Lawsuit Charges Walmart Can’t Shirk Liability for Contract Workers
In These Times
David Moberg
Walmart may soon find it harder to avoid responsibility, as it has in the past, for the mistreatment of workers in its long supply chain.
Lawyers who sued temporary labor firms in a giant Walmart warehouse last year for violating federal and state laws with their abusive labor practices today took what they described as the “historic” step of adding Walmart as a defendant in the case.
They claimed that their investigation and depositions undertaken for the original suit filed in October 2011 show that Walmart really “calls the shots” at the warehouse and should be held liable along with its subcontractors for “stealing millions of dollars from the low-wage warehouse workers who move Walmart merchandise,” as Michael Rubin, an attorney for the workers, wrote to the Center for Public Integrity.
At the Mira Loma, California, warehouse owned by Walmart and exclusively serving its stores and other distribution centers, Walmart contracts with Schneider Logistics to run the operation. Schneider provides the workforce, most of whom are temporary workers often long-term permatemps—hired through staffing agencies who are subcontractors.