Aug 01, 2008 07:30PM GMT
Question
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Money - Investments
Walmart Uses Scare Tactics to Warn Employees of a Democratic Win. Is this right?
Wal-Mart Inc. is telling its employees to vote against the Democratic party and their own self-interest in November, using fear and scare tactics. This from a company that took out life insurance policies on its workers, so it could benefit if they died.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/01/wal-mart-warns-worke...
UPDATE: Wal-Mart has issued a statement regarding The Wall Street Journal article outlining how it's warning employees to beware of voting for Democrats. AP has the details. The Wall Street Journal article is excerpted below this excerpt from AP:
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, denied a report Friday that it had pressured employees to vote against Democrats in November because of worries that a bill the party supports would make it easier for workers to unionize.
The measure, called the Employee Free Choice Act, would allow labor organizations to unionize workplaces without secret ballot elections. It was co-sponsored by Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic presidential candidate, and opposed by John McCain, the presumed Republican nominee.
The original report from The Wall Street Journal:
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they'll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies -- including Wal-Mart.
In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized.
According to about a dozen Wal-Mart employees who attended such meetings in seven states, Wal-Mart executives claim that employees at unionized stores would have to pay hefty union dues while getting nothing in return, and may have to go on strike without compensation. Also, unionization could mean fewer jobs as labor costs rise ...
The Wal-Mart human-resources managers who run the meetings don't specifically tell attendees how to vote in November's election, but make it clear that voting for Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama would be tantamount to inviting unions in, according to Wal-Mart employees who attended gatherings in Maryland, Missouri and other states.
"The meeting leader said, 'I am not telling you how to vote, but if the Democrats win, this bill will pass and you won't have a vote on whether you want a union,'" said a Wal-Mart customer-service supervisor from Missouri. "I am not a stupid person. They were telling me how to vote," she said.
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raves +1 posted Oct 29, 2008 05:51PM GMT
Answered None of the above
Obama has said the Free Trade Agreement with China (and others) will need to be renegotiated to 'level the playing field' for American business, so that American companies won't be competeing with countries that have no EPA, minimum wage, etc.
It means we'll be able to start making things again, instead of just buying them. The wealth stays in the US instead of being shipped overseas.
Wal-Mart is a 'China Outlet', they make their money selling you stuff for $1 that costs them $.03. Wonder why Wal-Mart doesn't want Obama. They want "Mr. Free Trade".
And if they get unions, they may be forced to treat their employees like human beings. Perish the thought. -
raves +1 posted Aug 13, 2008 10:06PM GMT
Answered Employers have no right telling their employees how to vote.
I have a long-standing boycott of Walmart. This position of theirs re-enforces that boycott. Walmart is interested in profit not people. Sorry that my opinions are so strong on this point (I know lots of Walmart shoppers are out there). We don't have to agree all the time; we just have to dialogue. -
raves +2 posted Aug 10, 2008 10:33PM GMT
Answered Employers have no right telling their employees how to vote.
This is disgusting and come the revolution Wal Mart owners will first against the wall of liberty. Joking aside this is anti-democratic in the true sense of the word. Your vote is yours to do with as you like. Fascism in a grocery store. Next they will have their employees walking up and down the aisles in shiny black boots and black/brown uniforms wearing silly moustaches. Dont they realise thousands of Americans died so that people could have a free vote. Shame on you Wal Mart. -
raves +1 posted Aug 10, 2008 02:15AM GMT (edited)
Answered Employers have no right telling their employees how to vote.
Good Ole China Mart....what would you expect from people who are multi
billionaires. Sam Walton was worth 46 BILLION dollars when he died. I really feel for his children. 6.2 billion, 4.5 billion etc. inheritance. I guess
that isn't enough money.......MORE MORE MORE....Screw the employee. Employers have way too much power...BYE BYE MIDDLE CLASS -
raves Aug 10, 2008 05:51PM GMTThat's great, BUT he did get extremely rich being a humanitarian. Why
wasn't he more generous with his money to his employees while he
was alive? He could have paid them more per hour, provided free health care (Wal-Mart has one of the worst health insurance plans), offered employee pension plans, etc. 46 BILLION is just too much
money for any one person to have. Bill Gates is another great example
of Mr. nice guy while screwing the world with his half stolen software and never ending changes that make older software obsolete. I guess he
doesn't have enough money either. Microsoft Works isn't compatible
with Word, yet, Works comes with all of MIcrosoft based computers.
That's just one example of Bill Gates being nice. -
raves Aug 09, 2008 02:48PM GMT (edited)I don't make bullshit claims; I can always back up what I say. Do you work for Walmart?
http://www.freerepublic.com/f...
Profiting from death? Lawsuit filed in Wal-Mart life insurance case Houston Chronicle ^ | April 15, 2002 | L.M. SIXEL
Posted on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 6:15:37 AM by ValerieUSA
Jane Sims always knew her husband was a valuable employee to Wal-Mart. She just didn't know how valuable. Sims discovered recently that Wal-Mart, the company her husband, Douglas, worked for before he died, had taken out a life insurance policy in his name. When Douglas Sims died in 1998 of a sudden heart attack, Wal-Mart received about $64,000. She got nothing from that policy.
"I never dreamed that they could profit from my husband's death," said Sims, whose husband worked in receiving at Wal-Mart's distribution center in Plainview for 11 years.
Companies routinely take out secret life insurance policies on the lives of their low-level employees and collect thousands of dollars when they die. The families never know the policies are in place and typically receive none of the money.
The policies are called corporate-owned life insurance policies or COLIs for short. But they're better known in the insurance industry as "dead peasant" and "dead janitor" policies.
Here's another ...I don't make bullshit claims; I can always back up what I say. Do you work for Walmart?
http://www.freerepublic.com/f...
Profiting from death? Lawsuit filed in Wal-Mart life insurance case Houston Chronicle ^ | April 15, 2002 | L.M. SIXEL
Posted on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 6:15:37 AM by ValerieUSA
Jane Sims always knew her husband was a valuable employee to Wal-Mart. She just didn't know how valuable. Sims discovered recently that Wal-Mart, the company her husband, Douglas, worked for before he died, had taken out a life insurance policy in his name. When Douglas Sims died in 1998 of a sudden heart attack, Wal-Mart received about $64,000. She got nothing from that policy.
"I never dreamed that they could profit from my husband's death," said Sims, whose husband worked in receiving at Wal-Mart's distribution center in Plainview for 11 years.
Companies routinely take out secret life insurance policies on the lives of their low-level employees and collect thousands of dollars when they die. The families never know the policies are in place and typically receive none of the money.
The policies are called corporate-owned life insurance policies or COLIs for short. But they're better known in the insurance industry as "dead peasant" and "dead janitor" policies.
Here's another one:
Husband files 'dead peasant' suit against Wal-Mart for collecting insurance in spouse's death. According to several lawsuits, Wal-Mart has taken life insurance policies out on "rank and file" employees without their consent.
By Emanuella Grinberg
Court TV
When Karen Armatrout died of cancer in 1997, her husband, Richard, collected a modest amount in life insurance benefits from her employer, Wal-Mart.
But Armatrout claims that, unbeknownst to him, Wal-Mart also collected on a life insurance policy, one the company took out on Karen Armatrout years before without her knowledge.
This week, Armatrout filed a class-action complaint seeking what his lawyers estimate might be $80,000 in benefits that Wal-Mart supposedly collected "in bad faith" on a corporate-owned life insurance policy.
Armatrout's "dead peasant" suit, filed Wednesday in Tampa, Fla.'s U.S. District Court, accuses Wal-Mart of making money off her death without having a valid claim to her estate.
Typically, such a stake, known as an "insurable interest," is reserved for individuals so closely connected to the person insured that he or she would suffer significant financial damage if the person died.
Story continues
The complaint also charges that the Arkansas-based corporation misappropriated Karen Armatrout's name and personal information for the purposes of taking out the policy.
"Wal-Mart and the insurers used employees' private information to buy and sell policies," Armatrout's Texas attorney, Mike D. Myers, told CourtTVnews.com. "As matter of public policy, Wal-Mart should not be permitted to keep the policy's benefits because it did not have the necessary insurable interest in the lives of its rank-and-file employees to warrant being a beneficiary."
From 1993 to 1998, Wal-Mart was not alone in reaping the tax benefits associated with corporate-owned life insurance, which came to be known by critics as "dead peasant" insurance, based on a character in Nikolai Gogol's "Dead Souls" who buys up the contracts of recently deceased serfs.
Lawyers for Armatrout, who say that Wal-Mart took out such policies on 350,000 "rank and file" employees like Karen Armatrout during that time, have also participated in lawsuits against Golden Corral, Winn Dixie and Camelot Music.
The attorneys, who have brought three identical lawsuits against Wal-Mart in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, say the company made use of favorable tax regulations in Georgia, which allowed the company to take out corporate-owned life insurance policies without the employees' knowledge.
Wal-Mart settled the suits in Texas and Oklahoma, where the company paid back 100 percent of the benefits, amounting to just over $5 million.
Along with Armatrout's case in Florida, another suit is pending in Louisiana.
In the previous cases, Wal-Mart attempted to argue that Georgia law applied because that was where the policies were purchased and paid out. But the courts found that the proper venue for deciding whether Wal-Mart had an insurable interest was the deceased's state of residence.
Only six states, Delaware, Georgia, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Vermont, allow companies to take out life insurance policies on their employees without notifying them. Most states have laws requiring that companies advise their employees and seek their consent before purchasing the policies.
Myers says he is hopeful that the precedents set in the other cases bode well for the Florida case, where he is seeking class-action certification for an estimated 80 plaintiffs in addition to Armatrout.
"I'd rather be where we are now rather than after losing three in a row," Myers said.
Representatives for Wal-Mart did not return calls for comment.(less) -
raves Aug 09, 2008 09:41PM GMTHave you googled Walmart life insurance yet Ruby? Did you see where there's a class action suit against them for insuring their employees but not giving any of the money to their families? Did you see how many states and how many Walmarts are involved in this practice?
I'm still waiting for my apology about this being "hateful, bais media spew!" -
raves +1 Aug 10, 2008 10:40PM GMTRuby Murray you could be right,but is it time for unions to return. Thatcher got rid of our lot. Unfortunately I would have to admit they asked for it. They had gone off the track. Now people in the work place are treated abominably. Fairness is a nice concept but it only exists in fantasy land. If we all behaved like the rich there would only be one man left standing.
And he would no longer be rich because you need poor people to know that you are rich. -
raves -1 Aug 05, 2008 02:01PM GMT (edited)And here's something Wal-Mart can't tell you because even Wal-Mart doesn't know how bad it can get once the Democrats and their unions get into a retail business:
Once the union intimidates and lies to enough employees to get a majority to sign authorization cards, you will no longer be working for Wal-Mart in the eyes of the union...instead, you will be working FOR THE UNION! Wal-Mart will still pay you, but the union will call the shots, and these are two of the things they have ALREADY done in other stores where they have taken over:
FIRST, THE UNION CAN DEMAND THAT WAL-MART MUST FIRE YOU. Why would the union do that? If there's a hospital or a school or some other place on strike in your area, the union can conscript you for picket duty even though you don't work there. If you refuse to go out and picket all hours of the day or night, the union will trump up some charge against you and demand that Wal-Mart fire you on the spot.
SECOND, the unions are full of gender-bender-type people. I personally know that one of the organizers assigned to a group of unionized stores dressed up like a woman, but was really a man. He/she came into the stores, picked an employee he/she "liked", and demanded that the manager give them time in the backroom for a "caucus", where th...And here's something Wal-Mart can't tell you because even Wal-Mart doesn't know how bad it can get once the Democrats and their unions get into a retail business:
Once the union intimidates and lies to enough employees to get a majority to sign authorization cards, you will no longer be working for Wal-Mart in the eyes of the union...instead, you will be working FOR THE UNION! Wal-Mart will still pay you, but the union will call the shots, and these are two of the things they have ALREADY done in other stores where they have taken over:
FIRST, THE UNION CAN DEMAND THAT WAL-MART MUST FIRE YOU. Why would the union do that? If there's a hospital or a school or some other place on strike in your area, the union can conscript you for picket duty even though you don't work there. If you refuse to go out and picket all hours of the day or night, the union will trump up some charge against you and demand that Wal-Mart fire you on the spot.
SECOND, the unions are full of gender-bender-type people. I personally know that one of the organizers assigned to a group of unionized stores dressed up like a woman, but was really a man. He/she came into the stores, picked an employee he/she "liked", and demanded that the manager give them time in the backroom for a "caucus", where the worker was urged to participate in sex! Remember, Wal-Mart managers cannot get away with doing these things because they are illegal, but THE UNIONS ARE NOT SUBJECT TO SEXUAL-HARRASSMENT LAWS. Remember, Democrats wrote all these laws, and they made themselves exempt.(less) -
raves +1 -1 posted
Answered Unions endorse and recommend candidates. Why can't Walmart?
That's b/c Wal Mart uses scare tactics to prevent it's employees from forming unions as well.. watch the documentary The High Cost of Low Prices.. it explains many troubling things about Wal Mart..