal-Mart lawyer calling unions “blood-sucking parasites.”
Also, there’s tons of video of the execs dressed in drag. Seriously. You think lead counsel in the myriad discrimination cases Wal Mart is fielding are interested?
I’m sure you’re asking why Wal Mart would let them do this, since they would have to have signed some type of contract restricting internal meeting video’s usage.
Company founder Mike Flagler maintains Wal-Mart has no rights to the videos because it did not sign a contract restricting their use.
Nice work. Somebody in the counsel’s office is getting the boot on that one.
Flagler’s co-owner Mary Lyn Villaneuva says Wal-Mart has offered to buy the video library for $500,000. Six figs? When every lawyer in the country is going to pay to watch these things? I think
Kim Kardashian ponied up more than that.
Here’s the link to the video from ABC News. Let me warn you – it is not for the faint of heart.
