Dive Brief:
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Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will be reopening five of several stores that were shut down earlier this year and were the subject of a labor union complaint to the National Labor Relations Board.
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The retailer had maintained that stores in California, Texas, Oklahoma, and Florida were shuttered and 2,200 of their workers abruptly laid off because of what it said were plumbing issues.
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But the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, on behalf of the group “Our Walmart,” said the closings were retaliation against workers who wanted to organize, and filed a claim to require Wal-Mart to rehire the affected workers, either by reopening the stores or by transferring them to other stores.
Dive Insight:
Wal-Mart continues to maintain that the stores in question were closed due to plumbing issues and that five are ready to be reopened. The retailer said it’s taking applications for store positions.
But the union is questioning why the stores aren’t simply re-hiring their laid-off workers and say that Wal-Mart’s approach is an indication that the company had a problem with the workers, not the plumbing.
The issue comes up at a time when Wal-Mart is attempting to better train and better pay its workers in an effort to make significant changes to its stores — including better inventory control, improved interactions with customers, and more order to shelves.
And, in some cases, improvements to plumbing.