WAL-MART WORKERS AND REV. MARKEL HUTCHINS CALL ON CEO LEE SCOTT TO “DO THE RIGHT THING” AND “WORK TOGETHER” WITH US FOR A BETTER WAL-MART
Bentonville, AR - Today, four brave Wal-Mart workers, including three current associates and a former assistant manager, called on CEO Lee Scott, to work together to help improve the lives of the 1.3 million Wal-Mart employees who work hard everyday to make Wal-Mart a success. The four Wal-Mart workers were joined by Reverend Markel Hutchins who called on Wal-Mart to embrace the higher road of better lives.
The Wal-Mart workers and Reverend Hutchins spoke out today at Wal-Mart’s second annual “Media Days” conference. The “Media Days” conference is designed to help salvage Wal-Mart’s faltering public image. Inside the conference, Wal-Mart executives delivered slick presentations trying to convince the American people that Wal-Mart is changing. Outside the conference, however, actual Wal-Mart workers told the truth about Wal-Mart’s negative impact on working Americans.
As part of the event, sponsored by WakeUpWalmart.com, the Wal-Mart workers and Reverend Hutchins released a joint letter to Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott.
The letter states, “We have come here today, in spite of our fear and concern for our job, because we believe joining together and speaking out is the only way we can make Wal-Mart a better company - a company that once again reflects Sam Walton’s values.”
The Wal-Mart workers echoed a growing fear amongst many Americans of working people not being able to get by on poor wages and unaffordable health care. The workers also explained Wal-Mart’s new policies are destroying worker morale and lowering performance because Wal-Mart is pushing out loyal, full-time employees and scheduling changes are resulting in hours being cut and workers losing benefits.
The letter makes a personal appeal to Scott to understand the painful challenges his workers face every day all across America. “Maybe, if you could live a day in the life of an average Wal-Mart associate, you would understand the fear we have of getting sick because we can’t afford health care or how hard it is to support a family on Wal-Mart’s wages. We cannot describe to you how powerless you feel when work schedules are changed for no reason, hours are cut, and good people are pushed out because Wal-Mart has decided they are ‘too expensive.’ Mr. Scott, your workers are not numbers on a balance sheet. All of your 1.3 million associates are real people with real feelings, real families, and real hopes and dreams.”
At the event, Reverend Markel Hutchins, a leader in the African-American community, released a statement calling on Lee Scott and the Walton Family to embrace the power they have to improve the lives of 1.3 million workers and their families. Reverend Hutchins added, “While some would present an argument that the ends justify the means, the American people must not tolerate the exploitation of so many in the name of low prices, it is unjust and immoral.”
The Wal-Mart workers, Reverend Hutchins, and Paul Blank, campaign director for WakeUpWalMart.com, said they would be willing to sit down with Lee Scott to “work together” and help improve Wal-Mart for all.
Wakeupwalmart.com, America’s campaign to change Wal-Mart, organized the event today with the Wal-Mart workers and Reverend Hutchins. WakeUpWalMart.com is a national movement of 212,000 Americans in all 50 states who have joined together to change Wal-Mart into a responsible and moral corporation.
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April 18th, 2006
Lee Scott, CEO
Wal-Mart, Inc.
Bentonville, Arkansas
Dear Mr. Scott,
Sam Walton built this company by valuing the associates who wake up everyday and work hard to make Wal-Mart a success. Unfortunately, Sam Walton’s principles of caring about his associates, improving the community and truly putting the customer first, seem to be a distant memory at Wal-Mart.
Today, while Wal-Mart talks about change and says it cares about its workers, their families, and our community, it has done little to address the serious concerns raised by so many associates. Maybe, if you could live a day in the life of an average Wal-Mart associate, you would understand the fear we have of getting sick because we can’t afford health care or how hard it is to support a family on Wal-Mart’s wages. We cannot describe to you how powerless you feel when work schedules are changed for no reason, hours are cut, and good people are pushed out because Wal-Mart has decided they are “too expensive.”
Mr. Scott, your workers are not numbers on a balance sheet. All of your 1.3 million associates are real people with real feelings, real families, and real hopes and dreams. We have come here today, in spite of our fear and concern for our job, because we believe joining together and speaking out is the only way we can make Wal-Mart a better company - a company that once again reflects Sam Walton’s values.
We believe a “better Wal-Mart” begins with you meeting with us, listening to our serious concerns, and working with us to reverse the terrible direction Wal-Mart is headed. Together, we believe, and hope you will agree, we can make Wal-Mart a better place for your workers, their families, our customers, and our communities.
We believe Wal-Mart can start becoming better by:
- Paying a living wage for all full-time and part-time associates. With over $11 billion in profit, it is wrong that so many Wal-Mart workers are at or below the poverty line and struggling to support their family.
- Providing comprehensive, affordable health care with deductibles and premiums every Wal-Mart associate can afford.
- Improving workplace conditions for all associates. Too many Wal-Mart associates have had to suffer the indignity of being told that workplace problems or our workplace injuries are not Wal-Mart’s responsibility. Wal-Mart needs to respect and treat all of its associates fairly and establish a new method to respond to associates’ concerns immediately.
- Respecting and honoring associates schedules. The recent move to cut hours, shift schedules without notice, and push out full-time workers is destroying morale, hurting Wal-Mart stores, and unnecessarily burdening Wal-Mart associates and their families. We ask you to immediately stop implementing the draconian changes outlined in last year’s memo by Executive Vice President Susan Chambers.
On behalf of all Wal-Mart associates, and the millions of Americans that share our concern, we hope you will meet with us and discuss these issues.
We know it will be a great day in America when Wal-Mart changes for the better and we hope you, and Wal-Mart, do the right thing.
Sincerely,
Ollie Wells
Cynthia Murray
Greg Pierce
Maria Lopez
Ollie & Patricia Wells
Wal-Mart Distribution Center - Brooksville, FL
Ollie Wells has worked full time at the Wal-Mart distribution center in Brooksville, Florida for over four years. Ollie has to work a second job in order to provide for his wife and four children, two of whom are autistic and require regular doctor visits and therapy. Because he can't afford Wal-Mart's health insurance, the children rely on medical coverage from the state of Florida.
Three years ago, Ollie's wife (Patricia Wells) began working full time at the distribution center to help the family make ends meet. After working there for a little over a year, she was injured at work when she attempted to get clothes out of a jam on a conveyer belt. She was dragged on the conveyer belt and repeatedly slammed into the wall and was eventually thrown off the belt. She was told by a manager that the incident could have been prevented if she had followed what is known as the "Lock out/Tag out" procedure. However, Patricia says she was never trained on this procedure because she was told implementing this procedure could cause a "loss of production."
Patricia was taken to a Wal-Mart clinic and given a bag of ice and sat out the rest of her shift. After complaining for a week about pain in her shoulder and back, she was told by the head of Loss Prevention that it was company policy to put you on light duty for a week then send you to a doctor. It was ten days before she was allowed to go to the doctor on her day off.
After visiting the doctor, Patricia has spent the last six months fighting for worker's compensation only to have Wal-Mart deny her claim. She was told by the doctor her injuries may never heal completely. Patricia's husband Ollie called the Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA) to file a compliant, and Wal-Mart was fined $4,550 for 6 serious violations. As a result, he has been harassed by management. When he reported these complaints to the corporate office in Bentonville, headquarters told him until his wife gets rid of their attorney Wal-Mart will not communicate with him.
Greg Pierce
Former Customer Sales Manager - Ocala, FL
In his own words:
"Wal-Mart hired me as a cashier knowing full well that I was physically unable to push carts, due to a severe knee injury from a previous car accident. Then I started work, and they asked me to push carts. As a result, my knee snapped out of place.
Pushing carts caused my injury, but Wal-Mart's 'doctor' told me there was no grounds for a worker's compensation case because I had a pre-existing condition. I was given no paid time off and could not afford to take vacation time. I had no choice but to return to work the next day with crutches and an immobilizer on my leg. I stood for nine hours a day with crutches under my arms and one leg in a huge cast, trying to scan items!
After four months as a cashier, I was offered the position of Customer Service Manager (CSM). I was given a list of my responsibilities and expectations and gladly took the position. At the time, I was honored -- little did I know taking this position would be a mistake.
When I became a manager, Wal-Mart brought me into a room and explained the way things were actually run in the store. I was told certain cashiers were expendable. Cashiers can be fired without any prior notice of termination, even if they haven't done anything wrong. As a manager, I had to sign a secrecy clause and was not allowed to give warnings. If workers had one little screw-up or missed one day, they would be out the door as fast as our products.
Management assured me that because I had two kids under three, I would be scheduled to work nights. However, within a week, I was scheduled to come in at seven o'clock in the morning and had to switch my family's whole world around.
When I began working at Wal-Mart, I was promised that if I worked hard and did well in my position, I would be given chances for raises and promotions. Although I did receive a promotion and a slight raise of 80 cents -- which brought me up to a whopping $8.10 an hour -- I have been denied money, benefits, vacation time, sick time, personal time and workman's comp benefits. The insurance is unaffordable, the pay is absurdly low, and the morale is even lower.
My only hope is that someday Wal-Mart will wake up and realize their corruption hasn't hit the point of no return. There's still a chance for Wal-Mart to make things right with the people of America. There's still a chance for Wal-Mart to pay a living wage so that mothers and fathers will not have to receive Welfare and count every penny even though they have working at Wal-Mart for years. There's still a chance for Wal-Mart to make things right and provide affordable health care so that workers can pay their rent if their children get sick and have to see the doctor. Wal-Mart's health care is so expensive that workers barely make enough for one or the other - and that's not much of a choice!
I think Wal-Mart has the ability to change because I believe people are truly good at heart. I think the main thing we need are employees who want to share their stories and speak the truth. So we can continue to expose the true face of Wal-Mart."
Cynthia Murray
Sales Associate - Hyattsville, MD
Cynthia Murray is a sales associate at Wal-Mart in Laurel, Maryland. She has been with Wal-Mart for almost six years. Due to a car accident several years ago, Cynthia is partially disabled and is unable to stand for long periods of time. When Wal-Mart first hired Cynthia, the management acknowledged her disability and placed her in the fitting rooms of the clothing department, where she can sit and answer phones. Cynthia has held this position throughout her tenure at Wal-Mart and has received various awards for her job performance.
Recently, store management claimed Wal-Mart had no record of her disability claims and demanded additional proof of her disability; otherwise they would take her chair away. Unfortunately, Cynthia cannot afford the health care necessary to rehabilitate her from her injuries, because she makes under $10.00 per hour. Wal-Mart's health insurance would cost her $130.00 a month and up to $1,000.00 a year in deductibles.
Cynthia explains, "I've worked at Wal-Mart for more than 5 years, and I still can't afford their health care. I know many of my co-workers can't afford it either. I think it's fair to say a majority of the workers in my Wal-Mart store don't have Wal-Mart's health care because they can't afford it."
Despite her fear of being fired, Cynthia knew something needed to be done to improve the way Wal-Mart treats its workers. When she heard about the Fair Share Health Care Bill being debated in the Maryland legislature, she decided to tell her story to the public and Maryland's lawmakers. Cynthia's courageous testimony was critical in the Maryland Legislature's decision to enact Fair Share Health Care Legislation.
Cynthia wrote in a letter to the Maryland state legislators, "The sad truth is many of these associates are scared to speak out, but I felt this bill is too important to stay silent. That is why I am taking a public stance to ask every legislator to listen to the hardship of workers who can't afford health care and personally ask Maryland lawmakers to help improve life for me and my co-workers by making sure corporations do the right thing and provide us health care."
Cynthia has promised to do all she can to help make Wal-Mart a better place to work for her and her co-workers. Click below to read more about Cynthia's leadership in the fight for justice for Wal-Mart workers:
Maria Lopez
Lancaster, TX
Maria has worked at Wal-Mart since August 1994. She is very concerned about age discrimination at her store, because many older employees have been fired. Maria is 69 years old and believes Wal-Mart is trying to get her to quit. She says, “Wal-Mart managers lie and discriminate and just don’t treat their employees right.”
Store management recently moved Maria from Electronics to the front end of the store and moved younger workers to Electronics. Maria protested the move because front-end work involves heavy lifting. Management also gave Maria a highly irregular schedule and continually found excuses to write her up.
While working at the front end register Maria was injured on two occasions within a two month period. Her first accident occurred in July 2005 and the second on August 7 of the same year. In the first incident Maria injured her right shoulder while lifting a case of bottled water. In her second incident Maria tripped over a cardboard box hit her head and landed on her right shoulder. Wal-Mart’s doctors (Care-Now facility) refused to acknowledge Maria was too hurt to work, so she worked through the pain for months as a door greeter before receiving Workers’ Compensation. Finally, Maria had surgery to repair a chipped bone in her right shoulder.
Maria earns only $10.93 per hour after working at Wal-Mart for twelve years, and she pays $47 every two weeks for health insurance.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Chris Kofinis (202) 486-6422
National Civil Rights Rising Star Dissents from National Civil Rights Icon
Ambassador Young to Praise, Rev. Hutchins to Challenge Wal-Mart
Statement by the Reverend Markel Hutchins:
“The national movement to change Wal-Mart is not only a struggle to improve the lives of Wal-Mart's employees and their families, but also a struggle for a better America. As a "next generation" civil rights leader and an advocate for social and economic justice, I call on this corporate giant to live up to its responsibility to better the lives of the very workers that make it so profitable.
Despite Wal-Mart’s feeble attempt, not even the co-opting of my friend and mentor Andy Young can cover up the damage Wal-Mart has done and continues to do to working families all across America by driving down wages, lowering benefits, shipping U.S. jobs overseas, increasing our tax burden and further impoverishing the working poor. While some would present an argument that the ends justify the means, the American people must not tolerate the exploitation of so many in the name of low prices, it is unjust and immoral.
Today, while Wal-Mart will attempt to further their business interests and highjack the legacy and historical significance of the civil rights movement by holding a press conference with Ambassador Young, I will also be in Bentonville, Arkansas meeting with, standing with and representing the interests of real Wal-Mart workers who will be holding their own press conference.
I am convinced; Wal-Mart can be a great asset to America and to all Americans. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said "change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle." We have the power to change Wal-Mart for the better and, following in the tradition of the civil rights movement, the campaign to change our nation's largest employer is one of the next great struggles for social and economic justice liberation for all Americans.”
* The Rev. Markel Hutchins is a nationally recognized African-American human rights activist and is the founder and former president and CEO of the Atlanta-based National Youth Connection, a young-adult led civil rights organization.
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The Top 10 Questions Wal-Mart Doesn’t Want to Answer
1) How can Wal-Mart tell Main Street it is improving the treatment of its workers while telling Wall Street it will cut labor and health care costs? Hasn’t Wal-Mart created a public relations quagmire?
2) How does Wal-Mart justify its business model when 56% of Americans agree, in a 2005 Zogby poll, that the high social and moral costs of Wal-Mart’s business model are not worth Wal-Mart’s low prices?
3) Even after offering its new “value plan” the percentage of Wal-Mart workers insured by the company continued to decline 5 percent. How does Wal-Mart expect a worker who is making only $15,000 per year to afford deductibles ranging from $1,000 to $6,000?
4) How can Wal-Mart justify costing American taxpayers nearly $1.4 billion a year because it fails to provide affordable health care?
5) Is Wal-Mart still pursuing its policy to deter “unhealthy” or obese people from working at Wal-Mart in order to lower its health care costs by adding unnecessary physical requirements to job descriptions?
6) With over $11 billion in profits, how does Wal-Mart justify paying its workers such low wages when Lee Scott makes over 871 times more per hour than the average associate?
7) If Wal-Mart creates so many jobs, how come the total number of employees in the general merchandise industry (Wal-Mart’s category), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, actually fell by 1,000 employees from 2,628,000 to 2,627,000 during 2001 to 2004?
8) Why has the average real wage for retail workers declined 5% from $15,883 to a paltry $15,140 over the last 20 years, from 1982 to 2002, when the top 25% of wage earners have seen unprecedented gains? If Wal-Mart supposedly saves consumers so much money, why are poverty rates increasing and real wages for low-income workers declining?
9) Why has Wal-Mart refused to adopt a “zero tolerance policy” on child labor in the United States and abroad and will Wal-Mart agree to independent monitors to prevent future child labor violations?
10) Recently, an up and coming Wal-Mart vice president told an Arkansas newspaper that is was “inevitable” Wal-Mart would sit down with the unions. What did he mean by that remark, and why haven’t you sat down with any of your union critics?
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