Monday, November 15, 2010

Wage Theft

Wage theft, the systemic cheating of workers' pay by corporate America, does not get much coverage in our corporate-owned press. It should.

It isn't because of a lack of data. See unprotectedworkers.org for reams of documented cases of workers being cheated in sundry ways. In particular, see their document, Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers on their front page (click the link called "Download the national report here"). It shows why corporations hate unions; they want their workers cheap, disorganized, and unable to fight back.

America's favorite store, Walmart, has a lengthy rap sheet of charges, lawsuits, and fines levied against the giant retailer because it has cheated its workers out of their pay.

Sheesh, the pay and shitty benefits packages aren't low enough already? Al Norman has some good data on these criminals, Walmart executives, though I don't think you will see any of them getting busted on Cops.

As Al Norman Writes:

In December of 2008 Wal-Mart released a staggering list of 63 separate wage and hour lawsuits that had been settled by the company, at cost ranging from $352 million to $640 million, depending on various trial court approvals.

One month later, in January of 2009, Wal-Mart announced another $54 million settlement in a case from Minnesota, followed later by a $172 million settlement in California.

On May 12, 2010, Wal-Mart issued a press release explaining that it had settled two more wage and hour lawsuits, in the so-called Ballard et al. v. Wal-Mart Stores, and the Smith et al. v. Wal-Mart Stores cases -- both from California. The two cases, which were combined, affect more than a couple hundred thousand workers who had to wait years to get the compensation that Wal-Mart owed them.

Finally, have I look at the video below. Its called Wage Theft: The Crime Wave No One Talks About, featuring Kim Bobo, executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice.







Sweet Jesus, I hate these fucking criminals.

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