Wal-Mart’s shadow government comparable to America’s but at a fraction of the cost
Published by Kyso Kisaen March 29th, 2007 in Big BusinessWal-Mart, renowned to outsiders for its elbows-out business tactics, is known internally for its bare-knuckled no-expense-spared investigations of employees who break its ironclad ethics rules.
Over the last five years, Wal-Mart has assembled a team of former officials from the C.I.A., F.B.I. and Justice Department…
The investigators — whose résumés evoke Langley, Va., more than Bentonville, Ark. — serve as a rapid-response team that aggressively polices the nation’s largest private employer, enforcing Wal-Mart’s modest by-the-books culture among its army of 1.8 million employees.
If you are a mid-level or higher WalMart exec and they even think you’re crossing them, they’ll fuck you up.
After Ms. Roehm sued Wal-Mart for wrongful termination, the company disclosed the results of the investigation last week in a detailed and at times salacious countersuit. Investigators obtained records that they said showed the two married executives had engaged in a sexual affair, accepted free meals from an advertising agency vying to win Wal-Mart’s business and begun negotiating a deal to leave Wal-Mart to work for that agency….
The Wal-Mart investigation was striking in its scope. Lawyers for Wal-Mart subpoenaed Mr. Womack’s wife, Shelley, compelling her to give sworn testimony about how she discovered a sexual relationship between her husband and Ms. Roehm. They prompted her to turn over dozens of embarrassing e-mail messages that her husband had sent to Ms. Roehm from a private account.
The same people responsible for making WalMart seem more competent and compassionate than FEMA after Katrina are using their years of experience at the highest levels of the FBI & CIA to crack down on embezzlement, intra-employee fornication, and maybe even dissent:
Mr. Lynn, in an interview and in a wrongful-termination lawsuit filed against Wal-Mart, claims he was singled out because he openly criticized the working conditions in the Central American factories he inspected.
“Wal-Mart is the ultimate Big Brother in corporate America,” Mr. Lynn said. He disputes Wal-Mart’s claim that it investigates every employee the same way. “They are very opportunistic,” he said. “If it is someone they want to get rid of, they will go all out. If it’s somebody whose career they want to save, they won’t.”
It’s not time to get concerned yet. When they start organizing a WalMart army, then maybe we should be worried.
“It’s not time to get concerned yet. When they start organizing a WalMart army, then maybe we should be worried.”
I’m thinking a cut-rate Blackwater-wannabe made up of Iraqi refugees trained by American NRA members. They could call it Sam’s Choice BlackOpps Warriors.
As long as we’re involved in pointless military adventures all over the world without instituting the Draft, the market’s there. WalMart just needs to do their patriotic (and profitable) duty and fill it…
What happens when Target escalates the arms race and buys a nuke?
WalMart will just have to get nukes too, and then up the anty with bioweapons…
Target? You’ve got to be kidding me.
Google will win the war to be America’s corporate overlords. They’re just as big as WalMart, they’re already in space and they know everything about everyone who has ever touched the internet. Plus they’ve got the element of suprise.
I’m just hoping they’ll be benevolent masters. I hear the cafeterias are excellent.
But don’t you see the comparisons between Target and Iran? They’re practically the same thing.