From Huffington Post:

DALLAS and LOS ANGELES — As she neared the entrance of a Dallas Walmart shortly before midnight on the eve of the shopping frenzy known as Black Friday, Tammy was both shocked and thrilled to encounter a group of more than 40 protesters.

Having worked for a dozen years as a cashier at another national retail chain, Walgreens, Tammy said she felt an immediate sense of solidarity with the Walmart employees.

“Walmart cuts hours and benefits to push people out,” said Tammy, using her phone to capture video of the protest. “It’s the same thing at Walgreens. The workers are suffering while billionaires make all the money.”

But despite her professed anger at corporate greed, Tammy — who declined to provide her last name lest she jeopardize her job — was not deterred from entering Walmart to purchase a TV on a layaway plan. Her own low wages made her feel a sense of community with the striking Walmart workers, but those same wages also generated pressure to find and buy goods at low prices — precisely the demand that Walmart has fed to turn itself into the world’s largest retailer.

“You gotta go where the sales are,” Tammy said. “Today at Walgreens every toy was half off. I had to work a 12-hour shift, and they didn’t pay me enough. But I can’t tell shoppers, ‘Don’t come in.’ I’d lose my job.”

Tammy wasn’t the only passerby who felt sympathy for the Walmart strikers. In 100 cities across 46 states Thursday and Friday, the protesters were likely to be met by honks and fist pumps from cars as they waved signs and chanted outside Walmart stores. At the Walmart in Paramount, Calif., near Los Angeles, about 600 protesters, including an estimated 100 Walmart workers, turned out Friday morning. In Hanover, Md., 400 store employees, union workers, activists and other supporters showed up at a Walmart Supercenter Friday.

Read more from Huffington Post…

Walmart Employees To Walk Off Job on Black Friday to protest work conditions. Attorney David Schwartz, Partner at Gotham Government Relations debates on Fox News Channel

From Huffington Post:

Walmart launched a large-scale response this week to a series of unprecedented labor strikes, according to a confidential document obtained by The Huffington Post.

The seven-page internal memo, issued Oct. 8, is intended for salaried employees only, and contains instructions on how to respond to strikes by hourly workers that spread to 28 Walmart stores in 12 cities earlier this week. The strikes were the first by Walmart retail employees in the company’s 50-year history.

The memo makes clear that Walmart, the world’s largest private employer, views the labor protests as a serious attack, a message that runs contrary to the company’s public comments that the strikes are mere “publicity stunts,” as Walmart’s vice president of communications David Tovar told The Huffington Post Tuesday.

“As you know,” the memo opens, “activists or union organizers have been trying for years to stop our Company’s growth and to damage our relationship with our customers and members. One of the activists’ or union organizers’ tactics is to try to disrupt the business by urging our associates to participate in a walkout or other form of work stoppage.”

The majority of the memo is aimed at instructing managers not to violate workers’ legal right to engage in concerted activity, or non-union labor organizing. Managers are directed not to “discipline” employees who engage in walkouts, sit-ins or sick-outs.

Legal experts said the confidential memo shows an unprecedented level of caution from a company that has taken harsh stances towards employee attempts to organize in the past.

“Walmart probably has in mind that the Obama NLRB [National Labor Relations Board] often sides with unions over management,” said Lance Compa, a labor law professor at Cornell University’s School of Industrial Relations in Ithaca, N.Y. “So they’re being extremely cautious.”

The memo is peppered with Walmart management jargon, offering a window into the secretive corporate culture built by founder Sam Walton. Managers are reminded over and over of the acronym TIPS (Threaten Intimidate Promise Spy) when dealing with potential labor organizing by hourly-wage “associates.” The widely used human resources term serves to remind managers that they cannot, by law, threaten or intimidate workers who organize, promise them benefits if they stop organizing, or spy on their activities.

What managers can legally do, however, is what Walmart calls FOE — offer workers Facts, Opinions, and Personal Experiences about labor organizing. Walmart offers a sample opinion that says, “I don’t think a walkout is a good way to resolve problems or issues.” According to Compa, this is a boilerplate tactic for companies looking to discourage unionizing without breaking the law.

The historic retail worker strikes began last Friday in Los Angeles, when 60-some people walked off work, and they quickly spread across the country. Earlier in September, workers at warehouses owned by Walmart in Illinois and California also went on strike.

Striking workers are demanding that Walmart end retaliatory practices against employees who attempt to organize by Nov. 23, Black Friday. If not, they will strike again on the biggest shopping day of the year, according to Colby Harris, a Walmart worker from Dallas, who participated in Tuesday’s strike.

Walmart spokesman Dan Fogleman said the strikes were largely publicity stunts. “We’ve seen the unions hold these made for TV events outside our stores for about ten years now,” he told HuffPost, “and they want the publicity to help further their political and financial agendas. There is a very small number of associates raising these concerns, and they don’t represent the views of the vast majority of our 1.3 million associates.”

According to Compa, the memo reflects Walmart’s concern over the 20-some charges of unfair labor practices that Walmart workers filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) over the past 8 weeks in concurrence with the strikes.

The charges include dozens of allegations from employees who claim they were subjected to harassment, cut hours and other disciplinary actions when Walmart higher-ups learned that they supported OUR Walmart, the United Food and Commercial Workers-backed worker group that organized the recent strikes. If the NLRB sides with the workers, Walmart may eventually be forced to pay a huge settlement in back pay, the specific amount of which would vary for each individual case.

Fogleman said the company has “very strict policies against retaliation. If an associate feels that they have been retaliated against, we want to know that. That allows us the opportunity to look into it and take appropriate action.”

Politics may also play a role in the company’s newfound caution. Top positions at the NLRB are appointed by the president, and Democrats have traditionally been more sympathetic to labor organizers.

Notably, the leaked memo lacks many of Walmart’s famously tough labor policies.

In the past, internal Walmart documents instructed managers to remind employees that they could be permanently replaced if they went on strike, as well as provided talking points on the false guarantees unions make to workers, according to a 2007 report by Human Rights Watch that examined 292 NLRB charges against Walmart. The new document bears no mention of replacing employees.

At one point, Walmart is even more cautious than the law requires. The document does not instruct managers to evict employees conducting a sit-in on company property, as is within their legal right, according to Compa, who also serves as a consultant to Human Rights Watch.

Read more from Huffington Post…

Read the Walmart Document Here…

From NY Daily News:

Three Tennessee women and long-time employees of Walmart have filed a class action lawsuit against the discount retailer, claiming they were denied promotions because of their gender and paid less than their male counterparts.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Nashville on Tuesday, targets employment practices in Tennessee as well as parts of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and Mississippi.

The complaint “seeks to end Walmart’s discriminatory practices regarding the pay and promotion of female employees,” said Nashville-based attorneys Barrett Johnston.

It also seeks unspecified punitive damages.

The three plaintiffs, Cheryl Phipps, Bobbi Millner and Shawn Gibbons have spent between 11 and 26 years working for stores in three different towns in Tennessee.

They detail years of bias and unequal pay.

Millner says in the complaint that she was accidentally handed a paycheck of a fellow assistant manager, and “discovered he was earning thousands of dollars more per year that she was despite having considerably less experience,” the lawsuit claims.

Other female workers, including a Navy veteran, were told they could not be promoted to management because it was a “man’s job,” attorneys said. A manager at a Franklin, Tenn., store told a female worker that “women should be seen and not heard,” the lawsuit alleges.

A Walmart spokesman told the Daily News it has “strong policies against discrimination.”

“The claims of these women are not representative of the hundreds of thousands of women that work at Walmart,” said Randy Hargrove.

This isn’t the first time Walmart has been sued by female employees claiming the retailer has a culture of gender bias and unequal pay.

In 2011, the Supreme Court threw out a class action lawsuit again Walmart brought by a staggering 1.5 million female employees. It was the largest sex discrimination lawsuit in U.S. history. In its findings, the court found the women’s jobs were too varied to sue as a class.

But the ruling did leave open the possibility of smaller class action suits, such as the one filed in Tennessee.

Phipps, 59, said she was passed over for promotions to management and learned that one of her male colleagues with less experience had received a 75-cent raise compared to her 25-cent bump.

“We seek justice for ourselves and all Walmart women workers in this region who have been denied equal pay and opportunities for promotion,” she said in a statement.

But Walmart believes the treatment the women allegedly encountered is “so different” that the latest litigation “is no more appropriate than the nationwide class action.”

Walmart is also fighting two other sex discrimination lawsuits — one in northern California and another in North Texas.

Read more from NY Daily News…

From Sum of Us:

This week is Walmart’s 50th birthday. While the champagne may be flowing at Walmart HQ, for the rest of us, Walmart’s anniversary is hardly cause for celebration. There’s a real cost to those “low prices” Walmart promises — and our communities are paying the price.

Walmart lives and dies by its public image. So, to commemorate its 50th birthday, we created an infographic for you to share with your friends, to help spread the word that Walmart’s business model is bad news for our communities and our world.

Click to Enlarge

Read more from Sum of Us..

(New York, New York) June 29, 2012 – The Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI) recently released a June study, Immigrant Small Business Owners, which highlights the important role immigrants play in today’s small businesses throughout the United States. The New York Association of Grocery Stores (NYAGS) recognizes the immigrants’ presence and emphasizes their vital contribution to New York’s economy.

According to U.S. Census Bureau data analyzed by Huffington Post in November, the New York City metropolitan area is home to the largest small business population in the United States: 520,480. Through an analysis of the Survey of Business Owners (SBO) and the American Community Survey (ACS), the FPI determined the following facts concerning the immigrant involvement in New York’s small business ventures:

1. Of the 25 largest metropolitan areas in the United States, New York has the third largest immigrant share of business owners; 36 percent of business owners in the metro New York area are immigrants.
2. Of all 50 States, including the District of Columbia, New York has the second highest concentration of immigrant business owners. Roughly 29 percent of small businesses in New York State are owned by immigrants.
3. In general, immigrants in New York are approximately 10 percent more likely to be business owners than U.S.-born workers.

“All across America immigrants create small business enclaves which enrich their respective communities,” says David Schwartz – attorney, NYAGS Co-Founder, and small business advocate. “49 percent of small business grocery stores across the country are immigrant owned. NYAGS is a coalition which will fight on behalf of small business grocers throughout New York, and a large part of following through with our goals at NYAGS involves recognizing the numerous generations of immigrants which have toiled in search of the American dream.”

“NYAGS is a group dedicated to serving the best interests of both New York’s grocery stores and the entire state’s food industry,” asserts Brad Gerstman – second Co-Founder of NYAGS and Partner at Gotham Government Relations & Communications. “Brick-and-mortar grocery stores play an integral role in making New York City what it is today. In the past, the American dream was a beacon of hope to those from abroad. It is our hope, that NYAGS will preserve this dream for many generations to come.”

Walmart – the behemoth super-store chain never known to err in favor of their workers has forgotten to pay 4,500 of them their overtime. Now, the U.S. department of labor has recovered $4.83 Million dollars for those workers.  Here is the Department of labor press release:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., headquartered in Bentonville, Ark., has agreed to pay $4,828,442 in back wages and damages to more than 4,500 employees nationwide following an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division that found violations of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime provisions. Additionally, Wal-Mart will pay $463,815 in civil money penalties.

The violations affected current and former vision center managers and asset protection coordinators at Wal-Mart Discount Stores, Wal-Mart Supercenters, Neighborhood Markets and Sam’s Club warehouses. Wal-Mart failed to compensate these employees with overtime pay, considering them to be exempt from the FLSA’s overtime requirements. The Labor Department’s investigation found that the employees are nonexempt and consequently due overtime pay for any hours worked beyond 40 in a week.

“Misclassification of employees as exempt from FLSA coverage is a costly problem with adverse consequences for employees and corporations,” said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. “Let this be a signal to other companies that when violations are found, the Labor Department will take appropriate action to ensure that workers receive the wages they have earned.”

Under the terms of the settlement, Wal-Mart has agreed to pay all back wages the department determined are owed for the violations in addition to paying liquidated damages to the employees and a penalty to the department. The civil money penalties assessed stem from the repeat nature of the violations. Wal-Mart, which operates more than 3,900 establishments in the United States, corrected its classification practices for these workers in 2007, and negotiation over the back pay issues has been ongoing since that time. A third-party administrator will disburse the payments to the affected employees.

“Our department has been working with Wal-Mart for a long time to reach this agreement,” said Nancy J. Leppink, deputy administrator of the Wage and Hour Division. “I am very pleased that staff in our Southwest region persevered, ensured these employees will be paid the back wages they are owed and brought this case to conclusion. Thanks to this resolution, thousands of employees will see money put back into their pockets that should have been there all along. The damages and penalties assessed in this case should put other employers on notice that they cannot avoid their obligations to their employees by inappropriately classifying their workers as exempt.”

The FLSA provides an exemption from both minimum wage and overtime pay requirements for individuals employed in bona fide executive, administrative, professional and outside sales positions, as well as certain computer employees. To qualify for exemption, employees generally must meet certain tests regarding their job duties and be paid on a salary basis at not less than $455 per week. Job titles do not determine exempt status. In order for an exemption to apply, an employee’s specific job duties and salary must meet all the requirements of the department’s regulations.

The FLSA requires that covered, nonexempt employees be paid at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 for all hours worked, plus time and one-half their regular rates, including commissions, bonuses and incentive pay, for hours worked beyond 40 per week. Employers also are required to maintain accurate time and payroll records. The civil money penalties assessed stem from the repeat nature of the violations.

For more information about the FLSA and other federal wage laws, call the Wage and Hour Division’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US WAGE (487-9243). Information is also available at www.dol.gov/whd/.

Read more at the U.S. Department of Labor

Should FCPA Violations Play A Role In The Decision?

Since bribery allegations emerged, Wal-Mart has remained firm in its interest to build in New York City, and it seems confident that it will be successful in its endeavors. Various individuals have also sided with Wal-Mart in its recent troubles with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The New York Neighborhood Alliance, a group representing the best interest of New York’s small businesses, contends that any and all efforts to diminish Wal-Mart’s blatant disregard for the law are unjustified. In addition, the group argues that Wal-Mart’s actions should provide sufficient incentive to bar the conglomerate’s entry into New York City.

Wal-Mart supporters claim that the FCPA is too strict, ultimately inhibiting American businesses from engaging in competitive and commonly accepted bribery practices abroad. The reality is that this argument lacks substance on numerous levels. Arguing unethical dealings should be allowed based on the premise that others engage in them as well is ludicrous. If this defense was commonly accepted in the United States, minimum wage laws would be nonexistent, collusion would be welcomed, and various other laws established to protect the American public would be repealed.

It should also be noted, that America would be sending an irreversible message to the countries of the world if it were to loosen the FCPA regulations and allow Wal-Mart to bypass the FCPA unscathed. America has always been the trailblazer in setting high standards, and in 1977 it was the first to pass this kind of legislation. It eventually led 39 countries following the American example by signing an agreement at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Anti-Bribery Convention.

“Regardless of how many other countries engage in corrupt practices, the law is clear and so is Wal-Mart’s attempt to hide the bribery allegations,” asserts Brad Gerstman, founding partner at Gotham Government Relations & Communications.

“Wal-Mart has devoted much of its time, energy, and capital attempting to better its image in the eyes of New Yorkers. At the end of the day, the accountability promised by Mr. Mike Duke, President and CEO of Wal-Mart, has remained unrealized, and this lack of transparency should play a major role in determining if Wal-Mart should be granted entry into New York City,” says David Schwartz, founding partner at Gotham Government Relations & Communications.

Oh gosh we hope so…

From The New York Observer:

Walmart is in a pickle, and not the kind that can be found in the canned goods aisle. Following the Mexican bribery scandal, pols high and low have reaffirmed their opposition to the store. But they are not the only ones. Even some of the big box retailers staunchest supporters have come out against the company, namely Greg David.

The Crain’s columnist and former editor for three decades of the influential business weekly is a big believer in capitalism and its important role in shaping the city—he just wrote a book about it. To that end, he has long supported Walmart’s efforts to open a store in the five boroughs (14 times at last count). Yet now, in light of the scandal, even Greg David doubts Walmart will ever open in New York. And he believes this is all Walmart’s fault.

Read more from The New York Observer:

Here’s what Pro-Walmart champion and Author, Greg David  now has to say about  Walmart’s chances in New York City:

“Walmart squandered all that momentum by not announcing a plan to open stores. It is true that giant companies like Walmart march to their own beat, but the months of silence have clearly eroded its position.

The Mexican scandal hurts in two ways. It obviously means any move in New York will need to be delayed until the publicity dies down. More importantly, The New York Times story suggests current CEO Mike Duke, the driving force behind the effort to move into New York, could be implicated.”

With the clock ticking toward a new mayor, Walmart may have just blown it.

This publicity is never going to die down, Mr. David. Not if we have anything to with it. And we’re doing a lot…

Brad Gerstman NY Neighborhood Alliance

(New York, New York) April 23, 2012 – The New York Times recently reported a large-scale effort to bury evidence of bribery in Wal-Mart de Mexico. These bribes were used to obtain zoning approvals, reduce environmental impact fees, and gain support from neighborhood leaders. In the end, the person allegedly responsible for these bribes – Eduardo Castro-Wright – was promoted to a senior position in the United States Wal-Mart headquarters, and Mike Duke, current CEO, would often cite Mr. Castro-Wright’s “outstanding results” in Mexico.

New York Neighborhood Alliance (NYNA), a group composed of small and medium sized businesses, asserts Wal-Mart has not offered the transparency and accountability it promised in this year’s Global Sustainability Report. In a statement made in the 2012 report, Mike Duke spoke of Wal-Mart’s “commitment to transparency”, but this commitment did not extend to the bribery tolerated and disregarded by upper executives. The Times asserts that Mr. Duke was made aware of the events in Mexico when allegations were first surfacing.

“Every year Wal-Mart releases new reports with colorful charts and out of reach goals while promising transparency and accountability. Where is the accountability now? Not only did Wal-Mart underreport bribery allegations, it promoted the person who reportedly facilitated them”, says David Schwartz, Co-Founder of the New York Neighborhood Alliance and former Kings County Assistant District Attorney.

The blatant misuse of funds and bribery simply proves Wal-Mart should not be allowed to build in New York City. “All Wal-Mart has to offer New York City is broken promises, bad wages, and the overall decimation of small business”, asserts Brad Gerstman, Co-Founder of the New York Neighborhood Alliance.