Bribing government officials
The New York Times revealed last year that Wal-Mart had bribed Mexican
officials. Wal-Mart’s management insisted it had no knowledge of the
bribes, but internal e-mails demonstrated that CEO Mike
Duke had known about the situation since 2005. That prompted the American justice department
to open up an investigation into bribery. Despite overwhelming evidence, an earlier enquiry into that
behaviour was halted in 2006.
The result of the new enquiry is that Duke will now be fired as CEO and McMillon will take his
place. He started out his Wal-Mart
career as an intern in 1984, working his way to the top ever since.
Forced to work on Thanksgiving
Wal-Mart is also in the eye of the storm concerning alleged malpractices because it allegedly forced its employees to work on Thanksgiving. An increasing amount of American stores opens for
Thanksgiving, but unlike other companies, Wal-Mart incorporates Thanksgiving as a
regular working day, forcing employees to show up.
Questions have also been raised as to how Wal-Mart calculates the additional
wages for holiday work. Other companies multiply wages by 1.5, but Wal-Mart hands
out an additional day’s worth of wages, based on the average amount of hours
that people worked in a certain period prior to Thanksgiving.
Employees have now revealed they were asked to work fewer hours in
that timeframe, resulting in fewer extras for their work during Thanksgiving. Wal-Mart
categorically denies these allegations. Our WalMart, an organization of Wal-Mart employees, has already stated that
they will be protesting at 1,500 Wal-Mart stores this Friday,
Black Friday.
(translated by Gary Peeters)
