Walmart has told the SEC that it expects to have poor numbers this fiscal quarter due to bribery investigations the company is facing. While primarily related to the bribery probe in Mexico, Walmart is under investigation in multiple countries for corruption practices. Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) said it is ‘probable’ that the world’s largest retailer will [...]

Here are a couple little snowflakes from the legacy of the Affordable Care Act. You might remember that the one staffer Max Baucus personally thanked on the floor of the Senate for her work on the bill was Liz Fowler, the former WellPoint VP. From there, she went to work at the Department of Haelth [...]

Bangladesh’s government has arrested three supervisors of the factory that saw a deadly fire that killed over 100 garment workers. The factory made products for Walmart, the Disney Company, Sean “P.Diddy” Combs’ clothing line and other US retailers.

I briefly mentioned the implications of the Walmart supply chain, and how the insistence of keeping prices low has wide-ranging impacts across the globe. Apparently some of those impacts are completely tragic. A day after shoppers searched for bargains and some workers protested during Black Friday, a garment factory fire in Bangladesh killed hundreds. The [...]

Walmart workers staged their historic strike on Black Friday. Management tried to downplay it, and given how massive Walmart is, the relative strength of the strike was small in real terms compared to the company’s 1.4 million workers. But it would be silly to just leave it at that without the context of the company [...]

We can now see why the imminent Walmart strikes on Black Friday have spooked the company. They have engaged in a two-prong PR strategy, dismissing the strikes as being carried out by a small faction of its 1.4 million associates, while also seeking National Labor Relations Board reliefto block the strikes as illegal union-based activity. [...]

Walmart, trying to change the subject in advance of protests and strikes at the outset of the holiday shopping season, has filed an unfair labor practice charge against the United Food and Commercial Workers union, arguing that UFCW is illegally attempting to disrupt its business. A non-union coalition of Walmart workers called OUR Walmart has [...]

The historic Walmart worker strikes over the past couple months built energy toward an even bigger culmination. Walmart workers, protesting low wages, erratic hours, lack of health benefits, and most importantly disrespect in the workplace, decided to speak their grievances in a series of worker-led actions. Walmart responded with retaliation, including firings, reductions of hours, [...]

After consolidating the financial sector rather than seeing it broken up over the last few years, Wall Street actually faces competition, in the form of big box retailers. On a recent shopping trip to Costco, Lilly Neubauer picked up paper towels, lentils, carrots — and a home mortgage. While Ms. Neubauer, 27, said she was [...]

Temporary workers at Walmart filed a class action lawsuit against the company and two staffing agencies yesterday, arguing that the retailer forced the temps to work longer hours without a lunch break. The suit alleges violations of federal minimum wage and overtime laws. The lawsuit is a class action, but because it’s tied specifically to [...]

Bryce Covert has a helpful primer for why we should pay attention to these wildcat strikes carried out by a non-union coalition of Walmart associates. It does threaten to upend the status quo for labor relations in an age that heralds a rising service sector and weakened union density. While not a union making formal [...]