The EEOC is suing Wal-Mart over allegations of sexual harassment of female employees in Alabama. *
Nearly three-quarters of a million women work as "sales associates" in Wal-Mart stores. On average these women earn $6.10 per hour, or $12,688 per year if they are permitted to work full-time. This wage puts many of their families below the poverty level — half even qualify for federal assistance under the food stamp program. **
Current and former employees in California are suing Wal-Mart for sex discrimination in pay, promotion, and compensation. This will be the country's largest sex discrimination suit against a private employer if it is granted class-action status.
Wal-Mart's health insurance plan excludes contraceptive coverage. A suit, which is seeking class action status, has been filed in Georgia regarding this exclusion.
Women who make pants in El Salvador earn 15 cents for each pair; Wal-Mart sells these pants for $16.95 in its U.S. stores. Also, contractors in El Salvador force workers to take pregnancy tests.
According to Brandeis University Professor Ellen I. Rosen, women in Central America who make clothes for Wal-Mart live in shacks lacking running water or plumbing while women in China live nine to twelve to a room in government-provided dormitories. Some of Wal-Mart's workers in the U.S. spend their nights in trucks of motel rooms without cooking facilities.
The Maine Department of Labor ordered Wal-Mart to pay the largest fine in state history for violating child labor laws. The Department of Labor discovered 1,436 child labor law infractions at twenty Wal-Mart chains.
Lawsuits pertaining to Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) violations have been filed in Missouri, Arizona, California, and Arkansas.
Employees from Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Washington, Illinois, Iowa, and West Virginia have sued Wal-Mart for underpaying its hourly workers. Employees from Missouri and Kansas have filed class-action suits alleging "acts of wage abuse." These acts include neglecting to pay workers overtime, preventing rest and lunch breaks, and forcing them to "work off the clock."
A former employee in New Jersey reported being harassed and fired after telling his boss that he was undergoing a sex change. He won the case, and Wal-Mart was ordered to pay him $2 million.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has filed suit against the New Castle, Pennsylvania Wal-Mart for unfair labor practices. It alleges that Wal-Mart illegally discouraged workers of the Tire and Lube Express department from joining a union.
The NLRB also filed a suit against the Jacksonville, Texas Wal-Mart for unfair labor practices. It alleges that Wal-Mart threatened meat cutters, interrogated them regarding their union sympathies, and fired those who are pro-union. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union has filed a complaint with the NLRB alleging that two workers were fired because of their union organizing activities.
Following a vote in favor of union representation by the butchers in Jacksonville, Texas, Wal-Mart announced that meat cutting would end at 180 stores.
In 2000, Wal-Mart's assets totaled more than the GDP of 155 of the 192 countries in the world, with annual sales of more than $137.6 billion.
In the video Behind the Labels: Garment Workers in U.S. Saipan, Wal-Mart is featured as one of the retailers which contract with "sweatshops" in Saipan for the manufacturing of garments sold in their stores.
eek
Employees today can just walk off their jobs and not have to "slave away" at those jobs, and bam, their problem is fixed. African-American slavery? You can't just walk off the job.
