LISSA’S: Attention Wal Mart Associates: Do YOU get YOUR breaks?

I know when I was an associate for Wal Mart, there were many many times that I did not get my breaks. According to Wal Mart policy, if you work 8 hours a day, you should get two 15 minute breaks and one 60 minute lunch. That's for all of the full time employees. If you work less than 8 hours, you still get at least one 15 minute break. If you work 5 hours or less, you don't get breaks.

This article was emailed to me from Wal Mart watch and I find it very familiar with the Wal Mart I worked for in Sherman Texas (store 947):

Minnesota workers filed suit against Wal-Mart stores claiming that store managers forced hourly employees to work without pay to keep down labor costs. The workers are seeking back pay to 1998 and as much as $1,000 each for millions of missed breaks. Wal-Mart attorney Neal Manne claims the workers voluntarily skipped breaks and were paid for overtime when earned. [St. Paul Pioneer Press (Minnesota), 10/30/07]

The last sentence in that atricle really pisses me off. That is a flat out LIE. Yeah, there are many (too many) associates that worked through their breaks, but NOT BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO. I can almost guarantee you the reasons they worked through their breaks. Wal Mart has cut back on hiring associates and stepped up firing associates. There are a countless number of customers that pass through Wal Mart everyday, and since management usually sits their lazy asses back in the back stuffing their faces they won't come help customers. So someone has to do it. So that someone are the associates that usually have to skip their breaks. I've even had managers ask me to work through my breaks, and I know I'm not the only one. When I confronted how I have misssed breaks in the past to my department manager (Sherman Texas 947), and told her about my break that was comming up, all she said to me was, "Well you get paid for your breaks anyways and your still on the clock, so it's really Wal Mart's time." That's the kind of "voluntary working through breaks" that associates contribute.

Another perfect example is the decision that a departent manager (in Sherman, Texas Wal Mart 947) made about having only 1 associate out of the department at a time. Well if associate 1 needs to go to break and he's in the middle of helping a customer, he'll need to skip his break that way everyone else don't have to miss their breaks too. However, they are screwed if they are also helping customers. Like I've said in the past, Wal Mart managers schedules do not include customers.

Also I don't buy how the associates are paid for any overtime they earned. That is one of the biggest SCAMS I've ever seen. If you do get just 1 minute of overtime, all of the managers are all over your ass that you have 1 minute you have to kill before the week is up. If you get 3 warnings of overtime (even if it is just 1 minute), then you get written up and even fired over that 1 minute that Wal Mart had to pay their slaves. I've even had many stories about how Wal Mart managers (yes, including Sherman Texas 947 Wal Mart) ask you to work one of your days off, promise you that you'll get to keep that overtime, and then when the end of the week comes, the managers stab you in the back and tell you that you'll have to kill all of that overtime. So you Communist pricks up in home office have NO idea what's REALLY going on at store level. Your so-called Grass Roots meetings and your Open Door Policy is a crock.

So Wal Mart, don't even start that bull crap about it was voluntary on the associates part to work through their breaks. I know the truth! So do the millions of slaves you call your associates! If they didn't, they would be on the chopping block fast.