Walmart, Don't Make Your Workers Pay for Uniforms! (E action)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/260/737/522/walmart-dont-make-your-workers-pay-for-uniforms/

Sign at the link above.

Walmart is now requiring its sales associates to wear uniforms. And Walmart stands to make $millions selling them to its own employees, who get a measly 10% discount.

They aren’t really “uniforms,” claims the company, which says it's just a new dress code it’s imposing on workers. By refusing to call the specified black or khaki pants and collared, short-length white or navy shirt combination "uniforms," Walmart is getting around having to pay and care for them. According to federal law, if minimum wage workers are required to wear uniforms, then the company must pay for the uniforms and pay to clean and care for them as well.

Instead, Walmart is specially tagging any store items that meet its “dress-code” requirements, offering employees their usual discount for buying the un-uniforms themselves. And obviously most workers will need more than one.

By imposing this added cost on its workers, many of whom are barely surviving with the help of public assistance, Walmart has found yet another way to exploit its underpaid workers and the American taxpayers who are covering expenses Walmart refuses to pay. Instead of further exploiting both, Walmart could raise wages to just over $10 an hour without raising its merchandise prices more than pennies.

But if Walmart refuses to pay workers a living wage, then it must pay for their uniforms - whatever it calls them.

[yeoman6987]

1. I am kinda surprised by this

I know they want professional looking staff. I know many professionals who spend a ton on clothes and uniforms. But, I would think that they could at least give two sets to each employee and then have them buy more or replacements as needed. Seems a better way to go then this bad publicity the are getting. Although this has been implemented awhile ago and the Walmart's I go to already had the new uniforms well before the public knew about it. Knowing Walmart the are probably confused by people who don't work there complaining due to the fact that employees didn't complain about the new changes. They just did what they had to do as the professionals that have always have been and continue achieving.

[Kingofalldems]

2. Big fan of Walmart eh?

How do you know the employees didn't complain?

[Travis_0004]

3. Walmart doesnt have a uniform

Its a dress code just like Target and thousands of other workplaces. Ive never heard a single compalaint about Targets dress code which is even more strict.

[Omaha Steve]

4. Walmart orders underpaid staff to cough up for new uniforms. Is it legal?

Is it legal story below.

Controversy Just Won't Stop For Walmart's New Uniforms: http://racked.com/archives/2014/09/15/walmart-vests-uniforms-not-made-in-us.php

Snip: Gawker posted the label of Walmart's new blue vest, showing that it was made in Jordan, not the US. Walmart had recently pledged to spend an additional $250 billion on American-made products over the next decade.


Walmart orders underpaid staff to cough up for new uniforms. Is it legal?

http://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/sep/11/walmart-legal-new-uniform-clothes-polo-shirts

Walmart – owned by the billionaire Walton family – has imposed a new ‘dress code’ that requires employees to buy new collared shirts and khaki pants





Another reason for Walmart employees to protest: new uniforms. Photograph: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
Imagine this: you work at Walmart, where you make $800 a month. Then the company asks you to spend $50 to buy clothes that meet its dress code.

That’s what happened this month. Walmart workers, who are already struggling to make ends meet, and who often rely on food stamps to get by, have to buy polo shirts and khakis in specific colors.

It’s a great way to help the company meet its financial targets, if nothing else.

“Walmart’s new uniform policy is likely to bring Walmart $50 to $100 million to help boost struggling sales. Meanwhile, the Waltons could pay for new uniforms for every store employee with about six days of earnings from their Walmart shares,” Organization United for Respect (OUR) Walmart, a union-backed group, wrote on their Facebook page.

The goal, according to the Walmart dress code announcement obtained by Gawker, was:

To help customers easily find us - and understand who’s shopping and who’s working.
To help drive teamwork, customer service, and sales.
The company didn’t say why teamwork or customer service require every employee to be part of a well-coordinated army of retail robots.

Forget whether this is smart. Is it legal?

It is. US labor law does require companies to pay for official uniforms. But Walmart is not issuing a uniform – it’s requiring a dress code. By requiring that employees wear clothes that they technically could wear outside work, the company gets the protection of the law when it asks employees to fork over more money.

Uniforms with logos, on the other hand, have to be paid for by the employers as employees wouldn’t be expected to wear those clothes outside work.

The move was expected. Early this August, Walmart announced that by 29 September its employees will be required to wear clothes that abide by the new dress code.

FULL story at link.

[ohnoyoudidnt]

5. I am not aware of any retail business that asks employees to wear slacks and a shirt an pays for it

If they made their employees pay for the work vest, that would be obe thing. There is plenty to criticize Walmart for, but I agree this is not an issue