June 13, 2005 11:15 AM
The Arkansas Democrat Gazette now has word of the second case in just a few weeks of a whistle-blower coming forward under Wal-Mart's "open door" policy, only to be canned on what appears to be a trumped up charge.
Wal-Mart has a long-standing policy that you can always go higher up the corporate chain if you feel like you are being mis-treated, or there is something bad going on. It's the primary policy cited by the company to its employees of why there's no need for a union. Why pay for union dues when you can just walk into any manager's office and air your complaint?
Only what I've been learning is... it's all a big bunch of bull shit.
Wal-Mart's "open door" policy is more like a slam in the face (06.13.2005)
Next Entry: The best quote in BusinessWeek, ever. (06.15.2005)
Previous Entry: Who wants to be rich? (06.10.2005)
Anonymous:
From the link:
"Wal-Mart spokesman Mona Williams denied the claim that Armstrong was a whistle-blower. "Mr. Armstrong was terminated for gross misconduct," Williams said. "Specifically, he became angry and threatened to break the necks of two managers. He also threatened to follow them home and beat them up. Many of Armstrongs co-workers heard these threats."
Kardell said Thursday that Armstrong never made threats to his managers. He said 10 employees falsely accused him of that."
That is a bunch of bullshit, they shouldn't have fired him until he came to work with an assault weapon and went postal on their asses. They should also be sued for violating his first amendment right to free speech. Who is Walmart to tell employees that they can't threaten to kill their coworkers?
Mon Jun 13 2005 2:12 PM
Anonymous:
You wont see that part of the story in Jim's Movie nor in his blog's. Typical liberal spin technique. Next time dont use links Jim, people know how to read.
Mon Jun 13 2005 3:02 PM
Ooh... thanks for the tip! I'll remember not to link next time. Then I'll really have pulled the wool over your eyes.
Sorry, I'm still learning the whole propaganda thing.
Mon Jun 13 2005 6:01 PM
KSpacey:
Jim: there are so many lurkers and wankers trolling these blogs now that try to "expose" the "bias" in blogs "they" don't agree with OR (heaven forbid!) expose truths that others wish would silently go away or, through the miracle of media conglomeration, get omitted or buried or simply drowned out through the blahblahblah talk talk of the TV heads.
Attention wankers: this is a blog. if you don't agree with it, tough shit. last time we checked, the key culprits in the lying, omission, and spin game were the bushies and their pathetic oh-so-obvious PR channel, Pravda (aka - FNC).
NOTE: corporations lie, cheat, and steal all the time. get used to it AND get used to people exposing it. if you don't like the bad news, don't blame the messenger. change the situation. note: your favorite corporate millionaire chief or pet politician knows that free speech exposes bad things - and since the american press is now so beholden to their corporate parents that they avoid "controversial topics" (previously known as "news" or "truth") blogs such as this are the key venue for reading about things that actually happened (as opposed to the vacuous lies expounded by the administration every time they open their mouths)...
Tue Jun 14 2005 1:44 PM
Anonymous:
KSpacey,
Is it ok to threaten to kill your co-workers?
Tue Jun 14 2005 2:27 PM
Anonymous:
All Hail King Wanker:
KSpacey!!!!
Tue Jun 14 2005 2:54 PM
did it ever occur to you that the 10 people who accused him of this were...
1. following orders?
2. afraid to go against mgmt?
3. culpable in the situation he was whistleblowing on and wanted him gone?do i *really* have to spell this out for people?
Tue Jun 14 2005 4:11 PM
Sponge Bob:
Did it ever occur to you that 10 people might tell the truth while one person lies?
I am very curious about his claimed "whistler blower" status. What nasty secret did he stumble upon? The story dances around that subject without addressing it directly.
Tue Jun 14 2005 4:35 PM
Anonymous:
Jim,
Then what you have is a conspiracy theory, not facts. Thats the bases of most liberal ideas.
"Since only one person out of ten said what I want to hear, everyone else must be lieing"
Tue Jun 14 2005 4:38 PM
ben:
I remember going to our corporate office and Dave & Busters about how the bartenders were ripping us off our tips. We didn't go to our GM since he was good friends with the bartenders and basically just wanted the rules for all to see.
2weeks later every bartender in the place new my name and what I spoke to corporate about, even though it was completely private (so their policy says) which guarenteed getting harrassed by fellow workers. I left the company shortly afterwards.
Those policies are only implace so the company can say it's there. People need to stop standing up for corporate america and start standing up for people.
Tue Jun 14 2005 6:48 PM
re: conspiracy theories. You get a much different perspective on this particular company when you've seen what I have over the last 8 months. Apparently, fear and intimidation is the bedrock of low prices.
And here's a concept you'll understand... how many lawyers do you know who takes cases for free with no chance of winning?
Tue Jun 14 2005 8:15 PM
J:
(sarcasm) Thank goodness some people are standing up for the underdog, WAL-MART. I mean, without individuals going out of their way to post on personal blogs to defend this mom and pop organization, they couldn't possibly defend themselves. (/sarcasm)
I mean, seriously, does it hurt to raise questions about employee mistreatment in regards to a corporation that is factually known to habitually mistreat their employees? I mean, just raise some questions? Just raise the possibility?
Question authority. Question giant corporations. Question giant corporation with a chronic pattern of documented (and acknowledged) abuse and wrong doing.
Wed Jun 15 2005 11:04 AM
Sponge Bob:
10 INDIVIDUALS (this guy's coworkers) say he threatened people, this guy says he did a Joe Wilson like investigation that got him fired. Not even an anonimous source (the press is good with those) has come forward to back him. I'll take 10 over 1 anyday.
In case you didn't know PEOPLE lie and cheat all the time too, look at Bill Clinton.
The silence is deafening concerning his whistle blower story.
Wed Jun 15 2005 12:19 PM
Sponge Bob:
"In the Dallas optical-plant case, Rickey Armstrong, a 49-year-old quality auditor, said he contacted a human-resources manager at the company's Bentonville, Ark., headquarters and told him that the plant's managers were using company crews to fix their cars and perform landscaping services at their homes, according to the complaint. In addition, he said in the complaint that plant managers would pass off lenses broken through negligence as "the result of a 'manufacturing defect.' "
http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=98310
Could someone explain to me why a tight fisted corporation like Wal-Mart would fire an individual for alerting them to this kind of fraud? If it where true the plant managers would be out on their ass in a heartbeat. The problem is with no collaboration from anyone he's looking pretty weak.
Wed Jun 15 2005 12:26 PM
Dave E.:
Adam Smith wouldn't shop at WalMart. (Had to get that off my chest).
Anyway. Spongey appears fixated on this one case and not discussing the merit of monopolistic business practices. Sometimes all kinds of people make all kinds of baseless claims. The world's full of rotten people. Look at the Bush administration. Cheney'd be fired in the blink of an eye, no doubt. Bush would get canned for being too difficult to train even the most mundane of tasks. Bolton would get his ass beat round back for being an loud mouth jerkface...so on, so forth.
So yeah. Maybe perhaps this guy is working some angle, we don't know. I'd give it due process (remember that antiquated concept?) before branding him a liar...especially considering WalMarts shady reputation. And also considering this was the SECOND reported case in a few weeks.
FYI- now it's "work any shift or be fired" at the ubiquitous smileyface company: http://www.wvgazette.com/section/Today/2005061432?pt=0
DailyKos diary about it here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/15/93632/8479Closing thought - Why does white-collar crime seem to not ellicit the same levels of outrage as other crimes? This question has always interested me, considering the reverberating effects of much white-collar crime can cause wide swaths of tragedy and affect millions. Yet...some people tend to just shrug their shoulders. "Oh well. Everybody does it; they just got caught."
Well fuck that man. I want to see these coddled jackasses at Tyco/Enron/Arthur Anderson do sing-sing time. Real time. The kind that low-income people with the local public defender lawyering their charges gets. Institutionalized disadvantage anyone?
Wed Jun 15 2005 4:03 PM
inverness walmart:
like the person above, i worked for wolly world.
a fellow employee threatened me. so for that i used the so called open door policy. had three other witnesses and they gave statements. I was fired on a trumped up charge. not the person making the threats. How ABOUT THAT.
Sun Jun 19 2005 12:31 AM
Sponge Bob:
Wow little did I know that Walmart has a policy of that encourages employees to take it to the mat in the middle of the floor. Screw the WWE dolls, I'm betting the sporting goods cashier can take out the automitve cashier with a chair.
Mon Jun 20 2005 11:53 AM
Tom from Madison:
Note to values-based voters:
Wal-Mart low prices come at a high MORAL cost--Wal-Mart funds overseas sweatshops who exploit their workers and undercut their American counterparts. The Costa Rican factory in this story illustrates the point.
http://www.nlcnet.org/news/whistleblower.asp
When you shop at Wal-Mart you're contributing to the demise of American industry, putting local retailers out of work and exploiting foreign labor. Think about that when you're considering the purchase of cheap goods assembled overseas.
Tue Jul 12 2005 2:04 PM
gerald:
IWORKED FOR WAL MART IN UTAH AS OF 2 1 OF 2006 I WAS LET GO FOR ASKING A SPANISH PERSON TO SPEAK ENGLISH .UTAH HAS A LAW OF ENGLISH ONLY. AND THE MANERGER. SIAD I HAD TWO.COACHING AND IT WAS TO MAMY.AND I WAS RUDE TO THEM FOR ASKING THEM IDO NOT UNDER STAND SPANISH. STORE NO. 1768
Thu Feb 16 2006 12:45 AM
this sucks:
well i have to say that i work at the suckiest walmart mart in tx. It's like the people that work are the ones at night. the people have gotten so lazy tht they are taking out the bids so that they don't have to work them anymore. everyone gets ot leave on time but overnight we are force to stays 1 hour sometimes even more.thhat walmart sucks
Mon Feb 27 2006 10:26 AM
Monica Gutierrez:
Jim, I was an assosiate at walmart on the overnight crew.I was terminated on insobornation.Which is a lie , the department manager Debbie Woods has had a vendetta against me , she is very racsist against hispanic people.She told management she called me to come in on unscheuled days.She never called me. I believe I should get my job back.
Tue Jun 20 2006 3:06 PM
Stephanie:
I work @ walmart...store 3124 and there is this one lady named Gisele..she is the 'lead csm' and is a complete bitch...she is hated by everyone..even the other csm's and i don't understand how power can go to someones head..anyways she needlessly yelled @ employee when it was her own fault for the screw up so I spokw with the assistant manager. I accidentally went into overtime one night and I was sent home early and was told not to come in the next day...well, it turns out that I WAS supposed to work and its a good thing i decided to go shopping there and they called me into work asap!! like stupid lady man shes so fake i wanna slap her out!
Sat Jul 8 2006 12:37 AM
anonymus:
I worked for Walmart for nine years and in that nine years i learned alot about the company and how things were suppose to be and how they ended up really turning out to be,for starters their open door policy is Bullshit!!!!! and the same as their so called grass roots meetings they hold every year,then lets look at the surveys the associates are suppose to do on each of the managers thru out the year,well my personal opinion from the store i worked at they didn't care about the associates it was all business and what was good for their pockets.
Now another thing i have a problem with is their new so called attendance policy which in my opinion is not based on what i believe it was originally meant to be, I see it as a way to rid the stores of the good employees they have so they can bring young people in there who are not going to give a damn one way are the other.
this is bad for the associates like myself who gave many years to them to be just slapped in the face,then they wonder why there turnover is so bad
well i think that comes back to management and poor as it is,then you also have these youngsters who will come in there and work for a little while til they learn what walmart is all about and within a week to a month they are gone.This new policy as they say is to help with attendance well that is the biggest bullshit of it all,so what they think the young people won't get sick either and then lets look at the ones that are handicapped what will happen to them if they loose time here and there?will they end up out to like me and many others?In my case i was sick and lost time for it so even though i tried to work and was there as much as i could be and complied with what i was asked i was still fired,so are they (handicapped) going to be fired for being sick too?i jsut think that walmart has gone down hill from when i first started working for them and the management in them well OMG they are a joke,they talk out both sides of their mouths most the time and you know what i learned in my nine years at walmart was,i couldn't trust them,
when i first started there i liked it but it didn't take long for me to start picking things up here and there and then it got to a apoint that i didn't even want to be there anymore it was just a paycheck,
My personal opinion here is poor Sam Walton must be rolling over in his grave now,because the company is nothing like it was when he was alive at least he cared about his associates,and that is something that walmart has gotten so far away from now, to them its just the almighty dollar and who they can screw next to get it.
now reading this you may think i am just a little upset well not upset just very dissappointed that i gave this place nine years of my life and changed my life around for them and then to be kicked in the ass the way they did to me was not right and this will not be the last time i speak out on this,i can see getting rid of expensives but you are talking about peoples lives here.
One more thing to i have a real problem with is when it comes to this attendance issue,people are not allowed to miss any work at all according to what i was told,the only things that were excused were berievement and jury duty and bad weather but then it had to be a mandatory stay off the roads sort of thing,so now you have associates coming to work sick with everything from virus to flu that are very contagious because they can't stay home for being afraid of getting wrote up so here they are in the public spreading the germs and not only that not giving the store the 100% they expect out of them,well this is just not good for business i dont care how you look at it
but then like so may others i am just giving my opinion here as an ex-associate,and then they are not thinking about the poor souls in there trying to bust their asses and feeling like shit!!!!!!!!
But then to all i heard while i was there is how much they care,well please don't care for me i might die is what i say.
thanks for having this here for me to at least speak my opinion.
Fri Jan 12 2007 10:42 PM
Richard:
I whent to work for walmart on the 9th of march
quit on the17th of march worked in lawn&garden got mouth abused by a young women the frist day
I worked never seen her but twice after that .
on the 17th she started on me again called me names & jerked papers out of my hand that was enough .now they wont pay me .I geus the laber boord is the next step.
Mon Mar 26 2007 11:43 AM
Frank of ny:
I work at walmart up in NY.
It's not so bad. And really, its not the company thats bad, I think its the people who obtain the positions who are bad. The people at my job are pretty cool and when they make asshole moves, its clear that theyre being threatened from the powers that be... So, no complaints here...x[SD]x
Tue May 8 2007 11:50 PM
samuel w daniel:
I WAS FIRED FOR GRABBING ANOTHER ACCOCATES ARM BUT THE LADYWAS ALWAYS TELLING HOW TO DO MY JOB SHE WAS NOT MY MANAGER I WENT TOTHE MANAGAR 3 TIMES IT D ID NOT STOP
Tue Jun 26 2007 6:43 PM
Anonymous:
SHE GOTTOKEEP HER JOB
Tue Jun 26 2007 6:46 PM
DANNY:
I WAS FIRED ABOUT 2 YEARS AGO. I WAS A DEPT.MGR.I HAD GOT INTO A ARGUEMENT WITH MY GIRLFRIEND WHO WORKS THERE TOO. I WAS ON MY DAY OFF,NOT WORKING AT THAT TIME.WE EXCHANGED SOME WORDS BETWEEN US ON THE SALES FLOOR. AND I RETURNED TO WORK I WAS FIRED,AND HER THEY DID NOTHING NOT EVEN WRITE HER UP OR EVEN COACH HER OR NOTHING.I AM JUST WRITING THIS IN BECAUSE OF THE FIRST POSTING SAYING WHO IS WALMART TO TELL YOU HOW TO TALK,EVEN IF YOU ARE AT WALMART,THEY DON'T OWN YOU OR YOUE WORDS IF YOU ARE THERE.CAUSE THEY TOLD ME SINCE YOU WERE ON WALMART PROPERTY THEN YOU ARE VIOLATING WALMART POLICY.HOW IS THAT IF I WAS NOT ON THE CLOCK?ANY SUGGESSTIONS?
Thu Oct 4 2007 2:12 PM
Email:
   
|
  
 |
