Wal-Mart Policies Continue Alienating Workers, Pro-Family Shoppers
by Ed Thomas
November 13, 2006
(AgapePress) - - The union-backed movement "Wake-Up Wal-Mart" recently made public certain documents outlining the stores' new attendance policy, which reportedly considers employees absent for a whole day for typical scenarios like clocking in more than ten minutes late or leaving work early. Such practices have led to accusations that the retail giant is no longer employee-friendly and is trying to drive out longtime workers.
According to Associated Press, Wal-Mart spokesman John Smiley denies trying to push out workers and says the chain is only enforcing already existing policy for consistency's sake, pursuant to a better work and shopping environment. However, this move comes at a time when the corporation has changed to a higher-deductible health insurance plan and capped pay on its hourly pay grades.
Janet Baird is a former employee who has been protesting outside her local Wal-Mart stores because of the corporation's affiliation with a homosexual chamber of commerce group. She says she is not surprised at this latest flap concerning the attendance policy, and that the corporate officials are "really making it almost impossible" for many workers to keep their jobs.
Baird says store officials at one time told her and other employees that "if you had certain availability ... it had to be open availability -- you had to be able to work whatever they wanted you to work." Although this inconvenienced many workers, she says management was fairly inflexible.
"So they got rid of a lot of people that way," the former Wal-Mart employee adds. "And they are trying to get rid of the elderly people," she says.
The publicity over the attendance policy only adds to the image and business problems Wal-Mart is facing as it tries to reverse overall sales figures that Bloomberg News reports as the company's worst in ten years. Meanwhile, conservative Christian organizations are contacting supporters to urge them to boycott the chain over Thanksgiving weekend in protest of Wal-Mart's offer to pay a commission to a small, non-profit homosexual organization for sending buyers the retailer's way.
American Family Association (AFA) chairman Don Wildmon is applauding Wal-Mart's recent decision to "put Christmas back into the holidays" but, at the same time, he is alerting the company that its decision to continue supporting the homosexual agenda will prove costly. Wal-Mart has come under fire for its promotion of the homosexual activist agenda, especially after the company became a member of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.
Wildmon says AFA has sent out three million e-mails urging its pro-family supporters to avoid the retail giant during the biggest retail weekend of the year. Operation Rescue, a Kansas-based pro-life and pro-family group, has also called for a Thanksgiving boycott of the chain.
"Wal-Mart should remember that the majority of people in this country do not support things like same-sex 'marriage' and don't want the company giving money to groups that do support it," Wildmon asserts. "Shopping at retailers other than Wal-Mart might remind the company of that," he says.
Ed Thomas, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporters for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
