Wal-Mart suddenly closed 5 stores and laid off thousands of workers

[Tom Joad]

"Plumbing problems"

The closures could last up to six months and affect roughly 2,200 workers in Texas, California, Oklahoma, and Florida, CNN Money reports.

Wal-Mart employees say they were completely blindsided by the news, having been notified only a couple hours before the stores closed at 7 p.m. Monday.

"Everybody just panicked and started crying," Venanzi Luna, a manager at a store in Pico Rivera, California, told CNN Money.

All workers will receive paid leave for two months. After that, full-time workers could become eligible for severance, according to CNN Money. But part-time workers will be on their own.

Local officials and employees have questioned Wal-Mart's reasoning for the closures.

According to ABC News, "no plumbing permits have been pulled in any of the five cities where the stores were suddenly closed for at least six months."

A city official in Pico Rivera confirmed to CBS Los Angeles that the city has not received any permit requests for building repairs.

In Midland, Texas, where another store was closed, a city official told ABC News that his plumbing inspector was turned away when he visited the store and offered to help secure construction permits.

Wal-Mart plumbing technician Codi Bauer, who worked at the now shuttered store in Brandon, Florida, questioned the company's time frame for the repairs.

"Even if they had to replace the whole sewer line, it wouldn't take six months to replace a whole sewer line in that store," he told WFLA.

Some employees believe that the stores were closed because of worker protests for higher pay.

Employees of the Pico Rivera store were among the first to hold Black Friday protests in 2012.

"This is the first store that went on strike," an employee told CBS Los Angeles. "This is the first store in demanding changes for Walmart."

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[Boreas]

Wouldn't be the first time Walmart tried to "punish" a store.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/28/bu...ourt-says.html

[donquixote99]

They want hardball, they get hardball.

Nationwide boycott.

[merrylander]

I can't boycott them as I never go into their stores.

[donquixote99]

Get a bumper sticker anyway.

[BlueStreak]

I wonder how many of those Walmart employees are Republicans..............because they're tired of unions oppressing them? I wonder how many of them don't blame the company because ".....they're fighting to protect our jobs.".

I'll say it again; It's sort of like Stockholm Syndrome, taking the side of the terrorist because if you upset him, he'll kill you. It's a trap, designed to keep us on our knees begging for table scraps.

But, they're not going to get it, Tom. Until they are left with nothing.

Dave

[Rajoo]

Originally Posted by donquixote99

They want hardball, they get hardball.

Nationwide boycott.

If only we could make that happen. May work in the urban areas but they are too well entrenched in most of the small towns with no other alternative.

I for one refuse to shop there out of principle.

[Tom Joad]

Originally Posted by merrylander

I can't boycott them as I never go into their stores.

I've cut way back.

But I'm going the rest of the way now.

There is nothing in their stores that I can't either buy somewhere else or do without.

The Walmarts here in Mobile are always busy because there are a lot of poor people here.

But a new Costco is due to open up here in June.

That should put a dent in them.

[Rajoo]

Here is an interesting column on the subject.

No, food stamps aren’t subsidies for McDonald’s and Wal-Mart

I am not sure that I entirely agree. One reader comment caught my eye.

Cynocephalus
9:44 AM PST
How is that Costco has low prices and pays living wages with benefits but Walmart can not?

Most of the reader comments are quite interesting.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/postev...-mart/?hpid=z3

[Wasillaguy]

I'm gonna definitely boycott those 5 stores they closed.