Indiana Wal-Marts screw employees, pass the savings on to
you!
By
Billy Dinkel, THG News
A staple of nearly every Indiana community is coming under fire for labor
abuses. It has been revealed that Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, is
shorting their employees’ pay.
According to the Associated Press, an audit by the company has revealed
thousands of labor violations. Some of the violations include working minors
during school hours, forbidding employees to take breaks or lunches, and not
paying time and a half for overtime.
That’s bad news for 35,000 Indiana Wal-Mart workers. It is bad enough working a
crappy job; now those deprived souls aren’t getting paid to work the crappy job.
The internal audit was prompted by class action suits filed against the company
by employees in Indiana, with other suits pending in 40 states.
Wal-Mart said the findings of the audit were all a big misunderstanding. The
results were skewed, according to the company, because employees would often
forget to clock in or out for breaks and lunches.
But employees at Wal-Marts statewide have a different interpretation of the
report. Bonnie Smith, an employee at the Spencer Wal-Mart, said managers told
employees to work for free. “They kept on us, telling us K-Mart and Target were
gaining ground on us,” Smith said. “I just did it out of loyalty for the
company. Even though they weren’t paying us, it still is a great place to work.”
Smith further commented on the pressures felt by the hourly employees to keep
the company first in retailing: “Without Wal-Mart, Spencer would be nothing. We
(employees) took a lot of pride in the fact that Spencer had a major corporation
in town. Every day we had to give 150% to the store to keep us an industry
leader.” Too bad the company did not reciprocate the 150% when it came to
overtime pay.
Casey Kostrebski, an employee at the Coldwater Road store in Fort Wayne, said
the problem was the corporate culture that permeated management. Kostrebski
said, “Managers were so used to analyzing the sweatshop model of business, they
thought the same approach could apply in the United States as it had in China.”
When questioned about this, a Wal-Mart supervisor, who asked to remain
anonymous, said “just because you live in the US doesn’t mean you deserve to
make over $10 a day. People in other countries make a lot less than that and get
by just fine. Americans need to learn to deal with it.”
Ryan Helmer, an associate at the Westside Evansville store, knew something was
wrong when payday rolled around. Helmer said he works 65 hours a week on
average, but only grosses about $183.00 on his paycheck. He said he knew
something didn’t add up, but didn’t mention it to his supervisor for fear of
retribution. “I’ve only got 10 more years and I’ll be assistant manager of the
tire shop. Then I will be the one doing the screwing!”
The same scenario happened to Brazil’s Cletus Campbell, a layaway specialist.
“It seemed like I lived at the store, but my pay was only $125 a week.” When
asked why he didn’t find a different occupation, Campbell said, “Are you
kidding? Where else can you find a job that pays $6.00 an hour to do something
you love?”
Other associates said managers would trick the employees into working longer
hours for free. A shelf stocker at the Portage Wal-Mart said supervisors would
tell employees to work until the job was done, for free, no matter how long the
task. When they were finished, the supervisor told them there would be a “big
surprise” for them that would be worth working the extra hours for free. “But
when we finished,” the employee said, “the manager was long gone. He had clocked
out and went home two hours ago--that was the ‘big surprise’. Too bad we fell
for it every time.”
Customer opinion was mixed. Some were outraged, but many thought the pay-free
policy was a good idea. A disgruntled customer at the Lafayette store said, “I
don’t care what they have to do about pay, but they need more of these idiots to
work after the regular shift and fill these damn checkout lines!” This was an
astute observation. Out of the 45 checkout lanes, only five were operational. To
make matters worse, four out of the five cashiers were as slow as molasses in
January.
Maybe going to college wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
