As Walmart prepares for its shareholder meeting next Friday, June 1, several members of the Walmart 1 Percent were confronted this week by Walmart workers and their allies. Members of the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart) visited Walmart US CEO Bill Simon, Walmart Board Member Michele Burns, and Walmart Board Nominee Marissa Mayer.
Michele Burns faces crowds and tough questions
(Photo via ALIGN NY)
Walmart board member Michele Burns spent the day in Jersey City, NJ, at the Goldman Sachs annual meeting. Burns, no stranger to controversy, is on the boards of both of these scandal-ridden companies. She served on the Walmart board’s audit committee in 2005 and 2006, when the company was reportedly grappling with knowledge of the bribery scandal in Mexico. Last week, proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis recommended that shareholders vote against seven of Walmart’s board members, including Michele Burns, at the company’s annual meeting June 1.
So it’s no surprise that Burns was greeted by community members, including ALIGN NY, concerned about Walmart’s practices outside Goldman’s meeting today.
Inside, Burns faced tough questions about her roles at Goldman and Walmart. The New York Times reports:
Several shareholders spoke, objecting to Goldman’s decision to have Michele Burns lead the board’s audit committee. One shareholder pointed out that she was on Wal-Mart’s audit committee in 2005 and 2006, when the retailer is said to have bribed officials in Mexico. He said having her lead Goldman’s audit committee “sends the wrong message to shareholders.”
Marissa Mayer invited to hang out with Walmart Associates
(Photo via Walmart Free NYC)
Newly nominated Walmart Board member Marissa Mayer also had a visit Wednesday from Walmart workers and allies on Wednesday. OUR Walmart members delivered a cake to Ms. Mayer, along with an invitation, asking her to join a Google+ Hangout.
The invitation read, in part:
@MarissaMayer
Check your hair and make sure your mic works! Walmart associates want to hang out!
Walmart associates with Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart – forrespect.org) are excited to learn about your nomination to Walmart’s Board of Directors. As an executive at Google, your company has been called the best company to work for in America. Now, that’s decidedly “not evil.”
When you join Walmart’s BOD, you’ll find yourself overseeing a company with a very different – and less appealing – work culture. (Seriously, Google it.) We’d like to hang out and discuss our ideas for how you can help Walmart create the type of positive work environment you created at Google – a workplace culture that respects and values associates…
We’re working hard to make Walmart a better company and a better employer. We know that your likely election to the Board of Directors will signal a new moment for the company – one in which our voices as workers, consumers and communities can be truly heard and one in which real accountability and oversight become more than buzzwords.
What better way for us to meet you and to exchange ideas than a Google+ Hangout?! We look forward to hanging out soon.
More tough questions in Boston
Finally, Walmart US CEO Bill Simon spoke at a Morgan Stanley sponsored investor conference on Wednesday in Boston. Although company security was quick to usher her out, an activist at Making Change at Walmart was able to get a question out to Mr. Simon. Her question:
In the wake of the Mexico bribery allegations, recent statements by major pension funds and investor advisory services seem to signal an emerging crisis of con¬fidence in the current leadership of Walmart. In addition, the company’s recent disclosures suggest that corruption problems may extend beyond Mexico.
How can you assure shareholders that Walmart will conduct an adequate internal investigation, given apparent conflicts of interest on the present Board:
1)The current and prior CEO, both of whom sit on the Board, have been implicated in the scandal?
2) Other current Board members were on the Audit Committee in 2005 and 2006 when the scandal came to light internally.
3) Two other current Board members are related to the Chairman?
It’s been a busy week! With lots more to come in the weeks and months ahead.
I’m a FORMER shareholder of Wal Mart. I owned Wal Mart Stock in the 80′s and made a little money on the stock when I sold it in 89 after it crashed from $36 to $21 during Reagan’s 87 market crash. When the stock was above break even, about 3 years after the crash, I got out. My broker talked me into buying back in in 2001, right after “W” Bush became President. I “loaned” Wal Mart $56,000 when I bought 1,000 shares at $56 per share in 2001 and after the market recovered from Bush’s second crash about 3 months into Obama’s administration, I dumped my stock at a gain of about 50 cents per share after holding it for 8 years- a pathetic return which didn’t come near covering the loss in value due to inflation. But I wouldn’t buy Wal Mart stock again if I KNEW the stock would double in a year, because I believe the company is the poster child for what is wrong with this country today. Wal Mart is inherently a greedy, callous, uncaring company which has destroyed thousands of communities’ business districts , sales tax base, and millions of better jobs than those they “created” when they hired workers and paid them minimum wage with virtually no benefits. When the culture demanded that vendors move production to China, Wal Mart became a true “Benedict Arnold” corporation as far as I’m concerned. They have done more than any other company to destroy America’s middle class and have often placed a huge amount of strain on their own employees who don’t make enough money to shop at the “discount store.” Much of the merchandise is absolute junk, but Wal Mart management DOES NOT CARE. For example, I bought a Char Broil “commercial rated stainless steel” gas grill about 4 years ago for $250. Within months, the “porcelain on steel” grates started flaking off glass chunks and then steel into the food. The “stainless steel” hood and doors began rusting within 90 days. Wal Mart told me to contact the company, and the company claimed that this was normal and not to worry. They said on their website that the porcelain from the grates was harmless if you ingested it. Porcelain is ground liquefied glass. The entire interior is rusting everywhere. The grates broke in half after rusting through. The “flame spreaders” which cover the burners completely disintegrated, along with the tubes which spread the gas from burner to burner, which makes the grill a dangerous BOMB. I was burned a few days ago when the gas had built up which didn’t ignite and ignited when I opened the hood.
This is just a typical experience I’ve had with any appliance or electronics item. Wal Mart is the closest grocery to my house, but I rarely shop there anymore. I’ve found that perishable items such as milk, cheese, yogurt, etc, as well as fresh meats will go bad in a very short time, . well before the expiration date. my nephew was a warehouse supervisor for Wal Mart and he won’t buy anything perishable there anymore. He said that the company is so stingy that they don’t want the store stocked during the day because it takes workers much longer when customers are in the store. As a result, he said, perishables are often left in hot warehouses all day long with no refrigeration. Wal Mart KNOWS their foods will spoil sooner if not refrigerated, but they do not care. If I were on a city council, and Wal Mart wanted to open in my city, I would fight them till my last breath.
Hello, I worked at the walmart in Exton, Pa. for nearly 10-years. I always had great reviews and got many notices of excellent customer service and everything was going fine, Then we got a new store manager who was severely verbally abusive to many employees, myself, and even a mentally handicapped female employee who he would bash until she was hysterically crying and couldn’t even continue working. Other employees told me they were afraid they would be fired if they report it, and said that i would also be fired if i report it. I told them, this is America, not some degenerate country. We have rights and laws to protect us from that and we cannot be fired for reporting wrongdoing in the workplace. They said everybody knows that walmart controls the legal system, politicians and everything with its lawyers and money. They break the law all the time and pride themselves on being able to get away with it, They will fire you if you report any wrongdoing. I thought these beliefs to be very sad, shameful,pitiful, and unAmerican. In an attempt to secure a decent, reasonable workplace for my fellow employees and I, I started reporting the abusive manager and sure enough, he began making negative comments to me about reporting him and fired me. At that point i went to the NLRB and they filed a charge on walmart. Walmart obviously knew they were in trouble facing that charge, so they reinstated my job in exchange for dropping the charge, but then when i returned to work i was consistently subjected to much retaliation and fired twice more in a relatively short period of time do to lies being told by the same district manager who was in charge and ignored all my reports about the abusive store manager. The first subsequent firing i was able to prove was completely false and have overturned, and i then i filed another complaint with the NLRB concerning the illegal retaliation i was being subjected to since returning to work. After filing that complaint i was fired again the very next day upon showing up for work. and i am still trying to get some help with this one. I am not a kid trying to get a few extra bucks at walmart. This was my career. I was a very dedicated, loyal, hardworking employee who many people used to ask why i work so hard and care so much about my job. I am 46 years old, i have lost 10-years of my life i had invested in that company which i can never get back, and now i will surely never be able to retire in my lifetime, all due to being the one to do the right thing, put my trust and faith in our once great American system, and stand up for the right of my fellow employees and i to have a decent and reasonable workplace and report the widespread severe verbal abuse that was going on in our store. When i went back to the NLRB to report the obviously retaliatory firing, they seemed like they were going to help me, but then told me that the walmart lawyer had contacted them and they no longer want to pursue the case. when i attempted to file a complaint about the obviously retaliatory illegal firing the NLRB very suspiciously dismissed it based on a bunch of false information and even slanderous, defamotory lies told to them by walmart which the NLRB had no problem recklessly printing in a government file. I even have a response letter i received to my letter to CEO Mike Duke which i wrote asking for help when i was fired after reporting a managers abuse of employees including a mentally handicapped female. The response i got was a threat of legal action against me. This company is absolutely evil, reprehensible, totally void of anything like a moral conscience or integrity. Some things i know about from working there for nearly 10-years and having dealings with home office executives, i can’t even write here. Believe me, they try very hard to present themselves as something completely different than what they really are. If you truly knew, as i do, the the remarkable depth of imorality and downright evilness that this company operates under as common practice without any sign of discernment, or even flinching an eyebrow, you would think that the devil himself has got to be in the mix. If you would like to help me in my very difficult and expensive legal struggle, and help to support taking a stand, and making a statement against employee abuse, corruption, and the stripping of even the most basic constitutional civil rights that is now occurring in our once great country, it would be greatly appreciated. As long as this type of thing is allowed to go on in America we are in a state of deterioration of everything that this country is supposed to stand for. Thank You, God bless You, and God bless America. Sincerely, Robert Snodgrass, 715 Taylor rd, Downingtown Pa. 19335 snod307@hotmail.com 484-252-9596 p.s. As far as the Mexican bribery cover-up scandal goes. I pesonally have friends who own succesful businesses in foriegn countries where bribery and pay offs are common. When i asked my friend about starting a business in Thailand, the first most important thing he told me, long before this walmart stuff got exposed, is never get involved in bribery and payoffs. Not so much because its illegal, but because its not proper business, its unethical, its wrong and it very imoral. if walmart had any morals at all they would never had bribed or especially executed a company wide corruption and cover up scheme all the way to the top officials and CEO himself.