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Walmart Fined $82 million for Waste Disposal
Walmart has just been landed with a hefty $81.6-million fine for dumping waste in both California and Missouri.
The investigation has been on-going now for almost ten years. Walmart has admitted that they dumped pollutants into drains in California and Missouri, as well as throwing toxic waste into trash bins rather than paying to have it treated and dealt with properly.
The incidents for which Walmart has been ordered to pay the hefty fine are only for the period between 2003 and 2005 and the company has insisted that their practices in waste treatment have now completely changed. The case was only brought to the courts when a Health Official in California accidentally came across a Walmart employee dumping bleach into the drainage system of the city. Walmart was also ordered to pay a $27-million fine in 2010 for a very similar case. At the time, they retorted that it was the national system of waste disposal that needed to be completely changed.
Wal-Mart is already receiving bad press in the USA for labor relations and overseas supply chain working conditions. The stores have seen a series of strikes by workers over pay conditions, low wages and bad working conditions. Workers walked out and went on strike on Tuesday in stores across states (California, Florida and Massachusetts). Some of those workers have also promised that they will stay on strike until the annual general meeting takes place on June 7th. The overseas operations of Walmart have been strongly condemned also (especially in the wake of the recent Bangladeshi textile factory disaster) for failing to agree to join forces with other large producers in the US to tighten regulations in overseas operations and ensure that regulations concerning safety are strictly enforced.
There are only about one hundred employees that are striking at the moment but it’s enough to worsen the already bad publicity that Walmart is receiving from the public. Most of the strikes that have taken place at regular intervals over the past few weeks have been short-lived affairs, but a spokesman for employees at Walmart stated that they needed “to turn it up a notch” in order to get heard. This time it is much more than just striking against low ages and bad working conditions that is at stake, employees are accusing Walmart of worker harassment and using intimidation tactics and retaliation to stop them complaining.
Striking staff cite one employee as an example: Carlton Smith, who was dismissed from his 17-year position at Walmart in Paramount, California after having organized workers that resulted in strike action. Walmart has denied the accusations, but a complaint has been lodged with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). There are other charges too. Employees began a national ‘Ride for Respect’ bus tour around Wal-Mart Stores across the country, culminating in a demonstration at the Bentonville, Arkansas store on June 7th, when the shareholders’ meeting will take place. They will be on strike for over ten days and they believe that this will give the necessary impetus to their strike cause.
Walmart is the largest grocery retailer in the USA. It has over 63% of the share of the market on average, which is worth $258 billion in sales. It is set up in 15 countries around the world and there are over 8, 500 stores today. Its total revenue for 2013 was up at more than $469 billion. There are more than 2 million employees working for Walmart worldwide. It has been a public company since 1972. Shares at the close of business yesterday stood at $77.32 and that was an increase of +0.01%.
Originally posted http://www.tothetick.com/walmart-fined-82-million-for-waste-disposal
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Off topic but interesting aside to the IRS scandal. We got a tax agency doing shakedowns to foward the agenda here while helping connected companies attack their competition.
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/052313-657569-gibson-guitar-rai...
IRS Scandal: The inexplicable raid nearly two years ago on a guitar maker for using allegedly illegal wood that its competitors also used was another targeting by this administration of its political enemies.
On Aug. 24, 2011, federal agents executed four search warrants on Gibson Guitar Corp. facilities in Nashville and Memphis, Tenn., and seized several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. One of the top makers of acoustic and electric guitars, including the iconic Les Paul introduced in 1952, Gibson was accused of using wood illegally obtained in violation of the century-old Lacey Act, which outlaws trafficking in flora and fauna the harvesting of which had broken foreign laws.
In one raid, the feds hauled away ebony fingerboards, alleging they violated Madagascar law. Gibson responded by obtaining the sworn word of the African island's government that no law had been broken.
In another raid, the feds found materials imported from India, claiming they too moved across the globe in violation of Indian law. Gibson's response was that the feds had simply misinterpreted Indian law.
Interestingly, one of Gibson's leading competitors is C.F. Martin & Co. According to C.F. Martin's catalog, several of their guitars contain "East Indian Rosewood," which is the exact same wood in at least 10 of Gibson's guitars. So why were they not also raided and their inventory of foreign wood seized?
Grossly underreported at the time was the fact that Gibson's chief executive, Henry Juszkiewicz, contributed to Republican politicians. Recent donations have included $2,000 to Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and $1,500 to Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.
By contrast, Chris Martin IV, the Martin & Co. CEO, is a long-time Democratic supporter, with $35,400 in contributions to Democratic candidates and the Democratic National Committee over the past couple of election cycles.
"We feel that Gibson was inappropriately targeted," Juszkiewicz said at the time, adding the matter "could have been addressed with a simple contact (from) a caring human being representing the government. Instead, the government used violent and hostile means."
That includes what Gibson described as "two hostile raids on its factories by agents carrying weapons and attired in SWAT gear where employees were forced out of the premises, production was shut down, goods were seized as contraband and threats were made that would have forced the business to close."
Gibson, fearing a bankrupting legal battle, settled and agreed to pay a $300,000 penalty to the U.S. Government. It also agreed to make a "community service payment" of $50,000 to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation — to be used on research projects or tree-conservation activities.
Consumption must not be slowed!
Most of the stuff in WalMart is disposable cheap crap from China.
Imagine the tons upon tons of shit bought last year that is headed to the dump right now.
Astounding.
"Walmart, the unauthorized Socialist labor exploiters"
How dare they exploit labor without paying a party toll.
everybody that has municipal trash service or a washing machine that does whites is guilty of the same crime
So????? When I do my laundry (my whites) and I add bleach, I am supposed to extract the bleach before sending the grey water on its way?
This smacks of something screwy. My guess is that it is just a way for WMT to give .gov some extra $$$. They are probably too limited in ordinary campaign finance. too paranoid? Maybe Sebelius tried for a 'donation' first but they settled on this.
"California accidentally came across a Walmart employee dumping bleach into the drainage system of the city"
"you mean the stuff that come out the toilet"
oooh, chlorinating the storm water are we? it should balance out the phosphates from the fertilizer.
Reminds me of the old days when we used MEK to clean circuit boards... poured it down the drain too. Now where did my last brain cell go?
Wally World would rather pay the fine, screw the worker, and sell you cheap chinese crap! But they do occasionally have lead to purchase.
Truth be known most business does the same thing. I am glad Wal Mart got fined . But go hit your industrail districts and it is rampant.
"I don't always dump toxic waste, but when I do, I dump in California and Missouri."
"...Striking staff cite one employee as an example: Carlton Smith, who was dismissed from his 17-year position at Walmart in Paramount, California after having organized workers that resulted in strike action...."
Maybe they should have promoted Carlton into a job that he couldn't do and then fired him two years later for incompetence.
That's how it was done in the past.
This is inflationary.
I have to admit that I wander the WM asiles looking at the clearance stuff. Sometimes you can get some rather good bargins on things that they finally, actually, decide are clearnance (instead of 10-20% off and touting that as clearance)
I try to shop around, if you have coupons and watch the ads, you can get some pretty good deals at regular grocery stores which I try to patronize rather than let it get sucked in an WM.
"WM asiles" @ earnulf "asiles" is French for 'asylums'
Who cares. I get my underware from Kmart. I confess though, I get my Windmachine fans from Walmart. What are your thoughts Rainman?
"Walmart is the largest grocery retailer in the USA. It has over 63% of the share of the market on average"
let me guess: a sign of a healthy, sound market when one company has this kind of market share? a consequence of the call for "free" markets?
in a different age there was a name for this: trust. and their owners were called robber barons
meanwhile I often find that our American Cousins posting comments on ZH don't even know what anti-trust laws were, but are generally against every kind of market regulation
note how these fines would sink every middling company while MegaCorps can only laugh about them
well said. it reminds me of those "crippling" bank penalties the big boys pay.
add in kroger and the two would surely have over 80% right.
cue Patrick the starfish "I sense no danger" "it's free cheese!"
Fat finger
There's a difference though. People choose to shop there.
Sam Walton built his business on lower prices and sourcing American made products to sell and it was a sucessful model. Now it has morphed into a vendor and employee killer but any town that is big enough to have a Walmart also will have at least 5 grocery stores within a 2 mile radius and most of those stores will have lower prices than Walmart.
People apparently like grocery shopping in a place where they can also buy a lawnmower too. I think they get habituated to Walmart because they'll save a few bucks on a lawnmower but give them right back plus more at the grocery side.
Brilliant effort by the scum, sorry homeland waste disposal security, of the US Govt
i don't suppose companies are tempted to dump waste because of public-private monoplies of waste disposal have lifted prices through the sky ....otherwise known as an extortion racket in better society
who's going to pay for Walmarts fine ultimately i wonder
price of baked beans up 5 Cents today I see
this is so f'n brilliant, the world put to rights by Govt, the real problem of the waste business (racket) has been solved
"Yo Vinnie...Explain to dis guy that dumping is expensive because we got the...um, a family to feed too."
watched one of those truly crap blatant propaganda pieces CNBC calls overly-generously and very delusionally 'documentaries' a few years ago, before I got bored stiff and switched off the TV forever, and f me, the New York Teamsters dump truck men are earning $58,000.00 plus bonuses on top a year... Limo drivers earn half that!!!
I wouldn't argue with the clearly sitting pretty cat-got-the-cream dribbling out of his mouth dumper truck guy though, he was in rude good health bristling beef from lots of time in the gym after lifting bins for only a few hours a day... he could afford the very latest most exotic steroids too from his lush wage packet
used to be waste was absolutely free for New Yorkers, the free market took care of it, there's money in dirt ...now there's extortion, one of the thousands of public-private monopolist rackets that hangs off Govt at local and national State level that prices waste higher per ib than the new item in its original wrapping ...genius!
fiat?
I hardly ever dump my waste in WalMart anymore. Not for years.
An employee dumping bleach? Is this a joke? This is a complete scam to punish a company for complete bullshit in order to threaten and intimidate Walmart into caving to the unions, courtesy of their parasitic union brothers in the government. What are they going to be fined for next, cardboard boxes ????
Exactly. Just how does a person use bleach without putting it down the drain at the end? In California they consider MILK as toxic waste under some circumstances.
If the milk comes from a penned-in, GMO corn fed, hormone laden, anti-biotic overdosed sad little cow/machine, then it is toxic waste.
After seeing the 'people of Wal-Mart' photos I thought it was the local towns dumping their toxic waste in WM.
82 mil...
chop suey money.
It's not mil... it's bil
But it smelled like maple syrup, officer.