Better job sites, workers implore

Wal-Mart help meets officials

— Warehouse workers from Illinois and southern California on Tuesday called on Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to improve working conditions at warehouses that supply its stores.

The warehouses at issue are not owned by Wal-Mart but operate under contract with the Bentonville-based retailer to serve stores in their regions.

Workers have complained that temperatures inside the warehouses can exceed 115 degrees as they move boxes that weigh up to 250 pounds.

“The meeting that we had today was the first step,” Guadalupe Palma, deputy director of Warehouse Workers United, said during a conference call with news reporters.

The group’s principal demands, Palma said, are that Wal-Mart take responsibility for safe working conditions at the warehouses and pay a “living wage.” At a meeting with company officials, Palma said, workers described broken equipment and other deficiencies in the warehouses.

Employees at the ware- houses are hired through temporary staffing agencies and have no job security, Palma said.

David Garcia, a striking warehouse worker, said on the conference call that complaints about working conditions result in workers getting fewer hours and days on the job.

“There’s no job security,” he said. “We face retaliation every day.”

David Tovar, vice president for corporate communications at Wal-Mart, said company officials, including Tom Mars, executive vice president and chief administrative officer for Wal-Mart U.S., met Tuesday with representatives of the warehouse workers.

“We had a productive meeting with them. We appreciated their willingness to come to Bentonville,” Tovar said. “We have engaged on this issue for a couple of months now.”

Tovar said Mars’ presence at the meeting with five warehouse workers shows that the company takes the issue seriously.

“The reason is pretty simple. It is very important to us that workers in our supply chain are treated with dignity and respect,” he said. “The meeting itself was very professional. There was a lot of back-and-forth.”

Wal-Mart owns and operates more than 100 warehouses, Tovar said, but also has contracts with other parties that operate other warehouses. At those facilities, Wal-Mart cannot dictate pay or working conditions, he said.

Wal-Mart’s stock closed Tuesday at $76.91, down 24 cents or 0.3 percent.

However, the stock hit a 52-week intraday high of $77.60 early in the day.

Business, Pages 31 on 10/17/2012

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