11-14-05,9:18am
Liberty Serna
Former Employee of Wal-Mart Kingsville, Texas
I work so my husband and I can support our three children. I was really excited when I started working at the Wal-Mart in Kingsville, Texas, in 1996. During orientation, they made it sound so wonderful, like you’re going to get this and that, and they’re really family-oriented. They painted a pretty picture—but it’s not.
Wal-Mart treats its employees very badly. It makes them work for free. When people get disgusted and quit, they just hire new workers. And Wal-Mart picks on people like me—hard-working people who can’t quit because we need our jobs to support our families.
For the first three years I was an associate in different departments—pets, electronics, receiving and loss prevention. Associates don’t get the breaks we are supposed to. You would clock out to go on break and then a manager would say, “Please do this for that customer, it won’t take five minutes.” It would take more time, of course, and there goes your whole break.
The managers were always telling us we’d better not go into overtime. But if you actually clocked out when your shift was supposed to be over, it would be like asking to lose your job. I knew the hours I worked, and the overtime would not be in my check.
I would go to the store managers and they would say they’d look into it and beat around the bush but would never get back to me. One of them looked at me and said, “Sue us.”
I would lock my door at home and continue working. My husband would get mad and I wouldn’t pay attention to my kids. Even when I was on vacation, they called me and said I had to do orders.
I quit Wal-Mart in 2001, and I’m very happy with what I’m doing now in banking. I get paid my overtime, which is the way it ought to be. Wal-Mart needs to change its ways. Slavery was over a long time ago.
Paul Moser
Former Employee of Wal-Mart Batesville, Ark. I went to work at a Little Rock, Ark., Wal-Mart in early 2000, proud I was joining the largest corporation in the world. At the time, I believed that Wal-Mart cared about its employees. Let’s just say I no longer have that view. I would never recommend that anybody work there.
Wal-Mart comes across in its TV commercials like a friendly and family-oriented place. I was raised with a strong sense of family. I felt that not only would I fit in there, but my efforts would be appreciated. Wrong.
I started at that store when they were converting it to a supercenter. I was doing everything I could to get that job done and then some.
Then I became a meat cutter’s apprentice in the store. One day my supervisor went on break and the store manager asked me to cut some sirloin steaks with the meat saw. I had never done that by myself before. I knew I didn’t have enough training to do it, but I did it anyway because of the push for me to get experience and do the job.
I cut two knuckles off my right hand, which is now partially permanently disabled. Yes, Wal-Mart paid all my medical bills—I didn’t have their health insurance because it’s too expensive—but they insisted I come back to work immediately. I hadn’t earned any sick pay, and management said they wouldn’t pay me to take time off. I wasn’t even paid for the one day I stayed home after the accident.
Now I realize I was entitled to state workman’s compensation for an on-the-job injury. It wouldn’t have been full pay—$8.35 an hour—but my then-wife and I could have gotten by on it for the weeks I needed to deal with the shock of the injury. Of course, for me to receive workman’s comp, Wal-Mart would have had to report an on-the-job injury.
They gave me a job as a greeter in the lawn and garden department. With no stool, I had to stand there for eight hours a day. I had a cast from the middle of my forearm all the way up, and I had to hold it in an upright position in order not to tear the stitches. I lasted about two months.
Today, I can’t make a fist with my right hand. Two fingers won’t close, and the other fingers on that hand are getting weak as a result. In 2001, my ex-wife got on the phone with Wal-Mart and made hell over them not paying me anything. They felt they had done their part by paying the medical bills. So then I got a settlement check for only $600.
I was going to hold on to the check and go to an attorney and sue for more, but I needed money so I cashed it. Now, if anything ever goes wrong with my hand again, Wal-Mart won’t cover it—they consider the matter closed. I feel betrayed, completely wronged.
These days I’m a freezer plate operator at ConAgra Foods and a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 878. Being a member of a union, I can actually go to somebody if I have a problem. I’m positive that if I’d been a union member when I worked at Wal-Mart, my wages and benefits would have been better and I wouldn’t have had to worry about where money was coming from when I took time off for an on-the-job injury––or whether I would still have a job when I came back after being badly hurt.
Robbin Franklin
Former Employee of Wal-Mart Fort Meade, Fla.
I know what it’s like to work in an environment where workers are respected. In 1978, I became a single mother with two teens to support. I went to work cashiering for a grocery store in South Haven, Mich., where I was a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 951. I started at $5.40 an hour. I got time and a half for anything over eight hours a day, double-time for Sunday and triple-time for holidays. I didn’t pay a cent for health insurance, dental and optical care for me and my children. When the store closed in 1988, I was making $8.35 an hour, plus I got retirement benefits.
I worked at the Wal-Mart in South Haven, Mich., from September 1990 until June 2001. My starting pay was $5 an hour—less than the $5.40 an hour I’d made in 1978 when I began working at the union grocery store. First, I was a customer service manager at Wal-Mart, one of those people in little red coats running around up front helping the cashiers. Within a year, I wound up in the lay-away department, which I eventually ran.
I have done many jobs in my lifetime. I’ve passed a state fire and casualty life insurance exam; I’ve sold insurance; and I was a licensed real estate agent back in the 1970s. From what I saw at Wal-Mart, the kind of people it hires as store managers are those it can teach to be cruel to the workers, to treat them like idiots.
Most of the people working at Wal-Mart are women in dire, desperate need of their jobs—especially in today’s economy.
The most manipulated and put-upon workers are the department managers, who are really just hourly workers making 50 cents more an hour than the floor workers whom Wal-Mart calls “associates.” I was friendly with many department managers and I knew what they were going through. They were constantly told to do more than they possibly could each day—and some became sick to their stomachs with stress each day as they came through the front door. There was no way for them to get it all done without working off the clock.
The one big advantage of being a department manager was having a set schedule. The associates got only two-week schedules, so they could never plan more than two weeks in advance. It was impossible for them to do things with their kids—they couldn’t even make medical appointments. Wal-Mart says it’s family friendly, but its workers can’t take care of their children.
Wal-Mart has not only fooled the people who work there, it has fooled the public into believing it’s good. Wal-Mart has the American public in a death grip—many working people can’t afford to shop elsewhere, because their own wages aren’t keeping up with the cost of living, thanks to the Wal-Marting of American jobs. Wal-Mart will do anything to avoid paying its workers decent wages and benefits—it would take the pennies off a dead man’s eyes.
Dolly Stickler
Former Employee of Wal-Mart Alliance, Ohio
I was a Wal-Mart cashier for about a year and half in the 1990s. Wal-Mart is the worst place I’ve ever worked. I made a whopping $5.85 an hour and for that I was expected to abandon my family and put my life on the line.
During the holiday season, we never got our breaks. For lunch, they told us we could clock out for 15 minutes. Five or six times, we had to start working about 20 minutes before we clocked in. Sometimes my paycheck was short. Managers said it was correct, that they took it from the time clock, but they were cheating me out of money.
The managers tried to humiliate me. When one of my girls was in the hospital with a life-threatening virus, I called in and said I couldn’t come in for three days and they said okay. But when I went back in, I was on this list of no-call, no-shows, and they said it was because I hadn’t called in each day. Because of that write-up, I couldn’t get promoted.
Another time, there was a really bad ice storm and the police said on the television that you were not allowed to go out, that you could be arrested if you did. I called in and we were told we had to go to work, that all we had to do was tell the police we worked at a grocery store. When I didn’t go in, it counted against me. But I didn’t care because my life and my family were more important to me than going to Wal-Mart when no one is going to be shopping there anyway because you’re not allowed to be in the streets.
When I went to work at Wal-Mart, my kids were getting state health care. Wal-Mart’s coverage was really expensive, so I didn’t take it. My husband, a self-employed contractor, didn’t have health coverage either. Wal-Mart says it’s family oriented, but any company that really is would want its workers who are moms to have health care so they can take care of their kids.
I’m currently a cashier at a grocery store that just became union (United Food and Commercial Workers Local 880). If not for the union, my husband, my four children and I wouldn’t have health insurance now.
Latasha Barker
Former Employee of Wal-Mart's Sam's Club Division Chicago
I started working at Sam's Club about two years ago as a cashier. I believed that this new job with such a big company was going to give me security. After 30 days, I had my first evaluation and got a 10-cent raise. I was promised that I would get another evaluation and raise 'soon.' That 10 cents was all I ever got. In addition, I did not qualify for the company health insurance. So my two children and I relied on Medicaid for health coverage.
In January 2003, I injured my shoulder on the job while scanning items in what is called the flatbed line. I felt a pop and I could no longer move my arm. And then the pain started. The manager took me to a clinic to see a doctor. I had to take a drug test. Then I saw the doctor. He prescribed pain pills and therapy. The pain became worse. The doctor noted in my medical record that I had an 'unknown injury to an unknown part of my arm.'
I have suffered permanent damage and have limited motion in my injured arm. And on top of all the suffering, the bills stacked up while I waited for Wal-Mart to pay me for my injury. Guess what—I am still waiting because they have not paid one penny to me after my arm injury.
When I was released back to work, I started back as a cashier and then transferred into the café. My shifts varied a lot—we often went without breaks, the lunch break was almost always late and sometimes we were forced to continue working even after punching out. Once I burned my hand badly from pizza grease. I had to go to the hospital because the burn was so bad. Wal-Mart has not paid for those bills, either.
I quit this past March because I couldn't keep working fora company that would take so much from me and show me so much disrespect.
I know that we need jobs in our community. I'm all for that. But if you are going to bring jobs, give us jobs that respect us as human beings. We should be demanding that jobs in our community pay fairly, provide good and affordable health coverage and be sure that workers are free from discrimination, stereotypes and scare tactics.
Someone has to make Wal-Mart accountable for their way of doing business. We deserve jobs where the employees are treated with dignity and respect. I can tell you that Wal-Mart jobs don't.
Rosetta Brown
Employee of Sam's Club and Wal-Mart Chicago
I have been an employee for the Wal-Mart company for six years. I am telling my story despite the fact that it may jeopardize my employment with the company. I am seeking dignity, respect, and most importantly, fairness in my workplace. Every day I witness how scared my co-workers are to stand up for their rights.
I was injured on the job October 6, 1999, while locked in the store overnight doing inventory. I live with the pain and suffering of a herniated disk in my neck that happened that night. This is an injury that has been diagnosed by several doctors, including Wal-Mart's own doctors. When I first got injured I reported it right away and I knew I needed to go to the hospital. The general manager would not let me leave the store. Finally another manager called my son to pick me up and he unlocked the door so I could go to the hospital.
Wal-Mart has ignored my bills and my pain. Initially, publicaid picked up some of my medical needs for a matter that should have been coveredunder Workers' Compensation. Now I have no insurance coverage at all.
My doctor has recommended surgery in the future to alleviate my suffering, but because Wal-Mart continues to deny my claim, I cannot afford to pay for it. I have accumulated tens of thousands of dollars in debt from medical bills, lost my apartment, depended on public aid, my credit is ruined and I live in pain every day. My greatest pain is that all of this could have been prevented from the beginning if they had only done what was right.
I have many more stories about how Wal-Mart has treated me and my co-workers. Very few of my co-workers have insurance through Wal-Mart because it is gimmick insurance. It is expensive and doesn't cover very much at all. It is better for Wal-Mart workers to rely on services provided by Cook County, Chicago.
Anonymous: A Wal-Mart Manager Speaks Out Speaking on the condition she remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, a Wal-Mart manager in Michigan describes corporate policies that prevent workers from accessing water or bathroom facilities and systematic efforts to ensure the highest-paid workers are the first fired.
I am a customer service manager supervising the front end of the store—all the registers and cashiers, the door greeters, the stock people. I make $10.68 an hour, 40 hours a week.
Part of my job is giving the cashiers and door people verbal and written reprimands. Wal-Mart calls it “coaching,” which makes it sound like a nice thing. But it’s not. The third time you get a coaching, they decide whether you’re going to work there or not.
With the coaching, management picks on people—what they’re trying to do now is weed out those making $14, $15 and $18 an hour, the people who have been there since the store opened 15 years ago. They really, really go after them.
The co-managers and assistant managers are so rude to the workers. I’m totally shocked at the way the cashiers are treated. Unless they have a doctor’s note saying they must have water through the day, they can’t have water with them. They have to ask for a bathroom break and aren’t allowed to go if there are people in their line.
I have Wal-Mart health insurance, the limited amount they provide me, which has a $350 monthly deductible. I can’t afford to pay $100 or $200 every time I have to go to the doctor, so I wind up not going at all.
My children are grown. It’s harder on the others, the young single mothers making $7 and $8 an hour and trying to raise children. Three-quarters of them are on state health insurance and get food stamps. If one of our employees goes to management and says they’re not making it on what they’re earning, management will put them on the phone to a Wal-Mart service, which I do feel encourages them to get public assistance because after they’ve been on the phone, they tell me what public program they’re going to apply for. Then there are workers who have no insurance—they fall through the cracks because they make a little over what they’re supposed to make to qualify for public aid.
Wal-Mart workers need somebody behind them. They need to know somebody out there cares if they get (decent) wages. I’ve worked in union shops before, like factories, and it was much better for me. If you’ve got a major grievance, management is forced to sit down and come to some kind of an agreement. The workers at Wal-Mart need a voice.
Anonymous: A Wal-Mart Worker Speaks Out This former Wal-Mart worker from Ohio was pressured to buy Wal-Mart stock even though he was a part-time employee who couldn’t afford Wal-Mart health insurance. He eventually found full-time employment at a grocery store where he has a voice at work and full benefits with the United Food and Commercial Workers.
When I worked at Wal-Mart in the 1990s, I was part-time and had another part-time job at another store. I was working about 60 to 70 hours total a week. After a few months, Wal-Mart wanted to hire me full-time. But I wanted to hold out for a full-time job at the other store (where workers have union representation) because I knew it would give me full benefits including health and retirement—and that’s security. If I’d gone full-time at Wal-Mart, I still would have to pay premiums, deductibles and co-payments for health insurance, which I couldn’t have afforded. How does the law allow a company so big not to provide health insurance?
The image of Wal-Mart is we’re family-oriented, we’re community-oriented, we care. But they don’t care enough to make sure their workers have health insurance. What’s more caring than that, to make sure your workers can go to the doctor if they need to?
Wal-Mart makes billions, and it’s on the backs of workers who end up with nothing.
From the first week I worked at Wal-Mart, there was pressure on me to buy Wal-Mart stock. They had management meetings with me, one on one. I said I couldn’t afford to buy stock. Another two weeks go by, the stock is going up, they say we’d really like to see you buy stock, we can deduct it from your paycheck. But I couldn’t afford it.
Eventually I did get the full-time job I wanted with the other employer. That store is a member of the community because the people who work there earn enough, between wages and benefits, to survive and be productive members of the community. Sure, workers there have their gripes, but when it comes down to it they’re covered, thanks to the union. With Wal-Mart, you’re hanging in the breeze if you have a financial or medical emergency—you’re always two weeks away from the street.
