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George Freibott, an assistant manager at a New Haven, CT Wal-Mart store, decided to give a written reprimand last Monday to one of his workers for poor job performance, the second reprimand in a few days. The unnamed worker grabbed an aluminum baseball bat off the shelf and beat Freibott a dozen times, breaking an arm and leaving several bruises. The worker will be charged with first-degree assault and breach of peace, when they find him.
With 1.1 million on its payroll, Wal-Mart is the largest employer in the US, and is in the headlines often. In July, the behemoth decided to cut its list of covered prescription drugs included in the employee health plan to force employees to use $4 generic drugs instead.
Not long before that, the company implemented a point system; after 6 points, the employee is terminated, with no consideration given for circumstances of absences or alleged mistakes made on the job. The people hired by the company for the role of assistant manager are not trusted enough to even put together employee schedules or do time clock overrides. In effect, Wal-Mart is paying for the truism “you get what you pay for” yet again with assistant managers expected to put in 70 hours a week for little compensation.
Add this to the notoriously underpaid and overworked workforce who can be fired on the spot if the word “union” is even thought, and you have the recipe for disaster.
That Wal-Mart is such a large employer with the strength of solid financial reports in an unstable economy gives the corporation the “right” to write its own rules of engagement, and it does so without restraint. More than once, I’ve heard it said, “Sam Walton must be rolling in his grave.”
5 comments:
Its ALWAYS the employees fault NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT
I'll say this, that manager probably deserved it. My girlfriend and I both work for Walmart and we have seen more managers ABUSE the wannabe power they have to PURPOSELY hurt other associates. Our associates are afraid of retaliation or the loss of a hard to findjob so they choose to just take the abuse over doing something about it. I do not necessarily agree with the employee for doing what he did because I don;t know the whole situation, I have found myself at that point MANY times though (found myself there yesterday) and have always thought about what would happen to my children. There is ONLY so far a person can be threatened or backed into a corner before that person finally fights back.
The performance of this associate may not be up to par but nobody actually knows THE TRUTH. Walmart needs level headed managers not managers that fly off the handle when something isnt right. My store is going through that right now as I type this. Many of our managers are hot heads and take their ill being out on their associates. I wish these kind of beating would happen more often maybe them Wlamart corporation would open up their eyes and see their associates ARE still the backbone of their company and we should NEVER be verbally or mentally abused. On a final note, if I didnt have kids I would have brained one of those $#7^@$* managers along time ago!
“Sam Walton must be rolling in his grave.” ~ AMEN to that! I have been trying my best to not shop at WalMart. The treatment and lack of concern for their employee's as well as the 'sweatshop labor" imports ticks me off to no end.
BUT ~ under no circumstances could I say that the manager deserved that. There are always better options than violence.
Always blame Wal-Mart. Where is the personal accountability for people to take responsibility for their actions.
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