McNutt Blasts Walmart's "Culture of Lawlessness"

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)Saying that “No one — and no corporation — is above the law,” UFCW Local 400 President Tom McNutt called Walmart “a serial violator of wage and hour laws” after the U.S. Department of Labor announced it was forcing Walmart to pay $4.8 million in back wages to thousands of employees. “Walmart’s entire business plan seems to be premised on the notion that it’s an exception,” McNutt said, “that it is entitled to play by its own set of rules regardless of whatever laws and regulations are in place in the countries and communities in which it operates.” In addition to the recent DOL back pay order and a 2007 $34 million back pay order, McNutt cited “the current bribery and cover-up scandal surrounding its efforts to enter the Mexican market, and its efforts, documented in The Washington Post, to weaken the very law Walmart allegedly violated,” the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. “With Washington, DC, officials facing their own corruption and ethical scandals,” added McNutt, the last thing they should be doing is rolling out the red carpet for a company that stands ready to bend or break the law and even its own promises in pursuit of its ‘growth-at-any-cost’ strategy. They need to subject the company to legally binding conditions of entry, ensuring that Walmart will follow the spirit and letter of the law in its treatment of its workers and our communities — or they need to ‘just say no’ to Walmart.” - photo: members of the Respect DC coalition join with Making Change at Walmart to project movies of Walmart workers demanding respect on the building of JBG -- the construction company contracted to build some of the proposed Walmart stores in DC; photo by Julia Kann