INS Raids Wal-Mart, arrests over 300 Workers

Federal agents raided over 60 Wal-Marts in 21 states, arresting over three hundred allegedly undocumented workers. The workers in question were apparently subcontracted cleaning workers rather than actual "associates" of the notoriously anti-union megacorporation. The NY Times interviewed SEIU spokesman Steven Lerner about the raids.

The Service Employees International Union, which advocates benefits for cleaning workers' with campaigns like "Justice for Janitors," said that retail stores tended to use nonunion cleaners.

"You have everything from giant contractors to regional contractors to mom-and-pop organizations with mops and buckets," a union spokesman, Stephen Lerner, said, emphasizing that he had no details on the Wal-Mart situation. As a result, he continued, there is a "long history of litigation where we catch cleaners who bring in their whole family to clean, so the contract entity says, `They don't work for me, it's not our fault.' "

The Times also reports

Wal-Mart has been accused of skirting various employment laws in recent years. Class-action suits have been filed in more than 30 states accusing supervisors of pressuring employees to work off the clock for no pay.

In California, lawyers have filed suit accusing Wal-Mart of discriminating against women in promotions. The lawyers have asked a federal judge in San Francisco to allow the lawsuit to proceed as a class action, potentially creating a class of 1.6 million current and former Wal-Mart employees that would become the biggest employment class action in the nation's history.

Wal-Mart denies pressuring employees to work off the clock and asserts that it has an aggressive program to hire and promote women.

I stand in solidarity with the workers who are going tosuffer because of Wal-Mart's greed, and the laws that prohibit those workers from being able toorganize and fight back against corporate exploitation.  ¶ 9:05 PM