Wal-Mart employees kept inside store after bomb scare

[totalmotorcycle]

How interesting!



Wal-Mart employees kept inside store after bomb scare
July 12, 2006 - nupge.ca


Directed by managers to help police search
for explosives; company spokesman claims
workers could have left if they had asked

St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec (13 July 2006) - How badly do Wal-Mart employees need a union? Consider this:

Employees were kept on the job to help local police search for explosives after a bomb scare Tuesday at a Wal-Mart store in this community, 60 kilometres east of Montreal. Customers were asked to leave. The directive was given by Wal-Mart managers at the store.

Mailie Fournier, a former employee at the store, said some 40 nervous employees spent an hour combing through premises under the supervision of management and the police. Nothing was found but many of the employees found the experience traumatic, he said.

Safety board investigating

The Quebec workplace safety board is now reported to be investigating.

Wal-Mart's explanation for keeping employees in a potentially life-threatening situation was that it was merely assisting police. Yet on the face of it, the incident was an extreme, even for anti-union Wal-Mart managers.

Questioned afterward by a reporter, a spokesman for the Arkansas-based, multi-billion-dollar corporation was quoted as saying - despite clearly established facts to the contrary - that Wal-Mart would never "put in jeopardy the security of our employees."

"Never, never, never (will) we force them to do such kinds of investigations," spokesperson Yanik Deschenes was quoted by The Canadian Press.

"If this associate had said or all the associates had said `We don't want to participate', there would be no problem. They would have been able to leave the building without hesitation." NUPGE

[Big B]

hell, it's not like any of them get health insurance if they do get blowed up.

[Andrew]

They survived, and if they didn't like it they can always quit and go work elsewhere.

[Nibblet99]

Grrr I'm sure nothing like this was in their contracts. As far as I'm concerned, it should be treated as a fire. EVERYONE evacuates, until officials declare it safe.

Employees should not feel obliged to hunt for explosives, thats what sniffer dogs are trained for.

[CNF2002]

Thats like telling an employee they have to go jump that armed gunman robbing the store.

Anyone who left would have probably been promptly fired. Not only are their employees unqualified to search for, identify, or handle or be in proximity of a bomb, but their $6.00/hr salesman job doesn't include bomb-squad overtime.

I hope the employees band together and sue the company over this. Can you imagine if they had found a bomb and one of the employees was killed or injured?

Knowing Wal-Mart, they probably forced all the employees to clock out before assisting police also

[Big B]

just another reason for me to avoid that place like the plague

[Andrew]

I have no problem with WalMart, whether it's how they treat their employees or how they do business. It sounds like this manager overstepped his boundaries, but that's his fault, not WalMarts.

[CNF2002]

I wonder if the manager also went wandering through the store looking for a bomb? Or maybe just made his employees do it while he...supervised...from a safe distance.

Talk about 'expendable'.

[dieziege]

I don't see the problem.

There was a report, the manager asked employees to search for suspicious objects, the police never told the employees to leave... there was no bomb... everyone went back to work. How is it different from asking employees to shift pallets of filled propane cylinders or lead-acid batteries? I'll tell you how: looking under the racks in the women's underwear section for a bomb that isn't there is a heck of a lot safer.

[NorthernPete]

looking under the racks in the women's underwear section for a bomb that isn't there is a heck of a lot safer.

depends how many women are around...