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WTF ...9 (Original Post) pbmus Jun 2014 OP
I'm somehow not surprised. knitter4democracy Jun 2014 #1
This comes from a minimum wage hike in 1965 jeff47 Jun 2014 #2
Here is the ruling csziggy Jun 2014 #3
Here is a source for the quote csziggy Jun 2014 #4
Thank you for your contributions ... nt pbmus Jun 2014 #5

csziggy

(34,120 posts)
3. Here is the ruling
Sun Jun 22, 2014, 07:44 PM
Jun 2014
264 F.Supp. 158 (1967)
Mrs. W. W. WEST et al., Plaintiffs,
v.
WAL-MART, INC., Wal-Mart of Springdale, Inc., and Wal-Mart of Harrison, Inc., Defendants.
Civ. A. No. 575.

United States District Court W. D. Arkansas, Fayetteville Division.
February 16, 1967.

<SNIP>
It is the opinion of this court that the activities engaged in by the various Wal-Mart stores, or establishments, must be considered an "enterprise" for the purposes of the F.L.S.A. It is patently clear that Mr. Walton is the primary driving force behind each of the corporations and that each of the stores is but a division of the Wal-Mart operation which, under the law, is only one operation.

Therefore, an order is being entered today declaring that the three defendant corporations constituted one enterprise and were therefore not exempt from the minimum wage requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
<SNIP>
http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/264/158/1636028/

csziggy

(34,120 posts)
4. Here is a source for the quote
Sun Jun 22, 2014, 07:50 PM
Jun 2014
In Wal-Mart's Image
Harold Meyerson
August 14, 2009

The "values" of the largest private-sector employer in the U.S. are shaping our national economy -- and that's a very bad thing.

The story isn't part of the official Wal-Mart creation epic, but it tells us almost all we need to know about the company's approach to the interests of its employees and the laws of the nation. Around the time that the young Sam Walton opened his first stores, John Kennedy redeemed a presidential campaign promise by persuading Congress to extend the minimum wage to retail workers, who had until then not been covered by the law. Congress granted an exclusion, however, to small businesses with annual sales beneath $1 million -- a figure that in 1965 it lowered to $250,000.

Walton was furious. The mechanization of agriculture had finally reached the backwaters of the Ozark Plateau, where he was opening one store after another. The men and women who had formerly worked on small farms suddenly found themselves redundant, and he could scoop them up for a song, as little as 50 cents an hour. Now the goddamn federal government was telling him he had to pay his workers the $1.15 hourly minimum. Walton's response was to divide up his stores into individual companies whose revenues didn't exceed the $250,000 threshold. Eventually, though, a federal court ruled that this was simply a scheme to avoid paying the minimum wage, and he was ordered to pay his workers the accumulated sums he owed them, plus a double-time penalty thrown in for good measure.

Wal-Mart cut the checks, but Walton also summoned the employees at a major cluster of his stores to a meeting. "I'll fire anyone who cashes the check," he told them.

Besides its Dickensian shock value, this story -- told by Nelson Lichtenstein in his new book about Wal-Mart -- points to a phenomenon of wider significance.
http://prospect.org/article/wal-marts-image-0


I underlined the apparent original source of the statement by Sam Walton. The book is The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business.New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2009.
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