[The_Neon_Cowboy]

300 Illegal Workers Arrested at Wal-Marts

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Federal agents raided Wal-Mart's headquarters and 60 of its stores across the country Thursday, arresting more than 300 illegal workers in an immigration crackdown at the world's biggest retailer.

The workers were members of cleaning crews hired by outside contractors, but federal law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity said Wal-Mart (search) had direct knowledge of the immigration violations. They cited recordings of meetings and conversations among Wal-Mart executives, managers and contractors.

"We have seen no evidence of this from the INS, and, if that turns out to be true, we will cooperate fully with law enforcement officials," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams said.

The workers were arrested as they finished their night shifts at Wal-Mart stores in 21 states. Agents also hauled away several boxes of documents from an executive's office at Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville.

An employer can face civil and criminal penalties for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants or failing to comply with certain employee recordkeeping regulations.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) had sales last year of $244.5 billion. The company has about 1.1 million employees in the United States, and it uses more than 100 third-party contractors to clean more than 700 stores nationwide, Williams said.

"We require each of these contractors to use only legal workers," she said.

The law enforcement sources said the investigation grew out of earlier probes of Wal-Mart cleaning crew contractors in 1998 and 2001.

All the arrested workers were in the country illegally, Garrison Courtney, a spokesman with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (search), said. They were detained at local immigration offices. Those who had no criminal record were released with instructions to appear before immigration judges.

Wal-Mart is not the first big company to be targeted in an immigration investigation. Six managers at Tyson Foods (search), based one town away from Wal-Mart in Springdale, were charged in an immigrant-smuggling case in 2001.

One defendant shot himself to death a few months after being charged, and two managers entered guilty pleas early in the case. A jury acquitted the poultry company and three other managers.

Ulysses A. Yannas, an analyst with the investment firm Buckman, Buckman and Reid, said it is too much to expect Wal-Mart to keep track of all of its vendors' workers. But he said the investigation could present a problem for the company.

"It is a question of what else it might bring out. These are long, drawn-out processes," Yannas said.

Top Wal-Mart officials learned of Thursday's sweep when store managers began calling headquarters for guidance in dealing with the raids.

Courtney said agents searched the office of one of Wal-Mart's executives. Williams, the spokeswoman, said they spent several hours in the office of a "mid-level manager" at Wal-Mart's headquarters and carried away several boxes of paperwork.

She said she did not know if any other Wal-Mart administrative offices were searched.

The arrests were made at stores in Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.

[Malus]

Great, Wal-Mart is going to be even dirtier now.

[jjmd]

Well at least you can get what you came there for with out waiting for them to mop or wax the floor.

[The_Neon_Cowboy]

Originally posted by jjmd
Well at least you can get what you came there for with out waiting for them to mop or wax the floor.

aint that the truth ... on night they had elertonics sqared off.... was alot of mad shoppers

[jjmd]

Thats nothing, My wifes friend needed some thing down an isle they were moping. He asked the guy moping the floor if he could get what he needed, the guy said no not till the floor was dry. So asked him to get it for him, the guy got mad and said something under his breath and said no. So my wifes friend being a rather big guy with a big atitude went down the isle anyways and got what he needed. Then the guy moping the floor started calling for security and they came and grabed his arm and escorted him out the store. And told him that what he did was wrong and not come back to the store.

Hows that for Customer Service.

[sinjin]

how would you like it if some guy came walking into your kitchen just after you mopped the floor? your wife's friend needs to learn some patience and common courtesy.

[jjmd]

Yes your right by all means "sinjin". But the clerk who was mopping, that was walking on the wet floor could have easly walked over and got what he was asking for. And not acted like a jurk and say no. Thats all im saying, so much for customer service.

[sinjin]

3 strikes.

1) you're
2) gotten
3) jerk

[digerati]

This is a market right? Unless it says somewhere that it's their job to satisfy you (like a restaurant) then I wouldn't expect them to go the extra mile. A guy mopping is mopping because he probably isn't a friendly person, and I bet you he hates the job. How would you feel if you're doing a job you hated beyond belief and the company policy says no one allowed on the wet floor (liability issue I'm sure) and someone keeps asking you to get you something. I'm not surprised things turned out the way they did.