James Vetato planned to spend Black Friday wearing out shoe leather on a picket line at the Southside Walmart in Paducah, Ky. “Now I’ll be there Thanksgiving night, too,” Vetato said. “Walmart has announced it will be open at 8 p.m. Thanksgiving night, which will prevent a lot of the associates from spending the holiday …
Early on Friday, three dozen non-union workers at a large Walmart warehouse near Riverside, Calif., ended a 15-day walkout protesting poor working conditions. But outside of Chicago, another group of Wal-Mart warehouse workers continue to strike and have called for hundreds of supporters to join them in non-violent civil disobedience at a rally at the …
As One Wal-Mart Warehouse Strike Ends, Another Snowballs Read More »
Working In These Times has frequently covered the warehousing industry and the way that complicated layers of different companies using, owning, operating and staffing warehouses make the sector ripe for labor abuse. A motion for sanctions filed August 23 in a workers’ class action lawsuit against southern California Wal-Mart warehouses sheds more light on this …
Lawsuit Sheds Light on Murky and Dangerous Warehouse Sector Read More »
Last week, I talked with a cashier at a Ralph’s grocery store in Orange County, Calif. She told me she lives with and supports her 82-year-old mother and her disabled 56-year-old sister. She represents a growing group in the United States: a working woman who is head of household and also a family caregiver. But …
He beat out some tough competition, but Rob Walton, chairman of Wal-Mart’s board of directors, is the top vote getter in the 11th annual Jobs with Justice (JWJ) Scrooge of the Year election. Walton deemed a “billionaire bully” by Brave New Films, has an estimated net worth around $21 billion, JWJ reports. As a family, …
Wal-Mart’s Rob Walton Wins JWJ’s Scrooge of the Year Read More »
Last June, the Supreme Court tossed out a class action lawsuit brought by over a million Walmart employees alleging that the company systematically discriminates against women. The Court did not allow the women to try to prove that such discrimination exists, instead holding that the women did not have enough in common with each other to …
Last week, Wal-Mart announced the latest component of its relatively successful campaign to shift its image from corporate villain to socially responsible role model. The company promised that it would double its business with women-owned contractors and suppliers in the U.S. and internationally, and educate and train hundreds of thousands of women through its nonprofit Wal-Mart …
Wal-Mart and Women: Skeptics Question New Initiatives Read More »
It’s no secret that the nation’s employees did not fare well in the two most highly-publicized Supreme Court rulings affecting them this term, Wal-Mart v. Dukes and AT&T v. Concepcion. In both cases, the ability of plaintiffs to get relief as a class in the courts was curtailed. The Wal-Mart holding will make it especially …
Supreme Ct. News Not All Bad for Employees This Term Read More »
As legions of Walmart workers shuffled into work on Monday, the Supreme Court smacked down a major class-action lawsuit that might potentially have shifted the legal landscape on women’s rights in the workplace. The gender-discrimination lawsuit against the world’s most notorious retail giant had been pending for years. Now the Court’s majority opinion has declared that, in …
Too Big to Sue? High Court Thwarts Wal-Mart Gender Discrimination Case Read More »
The Supreme Court’s landmark decision on Monday in Wal-Mart v. Dukes understandably garnered front-page headlines in the nation’s newspapers. After all, the case was the largest employment discrimination case in history, dwarfing all other competitors by far with its potential to have included more than one-million current and former female Wal-Mart employees. But in reality, …
Why Wal-Mart Matters, But Perhaps Less Than You Think Read More »
Madeline Messa is a 3L at Syracuse University College of Law. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism. With her legal research and writing for Workplace Fairness, she strives to equip people with the information they need to be their own best advocate.
