Wal-Mart Violated Labor Laws, In-House Audit Indicates

A story in the Jan. 13 issue of The New York Times said an internal audit in 2000 warned top executives at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville that employee records at 128 stores revealed “extensive violations” of child-labor laws and state regulations requiring time for breaks and meals.

The audit of one week’s time-clock records for about 25,000 employees found 1,371 instances in which minors apparently worked too late at night, worked during school hours or worked too many hours in a day, according to the article by Steven Greenhouse. The audit, which is now under court seal, also found 60,767 apparent instances of workers not taking breaks and 15,705 apparent instances of employees working through meal times.

Officials at Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, employing 1.2 million people at its 3,500 stores in the United States, insisted that the audit was meaningless since what looked like violations could simply reflect employees’ failure to punch in and out for breaks and meals.

“This internal audit was invalid and should not be interpreted as associates missing their meals and breaks or as violation of child labor laws,” the company said in a statement released later on Jan. 13. “The audit misinterpreted an ‘exception’ report that is generated to help managers identify instances of breaks and lunch periods not being recorded. Managers review the report to determine if an associate failed to clock in or out, or actually missed a meal or break. In some cases, associates modified their schedules to meet a personal need, such as working through lunch in order to leave early that day.”

Wal-Mart said Bret Shipley, a company analyst who drafted the report, was unaware of the possible variations and simply looked at the numbers.

“As a result, the audit erroneously assumed that each time an associate failed to clock in or out, and created an ‘exception,’ it was because the associate missed a meal break or rest break,” Wal-Mart said.