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American Morning
'Minding Your Business'
Aired January 13, 2004 - 07:20 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: New charges about retailing giant Wal-Mart.
Here with that story this morning, Andy Serwer minding your business -- good morning.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you, Soledad.
The "New York Times" is reporting this morning that an internal audit at Wal-Mart three years ago detailed violations involving child labor and involving overtime and missed lunch breaks by employees. The newspaper said that this study, which is under court seal, involved 128 stores and 25,000 employees and found 1,300 instances of minors working too late, 60,000 instances of workers taking no breaks and skipping lunch breaks, as well.
There are 40 lawsuits right now, Soledad, charging Wal-Mart with forcing employees to miss breaks and that sort of thing.
The company responds by saying that this investigation did not understand the procedures that went on at Wal-Mart, including the fact that people might not have punched out for the breaks.
I think the big question with Wal-Mart is this, very clearly, 1.2 million Americans work at Wal-Mart. It is the biggest employer by far in the United States. There are a lot of lawsuits, a lot of people charging this company with malfeasance.
Is this simply a case of so many people working at this company that there are going to be some -- all sorts of things going on, there are going to be some violations? Or is there a pattern here?
I don't know the answer to that question, but that's something we're going to be finding out over the coming weeks and months.
O'BRIEN: Well, certainly this new report has got to bolster the claims of the people who are filing the lawsuits.
SERWER: Oh, exactly. The lawyers are eating this up, no doubt, right now. But there's a lot of fuel on both sides, actually.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired January 13, 2004 - 07:20 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: New charges about retailing giant Wal-Mart.
Here with that story this morning, Andy Serwer minding your business -- good morning.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you, Soledad.
The "New York Times" is reporting this morning that an internal audit at Wal-Mart three years ago detailed violations involving child labor and involving overtime and missed lunch breaks by employees. The newspaper said that this study, which is under court seal, involved 128 stores and 25,000 employees and found 1,300 instances of minors working too late, 60,000 instances of workers taking no breaks and skipping lunch breaks, as well.
There are 40 lawsuits right now, Soledad, charging Wal-Mart with forcing employees to miss breaks and that sort of thing.
The company responds by saying that this investigation did not understand the procedures that went on at Wal-Mart, including the fact that people might not have punched out for the breaks.
I think the big question with Wal-Mart is this, very clearly, 1.2 million Americans work at Wal-Mart. It is the biggest employer by far in the United States. There are a lot of lawsuits, a lot of people charging this company with malfeasance.
Is this simply a case of so many people working at this company that there are going to be some -- all sorts of things going on, there are going to be some violations? Or is there a pattern here?
I don't know the answer to that question, but that's something we're going to be finding out over the coming weeks and months.
O'BRIEN: Well, certainly this new report has got to bolster the claims of the people who are filing the lawsuits.
SERWER: Oh, exactly. The lawyers are eating this up, no doubt, right now. But there's a lot of fuel on both sides, actually.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
