Post #121455 by christiki295 on Sun, Oct 24, 2004 7:02 PM

[i]On 2004-10-24 18:03, Tiki Rider wrote:

4,400 hawaiian residents are gainfully employed and thousands shop there. Isnt that good for the State of Hawaii's economy and employment rates?

TikiRider,

It appears that Wallmart failed to address senstive cultural issues, which is in keeping with its reputation of using its size as America's largest employer to get its way.

I do agree with you that any additional employment in Hawaii is worthwhile. However, Wallmart pays lower then the average retailer and is not a very good corporate citizen, according to this US News & World Report article:

Wal-Mart takes hits on worker treatment
By Stephanie Armour USA TODAY

There's more to Wal-Mart than bare-bones pricing and a familiar yellow smiling face. The megaretailer is also getting an unwelcome reputation for the way it treats its employees.

At the pinnacle of its success, the company is fending off critics who say Wal-Mart discriminates against women, underpays workers and uses illegal tactics to kill unionization efforts. Never before has the retail empire, founded in 1962, come under such blistering attack.

Roughly 40 lawsuits have been filed by employees who say they were forced to work overtime for no pay. The company is facing a sexual discrimination lawsuit in California that could become the largest such case in history.

And labor groups, which have fought unsuccessfully for years to get a foothold at Wal-Mart, are intensifying efforts. In November, more than 100 rallies captured headlines. Critics want higher wages for workers and support for unionization efforts.

For Wal-Mart — whose 1.3 million workers make it the world's largest private employer — both reputation and money are at stake. Overtime and sexual bias lawsuits could cost the company millions of dollars; similar class-action cases involving overtime claims at other companies have brought verdicts as high as $90 million.

The blows to Wal-Mart's image are coming just as the company lays out some ambitious goals — expanding into the $680 billion retail grocery business and hiring more than 1 million employees in the next five years.

Company officials say they don't know why the attacks are coming now, and they also say the allegations are unfounded. "It's our approach with our associates to treat them right and have a genuine partnership with them," says Wal-Mart spokesman Bill Wertz. "We need a lot of people to conduct our business and fill our existing stores. We couldn't do that if we mistreated our people."

Some Wal-Mart employees agree the flap about labor problems is overblown.

"We have a great package of benefits," says Micheal Hardaway, 37, a store manager in Los Angeles. "Wal-Mart gives people the tools to better themselves. Associates have a voice."

Test of organized labor

But this is about more than Wal-Mart. The battle to reform the company's employment practices is also a crucial test for organized labor, whose membership has atrophied from 30% of the labor force in the 1950s to about 13% today. So far, none of Wal-Mart's roughly 1 million U.S. employees are union members — raising tough questions about how relevant unions are today.

"Unionizing a giant, New Economy employer like Wal-Mart would be as big a coup today as unionizing Ford was to the United Auto Workers," says Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville. "Failing to unionize it is frustrating to the unions and damages their claim that they're needed by today's workers."

Critics want to keep the pressure on because they believe changes in Wal-Mart's labor practices could prompt competitors to make similar concessions. And change, they say, is sorely needed.

"I'd love to see the benefits package changed," says Mary Lou Wagoner, 53, a cashier in Las Vegas at Sam's Club, a wholesale warehouse operated by Wal-Mart. "People can't afford it. A union would help immensely."

But Wal-Mart is fighting back. Company leaders say unionization efforts have failed because its employees are content. How, they ask, could the company continue to grow — it now has 3,371 stores — if it was really such an inhospitable place to work?

Officials at the Bentonville, Ark., home office say Wal-Mart offers competitive wages and affordable health insurance. As an example of the company's commitment to its workers, officials note that more than 60% of Wal-Mart's managers began as hourly employees.

Unions and analysts put hourly pay for non-supervisors at about $8; Wal-Mart declined to divulge salary information. The 1999 annual average hourly earnings for retail workers was $9.08, according to data from the Labor Department analyzed by the International Council of Shopping Centers.

"The question our people have is what the unions' real intent is. It doesn't seem like a genuine membership drive," Wertz says. "It seems like more of an effort to discredit the company and protect those companies that do employ union members."

Adds Ted Connelly, 36, a department manager at a Wal-Mart store in Ocala, Fla: "I never expected the opportunities that are here at this store. The one company that would not need a union is Wal-Mart."

Competitors that have some unionized workers include grocers Kroger, Albertsons, Safeway and Royal Ahold, union officials say.

But the anti-Wal-Mart campaign is spreading. Some allegations:

•Union busting. Since November 2001, Wal-Mart has been a defendant in 28 complaints brought by the National Labor Relations Board citing anti-union activities such as threats, interrogations or disciplining.

Critics say Wal-Mart moves quickly to block organizing. In 2000, a majority of meat cutters at a store in Jacksonville, Texas, voted to organize. Shortly after the vote, the company closed its butcher departments at Jacksonville and other stores. Organizers say that was done to quash the union; Wal-Mart says it was part of a long-term business plan to move to prepackaged meats.

•Sexual discrimination. A lawsuit filed in San Francisco claims Wal-Mart discriminates against women in promotions, job assignments, training and pay. The lawsuit, filed in June 2001, allows for claims going back to December 1998 — potentially involving hundreds of thousands of current and former Wal-Mart employees if certified as a class action.

Stephanie Odle, 31, of Norman, Okla., is a class member in the case. She says women were paid less and treated differently. Odle says she learned that a male manager with less experience was earning $20,000 more a year. But when she complained, Odle says, she was told that the man was raising children and was the sole financial support for the family.

"They have a blatant disregard &ellipsis; they can't continue to treat people that way," Odle says.

Lawyers and activists say that more than 70% of Wal-Mart's sales associates are women, while less than a third of store management employees are female. Company officials declined to divulge statistics due to pending litigation.

•Employment practices. Critics contend that Wal-Mart is profiting at the expense of workers' benefits and wages.

Two-thirds of workers don't have health insurance because they can't afford it or don't qualify, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) — a statistic Wal-Mart disputes. Employee pay averages about 30% less than union members in the retail food industry, they say. And the company is also facing lawsuits from workers who say they were made to work off the clock, in some cases claiming they were locked in stores. This year, Wal-Mart lost the first of those overtime lawsuits to go to trial — a case involving employees in Oregon. Damages have not yet been determined.

"Wal-Mart has a crummy health plan, it's very expensive, and every year, premiums go up," says Linda Gruen, 53, of Federal Way, Wash. The former Sam's Club cashier quit in August and became a union organizer. "We need to do something."

To demonstrate that their campaign is making a difference, labor groups point out that Wal-Mart was not among Fortune magazine's list of the top 100 companies to work for. The company was on the list in 1998, 2000 and 2001.

"Clearly, the pressure is having an impact. They fell off," says Jill Cashen at the UFCW.

But company officials say they weren't shunned. Rather, they say, Wal-Mart this year chose not to participate in the annual ranking, which is based in part on employee surveys.

Wal-Mart's benefits

To counter union attacks, Wal-Mart officials say that about 75% of employees are eligible for health care coverage. (The remaining 25% are in waiting periods, which are six months for full-time employees and two years for part time.) Of those eligible for the health plan, about 60% sign up.

The company picks up two-thirds of the cost. While unions say that's less than some other companies, Wal-Mart points out that the majority of its employees are full time, so more are eligible for coverage. They also say the coverage might cost more, but it's more comprehensive, and there are no caps on benefits.

Other perks include a profit-sharing plan and a 401(k) plan that the company contributes to even if the associate does not. The company contributes an amount, up to 2% of employees' pay, depending on profitability. There is also a store bonus program. Employees in stores that meet specific criteria, such as profitability and customer satisfaction, share in yearly profits.

But as the finger-pointing escalates, some labor experts say unions might be targeting Wal-Mart because they see the company's growth as a threat.

Labor has "unionized stores like Safeway and Kroger," says Satish Deshpande, a management professor at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. "But those organizations are now asking the union for wage and benefit cuts because they say they can't compete with Wal-Mart, whose labor costs are so much lower. So their only option is to go after Wal-Mart."

For critics, getting the message out has become a coordinated campaign with professional anti-Wal-Mart videos and Web sites, such as http://www.walmartwatch.com and http://www.walmartyrs.com. The National Organization for Women in September named the company its fifth National Merchant of Shame over labor issues.

Some say such attention is overdue. Gretchen Adams, 56, is a former Wal-Mart supervisor. Women used to come to her office in tears, she says, because they couldn't survive on company wages.

"It's terrible what they do to people," says Adams, of Navarre, Fla., who quit in 2001 and became a union organizer. "I had women who would come to me worried about how to make ends meet because they couldn't afford the health care. For a company that is the nation's largest, how can they let that go on?"