Please give a warm welcome to Lee Scott, our
President and Chief Executive Officer, Walmart
stores, incorporated.
Whoah!
I know...
Thank you...
Thank you...
I know...
Alright, alright.
Every year.
Okay, okay.
It would be a pleasure for anybody to be the
CEO of this company because y'know it doesn't
matter if you're Sam Walton, or you're David
Glass, or you're Lee Scott.
When you come to this meeting, year after
year, you get to say -we had record sales.
We had record earnings.
We had record reinvestment back into our company.
But you know I say all that, but let me tell
you my friends, you better be ready to be
better.
Because today, for whatever reason, whether
it's our success or our size -Walmart Stores,
Incorporated, has generated fear -if not envy,
in some circles.
And that makes it more important than ever
that we focus on doing the right thing, and
doing things right -every time.
There are two things that we should do.
Number one, is tell the Walmart story.
Get the message out there.
And the second thing is -stay the course.
Walmart is too important to individual families
who are stretching a budget.
We're too important to the suppliers who employ
millions of people.
We're too important to our associates -for
whom we have so much love, and value so much.
And your company will continue to demonstrate
our citizenship as a good employer -and a
member of the communities that we serve so
well around this world.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'll promise you this
-we're going to stay the course.
And this company is going to continue to grow.
Actually [we] started in 1962.
Started on Main Street and Middlefield.
Little country store that at that time was
started in the family, and it was pretty difficult
to know -it was a big decision.
And my brother and law and I decided we were
going to take that step and we went into business.
We started in a little one room building that
had a full basement but we didn't have any
plumbing in the basement -but the upstairs
retail area was very small.
We were there for a year and a half to two
years, then we moved on to a larger store
in a shopping center.
We spent several years there and proceeded
in 1992 -we built this facility here.
This gentleman here, that happens to be my
son.
He's been my right hand man for many years.
It was much easier to retire in 1996 when
he was here to take over.
One of the biggest parts of our store being
in a rural area is what we call our hardware
section -we've got the nuts and the bolts
and the nails, and those types of fasteners.
That's always been good because a lot of farmers
were always mending machinery and things around
the farm.
And some of the kids that were -kids when
I was growing up, y'know, in here, now they've
got families, they come in here for the fix
it up type things.
Since I was eight, come down on Friday nights
after school.
I'd work until nine.
I worked here since I was six.
I swept, or helped customers when I was young,
too.
At the end of the day, grandpa or dad would
give us their pocket change.
I spent a lot of late nights in here, too.
Especially when we were building it.
I generally arrive here about 7:15 in the
morning and I unlock the door.
I come in and turn the lights on, and I get
the day money for each drawer in the registers,
and I open up the registers.
And usually at that time Tom is here, Tom
goes ahead and kind of tidies up the front
of the store and sets out the American flag
and the benches for our customers to sit on.
A lot of times the Amish fellas on their way
to work will stop here for things they need
for their day's projects.
They'll come and get plumbing or electrical
supplies -or a lot of times, sporting goods.
We have a busy sporting goods division.
John has been preparing for trying to change
some of the stock and inventory.
Keeping in mind basically to stay with service.
If you can't compete in one area, we're going
to stay with something that is not offered,
or that you can compete in.
Oh, I've been shopping here for 32 years or
so.
All my needs that I need for hardware.
The mass merchandisers, to a great extent,
do not provide excellence in service.
I'll use Walmart as an example.
And you're really lucky if they have anyone
in the plumbing section who knows anything
about plumbing.
We've been trying to get ready for them, probably,
for the last ten years.
We had a meeting with all the guys, explaining
the purpose of our job, and to make sure we
do everything right.
Explain what Walmart did, and what we do,
and what we do different.
This was brought to us by an Amish customer
of mine.
He is so much against the Walmart movement
after reading this book that he wanted to
start passing them out, or start selling them
to friends.
So that's basically...
I've got a few extra ones, and I'm getting
rid of them, and he's doing the same.
I have never been in a Walmart store, and
I never intend to go into a Walmart store.
I've never had the need, and I've never like
their principles.
That's not nice to say at all, probably, but
I've seen a lot of small communities crucified
and forced out -ma and pa operations that
had been in business for years, that are out
on the street.
They just had to close their doors.
Just because of one entity.
And it appears that is their intent.
To come into the community, and force everybody
out.
They did nothing but lay down the red carpet
for them.
I know how hard it was for my dad and my grandfather
to build this building on this lot.
They went through everything to try to get
the commissioners and stuff to allow them
to build here.
I mean, we had sign issues, they've gotta
be a certain size.
We had to make sure we had enough green around
the area.
I'm all for free enterprise, but when you
look at the big picture, the people that own
the company are the richest people in the
world.
So, the reality is they could spread that
out.
I'm curious to see how much they'll actually
give back to the community.
To even use American with Walmart in the same
sentence is just...
I don't agree with at all.
It's...
It's like a Chinese company to me, only with
American board members.
It's not a mystery, they've come right out
on record and say they don't buy American.
And all it's done is give China better distribution
centers, where as before, they'd have to find
contacts, who to sell to, and develop their
own markets.
Now they've got a pipeline into everybody's
living room by going through Walmart.
I think the government should have more control.
You talk about monopolies!
If Walmart is not a monopoly, I don't know
what is.
I'm not at all in favor of any kind of communism
or socialism, I believe that America should
always and forever remain free.
However, I think that there needs to be regulations
established where... and y'know.
they busted up Standard Oil.
And they busted up Ma Bell.
But Walmart seems to be going on a rampage
through the American economy and nobody is
even paying attention.
The logic of it escapes me.
And I spent a lot of time thinking about it.
I'm a Republican, I'm a conservative, but
I'm following very closely what is happening
with the Unions.
It used to be that the union wage was something
that everybody would look up at and say, "Wow,
he's a Union Worker, he's making $18 or $20
per hour."
And I realize, that's what we're paying our
people.
We're not Union.
Yeah, I'm all for the Unions doing whatever
they can do and y'know...
Whether it be Walmart or K-Mart, or any story
that's not gonna pay a fair wage.
I'm a staunch American, I love America -it's
the finest, free-est country in the world.
And I'd still, at my age, I'd fight and die
for this country.
But it seems that there are things going on
within this country -particularly from a business
and economic standpoint that aren't for the
good of the people.
I mean, the people en masse.
Y'know, small segment of the population is
doing well by what is happening, but the greater
majority of the people are being made subservient.
I mean, Sam Walton, I don't think would be
comfortable with the way things are going
right now.
I don't think this is why he started the store,
it wasn't to crush other competition.
We have people in this town -families who
can't feed their children.
And families who have their entire belongings
in a car or in a trailer, and are spending
most of their life in their car or at the
mall because they've been evicted from their
homes.
Because they can't find work.
They can't find work.
And I think there's a lot of people that don't
realize there are those people in town.
You say that's in Milderford, and they say
no, that's not the case.
I was dreaming, all of the sudden that the
people in this town caught on to a great extent
and we were all out in the street, protesting.
But I think the likelihood of that happening
is... we'll probably see pigs fly before then.
I put this business plan together with the
help of different hardware organizations.
I went to several different banks to check
on some funding, and when I got an appraisal
on my business and the buildings, the appraiser
actually came in and devalued the building.
Here, I figured it'd be appreciating after
like ten years...
And he came in and said a lower value, and
I questioned myself -I said "How could this
be?"
Because y'know, with inflation, and the economy
isn't great, but... it still should at least
be holding it's value.
He said no, any time a Walmart comes into
town, they knock the values down because sooner
or later, there's going to be a bunch of empty
buildings and none of them are going to be
able to sell.
Any community in a grand opening is going
to see a change.
A drop in sales, it happens, regardless of
whether it's Walmart or somebody else.
You'll get a drop in sales.
So there'll be a dramatic change in something.
How long it'll last?
It can't last forever, because you can't stand
the overhead if you don't have the business.
So something has to happen.
Unless you just hope it doesn't come to that
point.
But you never know.
Well right now, after we liquidate product,
I'm in the process of trying to sell the building,
as well as get somebody in here that'll be
able to lease...
I've got a couple of people on the line right
now that want to talk to me within the next
couple of days.
And hopefully we'll work something out.
We're going to sell the property and I'll
be able to pay all of my bills and walk away
without any debt.
That's if it all works out right.
I pray that it will.
I remember that like it was yesterday.
To hell with it.
Walmart'll buy the whole damn town.
We'll shut them down.
We used to drive through towns, going "6 months,
3 months, 6 months", and then they'd be closing.
Drive up all the way to New York City on Route
80, you can pull off to Clarion on or any
of those towns up there, and you'll see a
Walmart up in the hill.
You'll see a Perkins, maybe a Burger King.
And then you'll drive further into the town,
and you'll see an empty town.
It looks like a neutron bomb hit it.
They don't get it.
We start talking about quality of life, they
start talking about cheap underwear.
I keep saying, "You can't buy small town quality
of life at a Walmart, they don't sell it."
But once they steal it from you, you can't
get it back at any price.
We thought it was the most fantastic thing
in the world when Walmart was coming to Hearne,
Texas.
I mean, it was like they bestowed some great
honor to the community.
And we welcomed them literally with open arms.
We could not say enough good about them.
We could not do enough for them to help them
come.
When Walmart first made the decision to come
here, you could come to town on a Saturday
evening, and not find a parking place, anywhere.
I came to downtown Hearne on Saturday before
Christmas, and there was twelve cars in downtown
Hearne.
I counted them.
Twelve cars in downtown Hearne.
That is pathetic.
Walmart was a great thing for our community.
It's really awakened the west side of our
town.
I think Sam Walton would tell us, just as
he did before he passed away, that the number
one thing in this company is our associates.
And we've got stores that aren't treating
associates as well as they should be treated.
And, you know, it's a community college.
I didn't have much for anything else.
And I was doing really well.
Y'know, I had a 4.0 average, but life happens,
y'know.
My dad got sick, my mom got sick -and things
happen, and it just didn't work out the way
I thought it was going to.
When I started working there, I had so much
pride in my job.
I did.
Um, I didn't mind being there when they needed
me.
I didn't mind doing -I knew that we were short
staffed -at that time I didn't know it was
a purposeful thing that um, that's their intention.
They had stacks like this of applications
in the back.
They just didn't hire them.
And then we're told, "We don't know what to
do, we don't have the people.
We don't have this, we don't have that."
And I really did, at first, I was really,
I felt bad for them, I was like "okay, 'l'll
give you an extra hour here, I'll come in
early tomorrow, okay, I won't take my day
off."
Always having to stay late.
You're supposed to work until eleven, you
stay until twelve, twelve thirty.
Keep the number of associates from being full
time as many as you can, you keep them part
time as much as you can.
And just keep reducing that expense.
The company doesn't allow the stores enough
payroll dollars on their budget to get this
job done.
And the job is enormous.
This company is rowing in the, raking in the
dough in sales.
I mean, my store alone did over 100 million
dollars in sales the year that Ieft.
Having to get up with the kids, get them just
-getting them out to school, after four hours
sleep.
They don't care about what you sacrifice,
it doesn't matter how many people lose their
families.
It doesn't matter if the associates have good
health care.
It doesn't matter -anything, other than what
the bottom line profit is for that store that
month.
It just makes it really difficult to have
a good family life at Walmart.
Y'know, if you can squeeze every dime out
of them, you go for it!
And it doesn't matter what happens to their
families, if they fall apart, they get sick,
y'know.
The hell with them.
We're troubled by the fact that there are
people who work full time, who in fact cannot
provide enough for their families to live
decently.
It was just impossible for me to pay my bills
and pay for day care, and work.
You should have plenty of time to go into
the office.
The money that I did get went right back into
Walmart.
I'd get my check, have it deposited, go shopping.
I had -when I first started Walmart, I had
my kids on the um, Walmart insurance.
It got to the point where it just was too
much for me to handle, I just couldn't afford
it.
I'd have to pay my premiums at work, and then
when I took them to the doctors, I still had
to pay.
I always had to pay a chunk of money.
I'm proud of the fact that we have the benefits
that we have, and we have the wages we have.
People that's making seven dollars an hour
that has to go to the doctor, they're not
going to be able to meet their deductible.
Y'know, I have an eighteen month old baby,
and he didn't have any kind of insurance.
When he was sick, I would have to try and
fix him myself, like get him medication myself.
If he had to go to the doctor, I would have
to take him, and pay it as I could.
Sam Walton believed that it was inappropriate
for an associate with illness in the family
to have to worry about how are they going
to survive the financial impact.
I was under my mom's insurance plan, with
a local grocery store that she worked for.
And any prescription it was, it didn't matter
what it was, it was five dollars.
And now, through Walmart, that one bottle
of pills I'm paying seventy dollars.
But I can't afford to put my children on the
Walmart insurance, because it's too expensive.
There's no way I can afford to have seventy
five dollars taken out of each check, just
for medical -that's why -because I'm such
low income I am able to get the Medicaid for
the kids through Colorado state.
But they're a billion dollar corporation,
so I don't see why they cannot offer a better
medical package for their associates so that
we can afford to uh, get our families on uh,
insurance.
You start weighing, "Okay, he's sick -we eat.
Which one do we do?"
Well, let's give him an aspirin.
No matter what anybody says -they're at poverty
level.
I watched so many people go without lunch
in the lounges that I stopped eating in the
lounges because I just had my managers eating
there because I just couldn't stand it.
They just wouldn't eat, and we weren't allowed
to offer them any money.
And, uh.
There were people that didn't eat nothing.
They'd take an hour lunch and they'd just
sit there.
We have full time employees that worked at
Walmart.
And they had medical.
But the medical was so high, so they had to
go out and get Medi-Cal, some type of government
medical.
While I was working at Walmart I was on WIC.
It's an excellent program.
It saved my life, really - because we got
all the formula and cereal and stuff you needed
for the baby, and I also went to the MedicAid
office.
It can be a real hassle, having to deal with
the offices, but y'know, at least they're
there.
I'm thankful for the programs that are available,
y'know.
It's not a fun situation, it's demeaning.
I always heard people say, well, they're just
y'know, oh, there are so many people that
just abuse the system...
I can't imagine that, because there is no
way I would want to spend any length of time
having to do what you have to do to get assistance.
You talk about using the system.
Look at the way Walmart is using the system.
They're promoting people to go to Healthy
Kids, and to get food stamps and section 8
housing.
They're the ones that are using the system.
Yeah, it's pretty bad when you need to tell
your employees that all these programs are
available for you, because we're not paying
you enough money.
Retail giant Walmart is encouraging its workers
to go on welfare.
Instead of paying for its employees to have
health benefits, she says Walmart is making
the government take care of it.
In Florida, Walmart has more employees and
family members eligible for Medicaid than
any other company.
Critics accuse the retail giant of using Medicaid
and state programs for the poor as it's health
care plan.
This report from UC Berkeley concludes Walmart
costs state taxpayers $86 million dollars
per year, and county taxpayers as much as
another $25 million to pick up the tab for
public healthcare, income tax credits, housing
subsidies, and food stamps.
Evelyn Dee used to work full time for Walmart,
but didn't have company health care benefits.
She literally couldn't afford to pay for it,
so she turned to government assistance.
What the public doesn't understand is that
those everyday low prices are based on taxpayer
subsidies.
Walmart is getting away with it because they
can.
I talked to the regional personnel manager
about who is going to take care of the Walmart
associates, and their health care needs, and
he said -let the state do it.
The personnel manager told me personally that
there's assistance out there for people, they
should be able to go use it.
Use your taxpayer's dollars.
I had a list of all the government agencies
and different places that people could go
if they needed money for their utility bills,
if they needed to apply for food stamps, or
if they needed to apply for WIC, or for MedicAid.
So your dignity is not there, your pride is
not there, you go to work knowing that you're
not going to be making enough money to really
make ends meet, but yet you've gotta go with
a smile on your face and fake it.
Yeah, that's pretty bad.
Come up with some type of health care that
a full time person can afford, and don't have
to put on the scale -health care, or feed
my family.
Why is it that a corporation that in 2003
had announced over 240 billion in sales cannot
provide a livable wage and affordable health
care for their employees.
There's nowhere around that there's a company
that makes this much money and still turns
around and makes their associates go to the
state for aid.
I think my company takes family very seriously.
And they'll help you achieve anything you
want.
The possibilities are absolutely endless at
Walmart.
Think of the careers that get started in this
company and the difference it makes in people's
lives.
But most importantly to me, jobs that come
with the opportunity for personal development.
When I first started working at Walmart, I
was still in high school, I didn't have any
plans to go to college later on.
The other people I was working with were just
so nice, and I just thought that was awesome.
My job function is entirely express technician.
Its performing oil service, to tire changes,
battery service, stocking the inside shelves.
Writing up work orders, which is greeting
the customer.
Running the cash register.
Y'know, ringing people out for just groceries
that they bought throughout the store.
And they want it all done at the same time.
All I'm worried about is the one 4 percent
raise per year that you get from Walmart.
I've worked there three years, and I've got
a $1.07 raise.
I don't have good health benefits, and I can't
afford to live on my own anymore.
It just -most of it is poor treatment from
management at Walmart.
I don't know, it's just weird -I've always
been kind of... quiet and shy.
And now, y'know, I kind of need to stand up
for myself and my community.
So I just y'know searched the internet for
a while, and whatever I typed in brought up
the same thing, y'know, I type in Employee
Rights, and it'd bring up the Union.
Fair labor practice -it'd bring up the Union.
These corporate people in the Walmart corporation
-they don't even really like to say the word
“union”.
To them, it's like a curse word.
They just say "third party representation"
is the way they put it.
Walmart is very opposed to unions, one of
the most anti- if not THE most aggressively
anti-union companies in the history of the
United States.
It's just relentless in their search for union
activity, and try to squash it, kill it.
Look at that, Ed Dupontis.
He gave you a call, right?
He gave me a call.
He said he didn't want nothing to do with
the union.
He says there was no no no.
I had a worker that came to me with a piece
of paper that someone had typed up a computer
in big bold black letters that said "We need
a Union!".
No signatures, that's all it said.
That in itself is enough to require me as
a store manager to go and make a phone call.
And the phone call comes to Dentonville, and
that afternoon I had to personally drive to
the airport and pick up three guys that flew
in a corporate jet, and pick them up and take
them back to my store.
We have to do this for the reasons we started
it.
What they do is they basically walk in and
tell the store manager that you're no longer
in charge of this store.
Every decision goes through us.
They taught me how to profile people.
Of course, I didn't know that was the term,
then.
And it was identifying people that were the
strongest representers of the petition to
organize, or at least get a vote.
Anita, we need to contact, still.
Possibility there.
You walk up to a couple of associates, and
they're both talking, they walk away from
each other -they gotta go.
They're conspiring to do something.
Be noisy, be happy, be boisterous.
We're here to support folks who are trying
desperately to fight against the world's largest,
richest and probably meanest corporation.
The associates in the automotive department
were flooded with brainwashing material against
the union.
I got fooled by a union.
Fooled bad.
All the unions work at is taking a cut out
of my pay.
Yeah, take your money and spend it on political
campaigns and help people I don't even vote
for.
Because they know a union would just mess
it up.
But don't take my word for it.
Just ask an associate working here in the
building.
I'm not going to get in the store even 50
feet before somebody approaches me, or they're
gonna send someone following me around the
store.
I was never alone.
I was followed wherever I went.
Truly, the managers would follow me.
During the process of intimidating them, they
just make their lives miserable.
They do illegal surveillance, they put cameras
up in work stations, work areas, break rooms.
You've got a target on your back and you let
everybody else know -I've got to stay away
from this person because I can get fired for
talking to this person.
They're targeting a lot of it at Josh.
Y'know, they're like -cause they were talking
about Josh being like held up on their shoulders
and parading him.
They're like "Yeah, he's just using it for
uh, a way to get y'know, like attention."
One of their favorite tactics is to come out
and say, "We have to freeze all of our raises
in the store because we can't appear to be
bribing anybody.
It was a great political ploy by Walmart in
my mind, to say that's why they weren't getting
raises.
Because some of those employees started putting
pressure on the TLE people -the tire lube
express people.
They said, "We can't get raises because of
YOU".
I was like so scared to go to the break room,
because they made us all go to break together
because it was really dead after that, so
we'd start walking through, and they'd like...
customers and other associates were like giving
us dirty looks, I'm like "I'm not going to
sit in the break room, they'll jump me or
something!"
Alicia is way good.
I've talked with her quite a bit.
And Cody, we know Cody is good.
Right
Cody is with us, here.
They'll instruct the managers to start hiring
associates in the store.
And what they do this for is to try to dissolve
the percentages of the people in the store
that are for the union.
See James.
James is another new hire.
I'm not even sure who that is.
But you know, that's just -this is OUR store.
This isn't their store.
We're the ones -we're making them money.
We're the little worker ants, y'know.
So what is your prediction?
Uh, right now, I'd say fifty fifty.
Y'know, I mean the few people in the middle
are just going to make it or break it right
now.
I think you lost Alisha.
No, I've talked with her quite a bit.
She's just kind of hard to read type of person.
I hang out with her and stuff on the weekends,
but she's definitely into it.
She's real strong.
I believe it's just gonna go like - done.
Because y'know, Cody isn't voting, Ryan isn't
voting yes, and I'm still kind of...
I kind of really don't want to vote but then
I kind of have to, because.
You're getting all freaked out because of
y'know, what they're saying -they're not going
to know how you vote.
All it's gonna be is just a bunch of numbers.
So we've got six for no, another six yes.
So we've got one, two, three, four, five,
six, seven on the fence.
The company does everything that it can and
that means ANYTHING.
And they will kill it -they'll kill the campaign.
Walmart winning out, as you said, seventeen
to one, but the union says-
-It's not a fair battle, it's not according
to the National Labor Relations Act -but when
they find that there's a campaign going on,
everything that can be done -fair or unfair,
legal -maybe not so legal -is done to keep
the union out.
Walmart was very lucky to acquire two really
good companies.
But of course they were already unionized.
Walmart had no choice.
Because of the union, we get thirty six days
of vacation per year.
Usually people take three weeks in the summer,
three weeks in the spring.
It depends.
You can split your vacations into two or three
times per year.
Or even more often, if you prefer.
My job is very important and if I have to
fear for my job, it's a bad thing.
A very bad thing.
If Walmart says we're all a big family, and
we have nothing to hide, everything is great
-then...
I don't understand why the colleagues in America
can't have a worker's council.
Can't establish a union.
I can't understand that.
Walmart is a career; it's not just a job.
Good quality of life, good educational opportunities
for my children.
It is right for the 1.2 million Walmart associates,
including more minorities and more seniors
than work at any other company in America.
Walmart offers the right job at the right
time in their lives and it gives them a step
up that economic ladder.
My name is Edith Arama.
I live here in Southern California.
I have two girls.
I go to school to be a preschool teacher.
I worked for Walmart for six years.
They explained to me the different things
they offered and the type of company Walmart
was.
I said that's a company I want to work for.
I always found it rewarding to me to help
the customer find what they were looking for.
I could work wonders.
Do more with less.
I know the true meaning of doing more with
less.
They want the associates to do more and they
are going to pay them less.
They would come in the office or on the floor
it didn't matter where you were working.
They would say you know we have no overtime
there is to be no overtime whatsoever.
You may have five baskets of clothes and merchandise
that needs to be put back.
You may have 30 minutes left on your eight-hour
shift; but we need those baskets put away.
And they usually do it with a smile.
You would go along with it because you needed
that job.
And there was no if- ands- or buts- about
it.
They would let you know, one way or another,
if you can't do it, I'll just get somebody
else to do it.
You're not a person that cannot be replaced.
And you know we're hiring all the time.
And in your mind, you go look; I've got these
kids at home; I'll just have to make that
sacrifice.
And you will.
They are asked to work off the clock with
the implication that if they don't work off
the clock, that is what is expected at this
particular store, they are going to lose their
job, and they do it a matter of survival.
And it comes from the top.
Walmart is fighting legal battles with scores
of former employees in 31 states.
Hourly workers who say the company has cheated
them out of hundreds of millions of dollars
in overtime pay.
The Walmart corporation paid approximately
50 million dollars to settle an off-the-clock
class action suit in Colorado.
In Texas, it is estimated that they cheated
workers out of up to 150 million dollars in
unpaid wages.
Our policy is that we pay everyone for every
hour worked.
You're the CEO of Walmart and that's the best
you can do?: "If you work here, we'll pay
you!"
That's it?
"Work at Walmart, it's better than getting
kicked in the nuts!"
Our district manager actually explained to
us how to cheat workers out of overtime.
He said, this is how you can come in on your
payroll budget on this week.
He said say you have three workers that had
overtime, maybe an hour or even 20 mins over
40 hours, he explained to us how to go into
the system under a false user ID, to get into
the computer and move that time to the next
week.
I've seen managers go in when someone worked
41-42 hours and change it to 40 hours.
The people that are struggling to live just
on the basics everyday or do without need
that extra minute or two on their paycheck,
and those are the ones that are victimized
the most.
I'm not the only one that did it, I seen every
manager except for one General Manager do
it.
Walmart refuses to follow the very American
ethic that to serve the country well over
many years, people should be paid for the
work they do.
Walmart currently faces lawsuits in 31 different
states for wage and hour abuses, potentially
involving hundreds of thousands of workers.
As a store manager, you're responsible for
reducing your expenses every single month,
and the only way to do that is to keep the
associates numbers down.
I was given about 19 hours a week, and that's
just...you can't pay bills with that.
I mean it's just, it's not right at all.
If you're not getting those fulltime hours
for that week that's devastating.
It may help them on their bottom line but
it doesn't help you at home.
When it comes to jobs, we have good jobs.
Seventy four percent of our people are full-time.
Most people in America don't know that.
Although most people in America also don't
know that Walmart considers full time employment
28 hours a week, which their starting wage
works out to under $12,000 a year.
ICE agents arrested 250 undocumented workers
in 61 Walmarts across America.
I was working from 9 pm to 7:30 am.
It was a lot and the stores they could leave
store until store manager come in the morning.
Walmart is paying 11 million dollars to settle
federal allegations it used illegal immigrants
to clean its stores.
I’m stunned that they would employ illegal
immigrants.
I'm stunned.
You're stunned they hire illegal immigrants
for nearly no pay; lady you just bought a
sweatshirt there for 29 cents!
Walmart, the world's largest retailer could
be facing the largest lawsuit ever brought
against a private employer,.
Lawyers suing Walmart will file their motion
today and if a judge agrees, the company could
be facing a class-action lawsuit for discrimination
against 1.6 million current and former female
employees.
I had no idea about the lawsuit and there
were people in my store that had no idea about
it also.
Members of management in the upper echelons
of Walmart management talk about how women
at Walmart are useless.
I had been receiving manager, I was operation
manager, I was merchandise manager, so it's
like I kinda did it all.
I cleaned the bathroom every single day, Ken
would come to me and he'd say to me "Oh, it's
your turn again."
I looked at him and I said it was my turn
yesterday, you know, and he'd laugh and he's
joke about it and we'd go back and forth and
I'd say I know I'm the only female that's
working out here, so hence, I'd have to clean
the bathroom.
Nobody said, so why had a woman been this
all these years, you look at the value, every
general manager stated, she should be a GM,
every evaluation, what's wrong with this picture.
The company hides the fact that these practices
are very systemic, meaning that they come
out of the home office.
Bottom line, if you were a female you just
weren't worth it.
You just weren't worth the time, the money,
the effort, nothing.
A blind man, my grandmother was blind, she
could see better than what you guys were seeing
because you take it and put the blinders on
you didn't wanna see.
When I called, I called to file a petition,.
or to file a claim against them just to say
that they discriminated against me because
I was a woman.
I'm Betty, I'm a Walmart associate, I love
working at Walmart.
I love that they pay me less than men, because
that means I can't afford to eat as much.
And I get to keep my figure.
Jim got promoted to management over me, but
that's okay cause he's a cutie.
You go get him, honey!
When I applied for the asst. manager's training
program, I didn't get any response back at
all.
I went through everything I had done for my
store manager, and I had done it like you
would do a checklist, said you told me to
do this, I did it,.
He agreed on it, and I said so now I want
what you promised me, he just bluntly told
me "There's no place for people like you in
management."
And I said what do you mean people like me?
And I said because I'm a woman?
Or that I'm black?
He said well two out of two ain't bad!
I was called milk-boy, nigger, at this particular
store, there was an incident where this one
guy's bicycle.
they hung it form the ceiling and put a rope
around it, you know they literally put the
lynch bicycle, this is what they said.
But I complained, because it was to me offensive,
and it was unacceptable.
What happened after that?
Nothing.
I don't know if I was more devastated than
humiliated.
But in my mind, the way I love people, I just
couldn't see another person, maybe they're
not as strong as I am to be able to take that.
This woman walked through the hallway and
said enie menie minie mo catch a nigger by
the toe.
I reported this incident, nothing happened.
If you complain about discrimination, they
just see if they can get more people to try
and work you out of there or whatever and
that's basically what happened to me, I just
got tired.
I started going backwards in my mind of all
the different stuff, and it started clicking
and clicking, and the more I thought, the
worse I felt because I felt to myself, you're
an idiot.
How could you have not known.
I was devastated.
The time that I spent on hose roads, I could've
been at home with my husband.
But I wasn't because I was doing my end of
the Walmart promise You do this, we will do
this.
And it was not worth my husband's life.
The worst part about it is no one will ever
know how big this is.
What happens to people, there have got to
be more people like me out there, but they're
too afraid to say anything.
I love my job.
It's challenging, But it's really satisfying.
We truly are living the American Dream.
It's out there, and it's at Walmart.
Great citizenship also means that we're going
to support the communities that we're in to
support our charities and the organizations
that exist there.
You know, by the time I was born out in Hoover,
I have lived under about 36% of the presidents
of the United States.
Hoover and Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower,
Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan,
Clinton, Sr. Bush, and Jr. Bush.
So that's 13 presidents out of 43 I've lived.
We came here in 1959.
And started an IGA store which is independent
grocers.
They had approx.
150 employees and of these 150 the fulltime
employees were a great number of them, they
had full coverage insurance, health insurance.
We also had 401k pension plans that they really
appreciate it.
You know, in small-town businesses, you do
become attached to your employees and they're
very important to you.
We always had a Christmas Party or dinner
where all the employees came and we'd close
the stores.
And every day after school I'd get off the
bus and run up to the store because we lived
a couple blocks from it.
This was left over from when we closed down
the stores in the late 90’s.
I don't believe it's fair the way that Walmart
has come in with the funding that they get
to put their sewers, roads, parking signals,
grassy grass etc in compared to what the independent
retailer gets, no I don't believe it's fair.
Certainly it isn't fair, and I think he at
one time did go talk to them in Cameron and
say, if we're going to run a business here
can you help us?
no they couldn't do that.
I don't think it's fair to help them to build
roads for their business and at the same time
the store open puts others out of business.
The competition we're up against hasn't caused
a problem as much as the competition being
helped by our government.
From one level to the other they get all the
breaks.
Walmart is coming in and is running us out.
We know you give them tax abatements, will
you give us tax abatements?
And no they couldn't do that, so the county
nor the city would do that.
And everyone knew it was unfair, what can
you do about it.
I’m sure water, any of that stuff, as far
as I know we didn't receive a dime from the
city, county or any place like that.
If you tell them that you don't want them
in your city limits there's nothing to stop
them from buying five acres outside the city
limits, hooking up to rural water and having
all the negative effects on the city and none
of the positive effects.
They have a super center in Cameron, it took
40% of our business and about 1/3 of our business
here in Hamilton.
In Brookfield it took over 50% of our business
overnight.
It's hard to make those payments with a wholesaler
having problems themselves, so everything
culminating in everyone having problem's.
To pay employees you use the cash from the
inventory and then you didn't have any inventory.
In the process of all this I had to borrow
money to put into stores and with the farm
as collateral.
It went down hill from there.
So we had no recourse but to just close em
up.
It was 40 years of hard work that seemed to
disappear all at once.
It wasn't very easy thing to adjust to.
And now you can see Erwin still saddened a
lot.
It wasn't what he planned.
But we had a lot of good times, he did a lot
of things, he knows a lot of people, they
respect him, and so I don't know what else
you're going to get out of life.
On the closing of that store, it was a Sunday
morning, and just....
I remember coming down stairs and sat down
on the couch and mom told me and I started
crying.
It's like a family member, we were there every
day and it was very a part of my life It was
probably my favorite place.
They wanted it from me.
And I love him to death for it, but they wanted
it for me and my family.
And if Walmart gains ground and has a monopoly,
where will our families and where will our
children be and what will they have to do
to work, and to be competitive, in ten years
or so, it could be very, very serious for
the nation.
It might happen that way and I hope it doesn't
for our children's sake, but it could be real
serious, be a revolution, I won't say it'd
be a civil war but it'd be a revolution and
I don't think anybody wants that.
I'm Kim Marcetta and I'm a 4th and 5th grade
bilingual teacher in Denver CO at Newman Elementary
School, and Walmart received subsidies of
about 1.7 million dollars and with that our
Denver metropolitan area, that could've kept
the three schools we closed this year open.
I'm Monica Jefferson, I'm a speech/language
pathologist and I work for special school
district of St. Louis county.
Walmart receives over 31 million dollars in
subsidy from the Mo. government.
Cathedral City made a 1.8 million dollar investment
but because of Walmart's lies and not stepping
up to the plate with their commitments, we're
short on policemen, we're short on fireman,
we've eliminated the recreation commission
of the city, we're not able to provide the
services to our services to the residents
that they need and deserve and we're going
to have lives hanging in the balance because
we're not going to be able to provide these
services.
My name is Charles Haas I've been a 4th grade
teacher in Washington state for many years
and when I think of the million dollars that
Walmart received for its distribution center,
and what we could be don't there for students
it's outrageous.
Taking revenue away from our community that
will have a direct impact on our ability to
continue to provide some level of service.
In Illinois, Walmart has received 100 million
dollars in subsidies and that has affected
our school systems.
That money could go into our school systems
to rehire all of the support teachers we need
back, the support personnel, we could have
our psychologist back our social workers back,
our counselors back, we could pick up and
these programs are being cut because Walmart
has received subsidized.
What we're facing currently is that Walmart
has for business purposes have decided that
they are going to leave our community.
And not moving twenty miles away, they were
moving two miles away.
Not very far away, in fact one is being built
on the property line of our city which we
still will not receive any benefit from.
Just outside the city limits.
Just as we were about to start to receive
a better part of the sales tax revenue, from
the deal, we found out that we'd been the
chumps.
To end it with a vacant building of the size
that most businesses cannot fill.
So you have a huge building that sits vacant
for months and years.
That’s why at Walmart we give back $5 every
second to the communities we serve.
Throughout the holidays and all year long.
To make the season, and every day a little
brighter.
You know, responsible citizenship also means
looking out for the environment.
We can make a difference in this area's sustainability.
One of the most exciting things about the
Riverkeeper organization is working with the
public.
We have a lot of volunteers that volunteer
to keep their part of the Catawba River.
Because the Catawba River's dammed 11 times
and has 11 lakes on it.
We have lakes with coves and so we call our
volunteers cove-keepers.
And these cove-keepers want to safeguard and
protect the Catawba River.
Essentially what we did was an investigation
and we visited about seven Walmarts in the
Catawba River Valley to see what their environmental
practices were and judge whether their current
environmental practices would have an impact
on the drinking water of the town of Belmont.
And what we found in every single case was
that Walmart had a practice of storing herbicides
pesticides and fertilizers in the parking
lots.
What concerned us most about this particular
case was the proximity of this Walmart and
the creek running right by the Walmart site
and that creek empties right here at the intake
site.
For me when I'm out on patrol and I'm on the
river and there's a drinking water intake
right there what I know is that there's a
mom somewhere who's at a kitchen sink and
she's putting water in bottle to make for
a baby and that baby is drinking...the labels
on some of the herbicides and pesticides said
"this product known to cause reproductive
harms by the state of California, and birth
defects."
These pallets with bags and bags of this material,
many of them broke and busted and spilling
on the pavement, when it rained all this material
was washing right into the storm water, and
eventually making it here to the Catawba River,
a source of drinking water for almost 2 million
people in the region.
So we'd be calling Walmart to really express
our concern about these chemicals making their
way into the public drinking water and they
game me a name and a phone number for somebody
in Arkansas headquarters to call.
And that person when I talked to him it wasn't
the right person they said they didn't think
they had a person in charge of environmental
affairs but they would try and find out.
They never called, so again I called back,
this time I called their attorneys and said
look I'm not getting an answer from anyone
at corporate Walmart and because I haven't
I'm gonna start a web blog, and every contact
I have with you I'm going to put on my website
and report what your response is.
And if there's no response, that's what's
going to be on our website.
So that's what I did.
Two or three days later, they still didn't
call back we then sent them the law, and I
elevated the rhetoric and said it appears
to us as if you're violating the storage laws,
and we're getting ready to contact our attorneys,
still no one called, finally the attorneys
from Walmart gave me the name of a person
that they thought was their contact and I
finally reached that person at Walmart Headquarters
in Arkansas, and he said he had just started
the job.
He has been in training for the last two weeks
and he didn't know what to tell me.
So at this time I started calling the newspaper
media and asking them to do a story.
We got a great local news station here in
Charlotte, North Carolina that responded on
camera showing these pallets and pallets of
chemicals, herbicides, fertilizers, stored
in the parking lots right beside the storm
water drain.
It ran in the morning.
The noontime the six o'clock and the evening
news that day.
It just so happens that the Walmart manager
for the local store where most of the video
was shot had 81 pallets of this material out
in the parking lot saw the story.
Called his regional manager the next day and
said you won't believe what I saw on the news
last night.
For all his stores in the region, we had them
pull those chemicals from the parking lots
and put them under cover.
As I read the case history and all the environmental
crimes and particularly the consent decrees
from the attorney general's office ordering
Walmart to establish better environmental
protection, what flabbergasted me most about
the lack of corporate response was their apparent
disregard for these consent decrees and they
had not taken them very seriously.
It's only the local guys.
I can say in my history as river keeper, I
don't think I've ever encountered a corporation,
be it a power company, an oil company, as
unresponsive as Walmart.
Wildlife conservation is very important to
me, but it's really exciting when a company
like Walmart makes it a priority, too.
Wildlife conservation is very important to
me.
But it’s really exciting when a company
like Walmart makes it a priority too!
We have a great relationship with the Chinese
government.
They have treated us very fairly in and what
they have done.
They actually, much like in the USA hold us
to a higher standard -higher standard of sanitation,
higher standard of employment.
My name is Wendy.
I am 21 years old.
I am from the Shenzhai province.
My family plants corn, paddies and potato.
I wanted to earn some money so that their
life could be easier.
At least, I didn't want their life to be too
hard.
They would work from dawn until night.
They would begin to work on the farm at daybreak,
and wouldn't get back until night.
I thought about working in the factory when
I was in middle school.
At the time, I thought it would be exciting
and interesting to work in the factory.
I left my home town on April 29 this year,
and then began to look for a job in Shenzhen.
At that time I had a friend working in that
factory who also came from my hometown.
So I went to see my friend each day at the
factory gate, which is just in front of Wen
Yi's room.
My name is Wen Yi, and I come from Hunan Province.
He heard my dialect when I was talking with
my friend.
Then he spoke with me using the same dialect
he asked me where I was from.
I didn't tell him the truth I said it was
from
Shawn King area
He served for the army of Shon King for a
couple of years, so he can speak the dialect.
That's the way we've got to know each other.
My girlfriend and I work in the same Walmart
factory.
She works in the old workshop and I work in
the new one.
I'm on the night shift and finish work at
seven in the morning.s
She begins to work at 7:30 each morning
and works overtime until 10 p.m.
We don't have much time to spend together,
but whenever there is an opportunity I'll
cook some delicious food for her.
We like singing karaoke, shopping around,
and buying some little things.
In that way, we feel more relaxed.
Most of the time we go to Karaoke singing
songs and listen to music.
We tend to rent a room outside and cook by
ourselves because the meals offered by the
factory are really disgusting.
However the dilemma is whether you live
in the dorms at the factory allocated or not,
they always deduct the rent for our wages
-you have no choice but to live inside.
if you're going to move out of the dorms the
factory will tell you - you can move out and
we will not charge you
electricity or water, but rent will still
be charged.
You see, if we live inside the dorm we pay
not only the rent, but also the utilities
- which is charged by how much you use.
There are very few fans installed in my current
workshop.
It is extremely hot inside.
If they plan to install a new fan, then the
others will tell us that we can only have
one fan, or the fans that are there.
In my working position, there is no wind at
all.
Can you imagine -I'm sitting there and dripping
with sweat all day long.
My body never gets dry.
Walmart informed the factory that it was going
to send people here for the inspection, and
they will tell us how to lie for the inspection.
For example, the workers must respond, "six
days", when asked how many days they worked
- even though they actually worked for seven
days.
The workers don't dare to say anything wrong,
because we're really afraid of being punished
by managers.
Management has a meeting in advance and has
a meeting to teach us how to lie.
If you lie well, you'll be rewarded.
If not, you'll be punished or fired.
The worker is given a fake pay slip, and they
never let you have the chance to speak out
the truth, but threaten you to deliver false
information.
We really worked day and night in order to
get the wage of less than three dollars per
day.
My mom wants me back home because she feels
it's too toilsome, but I don't think so.
Everybody else here has the same situation
as me.
If they can do this I can do it also.
I'll think about my mom when I am very tired.
It would be wonderful if she could be with
me.
She takes care of me very well when I'm sick.
She'll let me have a good rest, and cooks
anything that I'd like to eat.
She's really very nice to me.
I would respectfully like to ask the boss
of Walmart to give the Chinese workers some
consideration, and a chance for a little time
off.
Customers Walmart -when you wear expensive
clothes, when your children play with high
quality toys
think about china and the far east.
Those profits you made and the wonderful life
you have are the sweat and tears and overtime
working
of Chinese people.
If one day I encounter lady who just bought
a toy from Walmart, I'll say respectable customer
-respectable Walmart customer, "Do you know
why you can buy such cheap toy from Walmart?
That's because we workers work all day every
day and night.”
We added 125,000 new jobs around this world
this past year.
Good jobs!
Jobs with benefits, jobs that have profit
sharing and retirement savings accounts for
associates.
But most importantly to me, jobs come with
the opportunity for
personal development.
189,000 young women in Bangladesh who are
sewing garments for Walmart.
These workers are getting up at 5:30 in the
morning, they brush their teeth with their
finger using ashes from the fire because they
can't afford toothbrush.
Forced to work from eight in the morning until
ten o'clock at night, 14 hours a day seven
days a week on wages from 13 to 17 cents an
hour.
These are women who are hit by their supervisors,
trapped in utter mystery - as the largest
company in the world, Walmart sets the standard
that other companies are going to follow.
So Walmart right now is sucking down standards
all across the world.
These are workers who have no rights.
The outlook for this company today is very
positive.
In every country that we operate in, the Walmart
model works.
Because once your associates know that you
will stand up for what is right, then when
they see wrong occur they’re more likely
to contact you.
And we have a we have very aggressive program
underway to make sure -and have had now for
the last couple of years.
I was Global Services Manager for Mexico,
Central and South America.
My job function entitled three things.
Oversight of all factory certifications.
Which means you go in there and you make sure
there are humane working conditions.
The big deal with factor certifications is
to make sure that the workers are in a clean,
safe, humane environment.
When I was in the factory, you you talk to
the
people and the people are so nice.
And they're so good; and they were just working
for so little money, and without any condition
of fairness whatsoever, with their compensation
and their working conditions.
I went back to my hotel room and I just wept
my first time.
And you know after dinner I picked up the
phone to call my wife, and just tell her what
I'd seen, y'know, I just started crying about
that, telling her.
And she was like "It's gonna be alright".
I know we're doing the right thing, I just
couldn't imagine it was this way.
I thought that a company like Walmart -once
started reporting the truth of what was happening
in the factory, would take quick action to
try and make the working conditions better.
I believed in the mission and the culture
which I thought existed at Walmart.
I led more Walmart cheers than just about
everybody that I know.
I didn't even mind being the squiggly.
I mean, if you would have cut me, I would
have bled Walmart blue blood.
I didn't know that we weren't going to make
it the goal to correct the violations.
And I didn't think that any retaliation would
be brought against me for doing my job.
I now realize I was pretty naive.
But it just didn't occur to me that Walmart
would do anything except for the right thing
once they were faced with the truth.
I kept going into other factories and seeing
the same things over and over again.
And it became apparent to me that this was
not an isolated issue.
All you've got to do is follow the money,
and the ones who are in power right now have
tremendous pressure on them to perform like
never before.
The system was designed to keep the goods
flowing to the United States.
When push came to shove, they did not stand
up and do the right thing.
What really happened was -they were getting
fired for telling the truth about the factory
certifications.
And that was shocking.
It was embarrassing.
Ripped my heart out.
To have all of that ripped from you and then
to get sold out and lied to...
Walmart let me down when I needed somebody
to look out for me.
Even though I was trying to look out for Walmart
for years.
We want to make sure that our suppliers comply
with local country codes, with human rights
standards, that people are not underage, that
they're paid well...
Made in the USA.
It means something.
Made in the USA.
Means a job for somebody.
But we've made it our policy to find more
US suppliers who can compete.
Because American goods mean American jobs.
At Walmart.
We pledge to support American sources whenever
we can.
So you can too.
If we keep our prices low, and raised our
average wage substantially, we would, in fact,
decrease our profitability disproportionally,
and we would sacrifice a healthy chunk of
what it is our shareholders expect from us.
It is written in the New Testament -the love
of money is the root of all evil.
This does not say that money itself is evil.
The fact that I shared a room last night with
Tom Shooley, our CFO, while we were in New
York -saved $200.
The fact that my dinner was ten dollars last
night, saved money.
You shall not steal.
Doesn't this teach us that keeping everything
for ourselves is a form of stealing?
Or are we commanded to help those less fortunate
to find enough to eat.
Today I want you to know, however, the five
members of that family -together -are worth
more 102 BILLION dollars.
The widow and four children have in the last
twenty years, emerged on the list of the top
ten wealthiest people in the United States.
They could easily take ten billion of that
and see to it that every employee of Walmart
in the United States has health care, adequate
pension, and adequate wages.
Walmart after the 9-11 attacks on the World
Trade Center and Pentagon, they apparently
decided that they needed to have a bunker.
There is a facility for the Walton family
in case of an apocalyptic attack -a residence
that they can live in and reside in, in case
they had to do that.
There's a helipad behind the facility back
there, where they can come in by helicopter,
and there's satellites dishes behind the facility.
And most of it is underground.
As you can see, you can't really see much
from the gate, which is all fortified.
Faith means nothing at all, if it does not
involve us loving one another as neighbors,
in compassion for the poor.
When you hear these bells at Walmart, do you
remember the people who they're ringing for?
They remind us of our friends and neighbors
who could use a little help.
That's why at Walmart, we give back throughout
the holidays and all year long.
Of course the most important beneficiary of
this store is our customer.
It's the customer who lives in that neighborhood.
I was actually selling cars for about six
months, but prior to that I actually had my
own business, I was doing my own wood finishing
on boats.
And I actually did quite well at that.
So, I'm getting a little too old for that.
If I was going to go through all that I went
through, I want something to come out of it.
Something good.
There was a truck on one side that had a camp
shell and there was a van to one side, and
I thought, y'know.
I've always said you know you don't want to
be in the spot where nobody can see you.
But I thought, "Four car spaces from the front
door."
And I thought they had security outside.
Okay, well I should be fine.
And uh, when I got out, there was two of them.
Unfortunately he caught me.
I got outside but he caught me.
And thats when I realized he had a gun, because
he had a gun and he was holding me.
And thats when they told me, "Get back in
the car or I'm going to blow your head off".
The year before, when I worked at the phone
company, we had a safety meeting.
And it was around Christmas time.
And they had the Sheriff's department out
there.
And they were talking about, if you're ever
in a parking lot and this happens, what do
you do?
Don't go with them.
If you go with them, you're likely not going
to live.
Because statistically, that's what happens.
They'll kill you.
That's what first went through my mind -that
I'm not going to survive this.
Um...
Sorry.
Um... so that is why the decision to jump
out, y'know, I wanted to choose.
I didn't want.
I thought he was going to rape me, too.
He said he didn't want the car.
I thought they were going to rape me.
So when they got me back in the car after
looking at the gun, I just kind of resigned
to y'know, like there was nothing I could
do.
And I just kind of went you know, kind of
cold inside.
This is the parking lot where Laura Tanaka
faced her attacker.
Inside the store, Walmart had more than two
hundred security cameras, and four security
guards on patrol.
Outside, there was nothing.
The police did recommend on site security.
And that there was none.
That they had assured the people in the neighborhood
that they would provide security and make
sure it was safe for the neighborhood, and
that wasn't done.
It was evident that Walmart knew they had
substantial problems in their parking lot.
Walmart was aware that the majority of the
crime throughout the state occurred in their
parking lot, despite the fact that 80% of
the crime that occurred in the parking lot,
they had done almost nothing to protect the
customers in the lots.
Rape, murder, kidnapping -all of these shocking
allegations, and they come from Walmart shoppers.
Report of a Walmart parking lot attack tonight
-North Texas police are on the hunt for a
would-be kidnapper.
A violent attack in the parking lot of an
Orange County Walmart -at least one man tried
to carjack, rob, and shoot a woman.
Who shot and killed 33-year-old Mark Korenek
in the store's parking lot.
A bold and deadly shooting -it happened this
morning at the Walmart.
A Taylor woman is recovering tonight after
fighting a thief in a Walmart parking lot.
A man is arrested after a tire iron attack
-it happened in a parking lot of this Walmart.
Two teenaged workers shot while gathering
carts in the parking lot yesterday at this
Glendale Walmart.
It happened at 1:48 this morning in the Walmart
parking lot in Riverdale.
She turned to run from this subject and was
shot in the back.
Walmart has conducted research on crime in
its parking lots, and critics accuse the company
of a nationwide pattern of covering up that
research -of failing to turn it over in lawsuits.
Here's what Walmart did not want to show.
As early as 1994, as you can see in this internal
document, a Walmart study showed that 80 percent
of crime at Walmart locations occurred in
the parking lot.
And when the company added roving patrols
at several sites, the crime rate dropped to
as low as zero.
A district judge is filing Walmart stores
eighteen million dollars.
Judge James Mahathey is sanctioning Walmart
for what the court believes is a pattern of
deception.
It involves the case of a southeast Texas
woman who was sexually assaulted and raped
in the parking lot of Walmart.
The court found that Walmart did not disclose
that it had conducted a safety study -a study
that found if Walmart put employees in golf
carts patrolling its parking lots, crime there
would drop to zero.
Judge Sharolyn Wood heard a case against Walmart
in Houston, Texas in 1999, involving an assault
in a Walmart parking lot.
She says that in seventeen years on the bench,
and over twenty-five thousand cases, she's
rarely seen such flagrant abuse of the system.
It was very disturbing.
To see such an intentional course of conduct
-it was corrupt.
She is charging Walmart with cheating in court
-and she is not the only one.
This is one judge.
Is there something in the drinking water in
Arkansas that says perjury is alright?
Another judge -rarely has this court seen
such a pattern of deliberate confiscation,
delay, misrepresentation, and downright lying.
True.
Unfortunately for the customer, they really
don't care what goes on after you spend your
money in there and come out into the parking
lot to go home.
Police found Holden shot to death along the
side of a road in Stanton, Texas.
Four hundred miles from where she was abducted.
Megan was uh, very special.
We grew up together;, we lived together.
She is really going to be missed a whole lot,
because she had a lot of people that loved
her.
She was just a very sweet person.
She never wanted a whole lot out of life,
she just wanted to live, y'know, be happy.
That's all she wanted.
Just recently, before she died.
We were in her room.
Listening to a CD.
We were singing together.
And we could just be open with each other.
We didn't care.
Police say Megan Holden was chosen at random
on the way to her pickup truck in the Walmart
parking lot just before midnight.
After that crime was caught on surveillance
video, police say Williams - a marine veteran
with a history of drug offenses, sped off
in Holden's truck, heading west -where he
apparently murdered the 19-year old junior
college student and dumped her body near some
railroad tracks in the West Texas town of
Stanton.
I just think that there's a lot of things
Walmart could have done.
There should be somebody watching the cameras.
Somebody should have been watching the cameras.
Walmart has those cameras out there in their
parking lot, and I thought that they were
watching.
A security camera, without someone watching
it, is of no use at all.
The abduction and murder that happened in
Texas happened at a store where the loss prevention
team was sent in to set up a security system
outside that would track the union activity
in that store.
And the only reason they had the pictures
that they did, was because they had the union
package on the outside of the store.
Walmart focuses on protecting their property,
and not their patrons.
When you're a multi-million dollar company
can't you pay somebody like $12 an hour to
watch the camera?
If people are putting profits before safety,
they're putting profits before uh, human life,
I don't think there's anything you can say
to them.
A man is suing the Walmart in New Castle,
saying his mother died after a botched robbery
attempt in a store's parking lot.
A random shooting happened here, three people
are dead, and three others injured.
The shooting happened right in the middle
of a busy shopping day.
At least one man tried to car jack, rob, and
shoot a woman.
Report of a Walmart parking lot attack.
Tonight, North Texas police are on the hunt
for a would-be kidnapper.
Bold and deadly shooting.
Shooting rampage.
It happened at 1:48pm.
Random shooting.
(MONTAGE OF NEWSREEL AUDIO)
Walmart stores has a responsibility to society
to make sure that what we do fits in and represents
what it is society expects from a big company.
We need to figure out, how do we in fact work
together to cause them to want to have a Walmart.
On December 6th, there was an article on the
front page of our local paper, and it said
that Walmart was going to build a Supercenter
on the corner of Queen Creek, just a short
distance from my house.
And this particular location was within our
planned community and it was within walking
distance of an elementary school and a junior
high school.
And I felt it was an inappropriate location
for something of that magnitude.
So, I decided to form a campaign and say,
"No Walmart in our Neighborhood".
Living as Christ has taught us, we begin to
transform the world.
This transformation is visible in the reading
that we have from Acts.
We're really trying to show why the work that
we're doing is the work of the gospel.
The lesson that we learned in Inglewould was
that we have the ability, through our democracy,
to take power.
And take control.
And actually hold the companies accountable.
As a nation in this world, the most powerful,
the most affluent -we have the power to make
sure that all have what they need.
That this is not some pie in the sky vision,
but instead -this is our call as Christians
to make this happen.
My neighbors and I went and handmade some
little posters and we decided that we were
going to have a meeting in the local park,
which was about a block from here.
We had no idea how many people would show
up.
We were absolutely amazed -and all of them
wanted to do something.
In the beginning, there was only a few of
us -not a lot of people came to the meetings,
only some supermarket workers, and a couple
of churches - remember?
And then, little by little, more people, until
they started feeling the pressure.
They wanted to build a Walmart in this whole
parking lot -it was going to be two hundred
and fifteen thousand square feet.
And there was going to be-
Walmart was going to take this whole space,
and like seventeen football fields big.
And they were going to build one big box that
was Walmart, and then little stores in between.
And then another big box with Sam's club.
We volunteer to do the various chores that
we had, and then we solicited what I call
a core committee, that was a group of people
who would be responsible for the strategy,
the press releases, it was everything that
needed to be done to organize our campaign.
So then the coalition started getting bigger
and bigger, and before you knew it -everybody
signed up, like they were part of a coalition
for a better Inglewood.
They were standing up to defend the community.
And I think the other lesson learned in Inglewood
is that there's no magic potion to suddenly
put this together and suddenly you're going
to win.
It's a hard process, there are a lot of things
that you have to put in place -but when you
put those things in place, you can win.
It includes the ability to organize regular
people -small business owners, workers.
We got our message focused, we've hammered
away on the phones, hammered away on doors,
people saw us coming and going when they went
to church.
Every time they went to a store in Inglewood,
there was a flyer about our efforts.
We held rallies.
A legal strategy enough resources to have
the research to be able to make your case.
To be able to have the materials.
It includes the ability to get your message
to the press, and to do media events.
We grew to 187 volunteers, and we had plot
captains, and we had an area chairman, we
proceeded to collect signatures on our petitions.
And we started out with fifteen hundred signatures,
and by the time we got through, we had four
thousand signatures.
And they were all from people within our -what
I call our area code.
Zip code.
Inglewood is the first test for Walmart's
ambitious plans in California, and activists
say the stakes here are huge.
This is like Godzilla eats Tokyo.
This is much bigger than David and Goliath.
All of the information that was coming from
Walmart kept saying its a done deal, there's
nothing you can do about, we have our zoning,
don't waste your time.
But we knew better.
Then, we had numerous public meetings to let
the public know what was happening, what the
status was.
It was not like they came into the small towns
in the south, or towns that have no business,
and they brought in business.
No, no no, this is something completely different.
They represent from Bentonville, Arkansas,
plantation capitalism.
The future of this community depends on our
ability to stop the monster in its tracks.
Walmart sponsored the ballot initiative after
Inglewood city council opposed building a
Walmart super center on the site.
Today, Walmart opponents charged the initiative,
measure 4A, hijacks the city's planning process.
It is seventy-one pages of legal fine print
that seeks to cut the community out of its
own development process.
What they did was essentially tell the city
of Inglewood -get out of here.
We are the biggest corporation in the world,
we can go in and essentially buy an election.
We held public meetings, we did our letters,
we held private meetings with city council
members.
We went out on the streets and doing the work
to ensure the people understood that to those
who much has been given, much will be expected.
I'm sure the Walton family believes that they're
a good, Christian family.
But I think they're going to make billions
at the expense of poor workers.
And I'm sure there's a lot of people who think
that they're good, Christian companies.
Not if they're going to make money off the
backs of the people who are suffering.
A lot of people sacrificed an awful lot to
have the freedoms that we have.
And that flag to me represents all of our
freedoms.
Our freedom to fight Walmart, our freedom
to live where we want to, work where we want
to, have a say in our government.
They can say and believe whatever they want
about y'know, trickle down theories of capital,
and whatever nonsense they want to invent,
to hold onto their capital.
But, um, that's not our option.
But as Christians we don't have that option.
That's not our option.
That we're not about capital.
That we're about people.
We came before city council for the final
vote, and the council voted six, nothing to
deny Walmart and the developer the right to
build the store on that property.
Residents of Inglewood, California, are voting
today.
On whether to approve the construction of
a new shopping development dominated by Walmart.
The other night we gathered at a local restaurant,
hoping for a miracle.
But braced to go back to court if the measure
passed.
And now, the votes were coming in on a proposed
Walmart superstore in Inglewood.
(CHEERS)
This one group of people took on a giant and
won.
I think it was really meaningful.
David Beat Goliath!
David Beat Goliath!
The 
city council 
of Monroeville, Pennsylvania handed Walmart
their hat today.
Walmart packs its bags in Cobb County, Georgia.
Community resistance paid off in Hickory,
North Carolina, Walmart hit the road.
Anti-Walmart Candidates sweep the Helotes,
Texas election.
Another trip down the long and dusty for Walmart
in Biloxi, Mississippi.
When you have a group of people, a small group
of people, who don't want you in a community
-does that mean you aren't going to go there?
Thornton, Colorado defeated Walmart.
Plainfield, Illinois.
Las Vegas, Nevada defeated Walmart.
When you have a small group of people that
don't want you in a community.
(MONTAGE)
VICTORY!
