Bettie Madsen is a former Wal-Mart associate from Bakersfield, CA. After 15 years at Wal-Mart, Bettie says that she was wrongfully terminated for missing her lunch break. Bettie believes because she was making over $10.00 an hour, management was deliberately understaffing her department and putting a burden on the associates with no compensation for the extra work in order to cut costs.

"Wal-Mart is 'restructuring' by systematically weeding out the older associates who often make higher wages. By doing this, they are eliminating experienced people who know the stock, and have well-tuned customer service skills. When Wal-Mart terminated me, they lost a person with 45 years of experience and one who also knew the majority of customers who shopped in the Fabrics and Crafts department. I had trained the sales associates to greet their customers and become friends with them, not act like regular sales associates. It's the personal service which customers like and makes them want to return to your store and your department when they need help.

The current strategy at Wal-Mart is to ‘save more money’ by cutting the wages of their workers. In our district, management is trying to get rid of all the associates making more than $10.00 an hour. Then, they hire a new associate at a minimum pay scale, allowing them to cut costs.

Bettie Madsen’s story is another example of Wal-Mart’s strategy to cut costs by pushing out senior associates, as suggested in a recently leaked memo from top Wal-Mart executives. Click here to read the memo.

More Wal-Mart Worker Stories:
A. G. White
Bettie Madsen
Cindy Starns
Cynthia Murray
Dana Razaie
Diane Muthig
Five Workers From New York
Greg Pierce
Josh Smith
Kristen Bonardi Rapp
Lance Hindman
Mona Curtis
Ollie & Patricia Wells
Rosetta Brown