Wal-Mart: The Facts

• The EEOC is suing Wal-Mart over allegations of sexual harassment of female employees in Alabama. *
• Nearly three-quarters of a million women work as "sales associates" in Wal-Mart stores. On average these women earn $6.10 per hour, or $12,688 per year if they are permitted to work full-time. This wage puts many of their families below the poverty level — half even qualify for federal assistance under the food stamp program. **
• Current and former employees in California are suing Wal-Mart for sex discrimination in pay, promotion, and compensation. This will be the country's largest sex discrimination suit against a private employer if it is granted class-action status. *
• Wal-Mart's health insurance plan excludes contraceptive coverage. A suit, which is seeking class action status, has been filed in Georgia regarding this exclusion. *
• Women who make pants in El Salvador earn 15 cents for each pair; Wal-Mart sells these pants for $16.95 in its U.S. stores. Also, contractors in El Salvador force workers to take pregnancy tests. **
• According to Brandeis University Professor Ellen I. Rosen, women in Central America who make clothes for Wal-Mart live in shacks lacking running water or plumbing while women in China live nine to twelve to a room in government-provided dormitories. Some of Wal-Mart's workers in the U.S. spend their nights in trucks of motel rooms without cooking facilities. **
• The Maine Department of Labor ordered Wal-Mart to pay the largest fine in state history for violating child labor laws. The Department of Labor discovered 1,436 child labor law infractions at twenty Wal-Mart chains.
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• Lawsuits pertaining to Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) violations have been filed in Missouri, Arizona, California, and Arkansas.
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• Employees from Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Washington, Illinois, Iowa, and West Virginia have sued Wal-Mart for underpaying its hourly workers. Employees from Missouri and Kansas have filed class-action suits alleging "acts of wage abuse." These acts include neglecting to pay workers overtime, preventing rest and lunch breaks, and forcing them to "work off the clock."
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• A former employee in New Jersey reported being harassed and fired after telling his boss that he was undergoing a sex change. He won the case, and Wal-Mart was ordered to pay him $2 million.
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• The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has filed suit against the New Castle, Pennsylvania Wal-Mart for unfair labor practices. It alleges that Wal-Mart illegally discouraged workers of the Tire and Lube Express department from joining a union.
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• The NLRB also filed a suit against the Jacksonville, Texas Wal-Mart for unfair labor practices. It alleges that Wal-Mart threatened meat cutters, interrogated them regarding their union sympathies, and fired those who are pro-union. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union has filed a complaint with the NLRB alleging that two workers were fired because of their union organizing activities.
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• Following a vote in favor of union representation by the butchers in Jacksonville, Texas, Wal-Mart announced that meat cutting would end at 180 stores.
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• In 2000, Wal-Mart's assets totaled more than the GDP of 155 of the 192 countries in the world, with annual sales of more than $137.6 billion.
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• In the video Behind the Labels: Garment Workers in U.S. Saipan, Wal-Mart is featured as one of the retailers which contract with "sweatshops" in Saipan for the manufacturing of garments sold in their stores.

*Current Legal Developments Concerning Wal-Mart

**Rosen, Ellen I., The Women Who Work for Wal-Mart