What Does Wal-Mart Have Against Lunch?

[pnorman]

At Wal-Mart, not only is there no such thing as a free
lunch, allegedly, there's no lunch at all. That’s why
Wal-Mart is back in court. This time, the world’s
largest retailer is accused of denying thousands of
workers' lunch breaks that are required by law.

The case concerns a California law requiring that
workers receive a 30-minute, unpaid lunch break if
they work at least six hours. If they do not get it,
the employer is obligated to compensate them with an
additional hour of pay. The lawsuit covers 116,000
former and current Wal-Mart employees in California,
who are owed more than $66 million in back-pay plus
interest for unpaid work during lunch.

Even though Wal-Mart’s own internal study back in 2000
showed that denial of lunch breaks was a “a chronic
problem” at its stores, Wal-Mart still denies that it
systematically broke the law and has fought to keep
the suit out of court for the past four years!

When will Wal-Mart learn that treating workers fairly
doesn’t come at the expense of corporate profits?
After all, workers who are treated with respect are
more loyal to their employers and work harder too.

Demand that Wal-Mart take immediate steps to end these
alleged workplace abuses!

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/974105653?z00m=53324&z00m=53324<l=1128440943

[tompayne1]

1. walmart is disgusting

Come on i mean i feel filthy just walking into one of those places. Don't the rest of you?

[underpants]

4. I once ate at a McDonald's in a Walmart, reading "Bias" by Bernie Goldberg

true story.

I put a french fry in the copy of the book I had and put it back on the shelf.

Horrible book.

[annabanana]

8. never been in one...

don't plan to go....

[I Have A Dream]

14. Lucky you! The energy there's really bad, at least for me.

I don't know why, but I get really uncomfortable when I'm in one. Maybe it's just the way things are set up and because there are always so many people there. It was really easy for me to give up going there!

[I Have A Dream]

9. I agree. I don't shop there. n/t

[MarsThe Cat]

21. i wouldn't know...

i've never been in one.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

2. I once saw a very pregnant woman at WalMart

who was wearing an 'associates' vest. She was staggering and I asked her if I could help her. She told me she had been on her feet for seven hours with no break and it was about to kill her. I asked her how pregnant she was and she said almost eight months.

The next time I saw her, a month or so later, she was not pregnant anymore. I asked her how her baby was and she told me she went into labor early after working all day, and the baby was too premature to live.

I did a little research and found that standing on your feet all day late in pregnancy can definitely induce labor.

How could it hurt their bottom line to treat their employees better? I don't get it.

[I Have A Dream]

11. What a sad story!

:cry:

[Jack Rabbit]

3. WalMart will fix the problem thus . . .

Employees will be required to take lunch.

Each employee will be required to clock out for an hour, continue to work and clock back in. The employee will not be paid for this hour.

Eating of meals during lunch will be strictly prohibited.

[etherealtruth]

23. No doubt n/t

[Jack Rabbit]

25. From the motion picture Duck Soup (1933):

Labor Minister: Your Excellency, the workers are demanding shorter hours.

Firefly (Groucho Marx): Demanding shorter hours? OK, we'll start by cutting their lunch hour to twenty minutes.

[etherealtruth]

27. Would be funny if not true n/t

[mark11727]

24. I worked in a place many years ago with a (real) similar policy...

You were required to "take" (clock out for) lunch, but that didn't necessarily mean that you actually got your entire lunch break. If you were "needed" to do something, and you were available (on the premises), your lunch time could be shortened, and you had to return to work immediately.

One time I was so busy, I ate at my desk, and never clocked out for lunch --- I was yelled at for that.

But you were REQUIRED to clock out for lunch.

On edit-- most of us eventually learned to eat away from the office (around the block at this great little Indian deli).

They never could keep people there, and they never could quite figure out why the hight turnover rate.

Heh.

[TahitiNut]

5. Bullies stealing lunch money.

This is where those bullies go to become "supervisors" -- and continue to gang up on weaker people.

[laureloak]

6. I was in Walmart around noon and decided to

pick up a sandwich at the restaurant in the store to eat on the way home. When I got to the restaurant there was a sign on the counter that read, "Closed for Lunch".

No kidding.

[acmejack]

7. Thats why 5 of the top 10 on the Fortune 400 list are Walmart heirs!

[I Have A Dream]

10. RECOMMENDED - would be great if they'd get lots of DU...

signatures on the petition! (Wal-Mart doesn't have to know that I don't ever shop there! ;))

[kittenpants]

12. If we stop for lunch, the terrorists win.

I'm pretty sure that's why it's bad.

[SoCalDem]

13. 30 minutes is not enough time for "lunch"

Look at how their stores are laid out.. By the time an employee makes it to the back where the time clock is, and actually punches out, they have probably used up 6 minutes of their "30 minute lunch hour"...then as they make their way up to the front where McDonalds (yum?yuk?) is located, they must now wait in line to GET their food(?)...Since there is always limited seating, they must now find their way BACK to their "breakroom" and wolf down their McSludgie burger in about 7 minutes or less, punch back in and get back to work..

Most walmarts are located so that there are few, if any, other places to eat nearby, so the employees are almost forced to bring their own or eat crap that walmart sells..

There is always pressure on employees to do "extra" work, so
I don't doubt that some employees skip their "break"..

There are probably lots of 5.5 hr shifts too, to avoid having to "give" a lunch break, but of course we know the practice of "working off the clock" is rampant, so.... there's another nut to crack..

There was a time, kiddies, when a standard shift was 8 hours, with a 10 minute (on the clock) break before a mid-shift HOUR lunch (off the clock), and another 10 minute break before the end of the 8 hr shift..

An hour gives someone enough time to even run a quick errand, and have lunch..

Some employers allowed people to work though lunch and leave early if the staffing allowed it..

[mark11727]

26. Reminds me of an argument I once had with a former supervisor...

About a million years ago, I worked in a factory (light bench assembly, etc --- electronics), and tried to take what I THOUGHT was a state-sanctioned 10-minute break.

The squeaky martinet that was my boss started busting my chops over this, and I mentioned that the state allows for a ten minute break between start of day and lunch.

He loved to "challenge" people on things they "thought" were true, so he wasted no time saying "oh yeah, well SHOW ME WHERE it says so!"

He always won arguments like that, because none of us could back up our assertions with FACTS, the little bastard.

[CornField]

15. Our city officials still tell me we are "blessed"

because they are building a new Wal-Mart on the east edge of town.

[orion9941]

16. Did anyone else hear a few weeks ago...

... the story that NPR did on Walmart showing how Walmart was buying life insurance policies on their employees and not telling there employees that they were doing that? Thusly when their poor employees kick the bucket and the family can't afford to bury them, Walmart cashes in on the policy money.

My jaw dropped when I heard this.

[Bunny]

20. I think they call them Dead Peasant policies.

Despicable.

[noonwitch]

17. I worked at K-Mart in the 80s, and they were pretty good about breaks

If I worked 6 hours, I got a half hour (punched out for it) meal break and a 15 minute break.

If I worked just 4 hours, I still got a 15 minute break.

If I worked 8 hours, I got to punch out for an hour lunch, and two 15 minute breaks.

What makes me angry is short-cuts like this are what gives Wal-Mart the edge in pricing over stores like Meijer or K-Mart. If Wal-Mart was forced to comply with labor laws, they wouldn't have the lowest prices.

[napi21]

22. My husband was a meat cutter at SuperK up until 2001. They still

were fair and actually insisted on every employee taking their breaks and lunch. He went with another employer when it became very clear that Kmart was going to close all the SuperK's. The grocery manager there at the time was an ex WM supervisor. WM begged him repeatedly to come back, and he kept refusing. He's now senior supervisor of a local grocery chain that has 3 large supermarkets.

It seems like, once someone has experienced working for WM, even in fairly high paying positions, and they leave, they NEVER go back!

Sooner or later WM will realize that their model isn't working. If they don't, or they don't soon enough, the giant will fall!

[AndyTiedye]

18. Not Only Gratuitously Cruel, but Hurtful to Productivity

Not letting employees take a lunch break is bad for their productivity.
It's not as though they are required to pay their employees during their lunch break.
This way they have exhausted, hungry employees by the last half of the shift.

The people who run Walmart seem to be more interested in being gratuitously cruel to their employees than in getting the most work out of them.

[earth mom]

19. Walmart has NO soul...

that's why their stores feel empty even though the shelves are loaded up with tons of junk! :puke:

[dogfacedboy]

28. Don't you know? Idle hands are tools of the devil!

WAL-MART Blows !!!!!!! It's a filthy, nasty place.

[Ksec]

29. It cuts into their profiteering

Simple!

[texpatriot2004]

30. Wal-Mart aka The Mart of Darkness or Satan's Superstore n/t

[Mutley]

31. A lot of chain stores are like this...

not necessarily to the extent of WalMart, but these practices are by no means limited to WalMart. I was an hourly supervisor at a store where I would regularly be the only supervisor on the clock in the evenings. For an 8-10 hour shift (sometimes 12 hours or more during Christmas)I would get a half hour break broken up by repeated calls to go help a cashier at the register. At first I would clock back in every time I was called and then I would clock out again to continue eating, but after awhile I was told that breaks have to be 30 consecutive minutes, and if I was needed at the registers I had to go up and help while off the clock.

These large corporations care about one thing, and one thing only: THE BOTTOM LINE! They don't care about high employee turnover; to them cashiers/stockers/floor associates/maintenance are a dime a dozen and easily replaced. Within weeks after 9/11 the company I worked for had laid off 700 managers/supervisors and cut every benefit except health insurance/401K (including tuition reimbursement and employee rewards programs); all to save themselves a few bucks until the backlash was over, and they have yet to reinstate those benefits even though growth has returned to pre-911 levels. Last year the CEO gave himself a $1mil bonus for Christmas while some people working in my store could not afford to buy their kids' a single gift. I finally quit earlier this year.

[chaska]

32. I can testify to this. I recently had a Wal-Mart Employee confirm this...

and more. He hated the damn place.