Posted on 11/04/2005 4:04:27 PM PST by DumpsterDiver
FAYETTEVILLE — Wal-Mart management knew people who cleaned dozens of their stores in 2003 were illegal aliens, some of whom lived in poor conditions and, in one case, slept in the back of a store, a federal affidavit released Wednesday said.
The affidavit was used to secure two search warrants in October 2003 to raid Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s home office in Bentonville as part of Operation Rollback — an investigation that led to the arrests of 245 illegal aliens working at 61 Wal-Mart stores, including five stores in Arkansas.
U.S. District Magistrate Judge Beverly Stites Jones in Fayetteville unsealed the two search warrants Wednesday at the request of a New York attorney representing more than 200 of the former employees in civil lawsuit against the Bentonville based nation's largest retailer.
"The corporation's fingerprints are on this from the highest levels," said attorney James Linsey, whose firm represents former workers worldwide. "They wanted to keep their stores clean and not pay a lot of money."
Linsey said the information from the search warrants — which had been sealed since they were obtained — will be used to refile the lawsuit in New Jersey district court. The lawsuit alleges that Wal-Mart knew the cleaning companies they worked with employed illegal aliens and did nothing to end the work.
Earlier this month, a federal judge in New Jersey dismissed part of the lawsuit that said alleged Wal-Mart conspired with the cleaning contractors by allowing the illegal aliens to work in their stores.
Wal-Mart officials have said the people who cleaned their stores were not employees but worked for cleaning-service companies contracted with Wal-Mart.
Robert Berstein, the New Jersey attorney representing Wal-Mart in the lawsuit, didn't return a phone call for comment Thursday.
Government officials became aware illegal immigrants were working in Wal-Mart stores in 1998 when a man was arrested in Honesdale, Pa., the affidavit said.
Over the years, workers told investigators they were recruited from their native countries to work on cleaning crews at Wal-Mart stores, were paid twice a month for their efforts and lived with groups of other workers in small apartments or mobile homes.
In 2001 and 2002, immigration officials warned various Wal-Mart store managers their cleaning crews were comprised of illegal aliens. Undercover immigration officials met with Wal-Mart officials in April 2003 as part of the investigation and said that more than 500 illegal aliens were working on cleaning crews at some of their stores, the affidavit said.
During that meeting, Wal-Mart official Steve Bertschy told the undercover officers the company planned to quit doing business with sub-contracting cleaning crews to eliminate costs, but they were still using them because otherwise "we would have been in a terrible mess," the affidavit said.
A log sheet from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said investigators seized paper and computerized records during the October 2003 raid at the Bentonville offices.
Wal-Mart settled with U.S. immigration office last March over violations stemming from the raid by paying $11 million. The company also agreed to never again knowingly hire illegal aliens.
Although Wal-Mart employees now clean their stores, Linsey said it doesn't make up for his clients' suffering. "It was one step away from slavery," Linsey said. "These are the poorest of the poor, and they are the biggest company in the world. It's not enough for Wal-Mart to say 'We don't do that anymore.' They have to address these things."
To contact this reporter: scrawford@arkansasonline.com
Although Wal-Mart employees now clean their stores, Linsey said it doesn't make up for his clients' suffering.
The American Dream
But . . .but . . .I was told that Wal-Mart was the greatest, most bestest store in the whole wide world!
What did Wal-Mart do wrong? In some sort of covert gotcha operation, Wal-Mart officials did the right thing as soon as they were advised of the situation even though they didn't know they were being watched.
Wal-Mart got rid of the sub-contracted cleaning crews in a timely manner. If they had immediately termed the subcontractor, I'm sure they would have been in some sort of contractual and/or regulatory mess.
I haven't noticed anyone suing the contractors hired by Walmart that employed the illegal aliens. Maybe not enough $$$ in it to satisfy the sharp toothed lawyer.
It took only 8 minutes to attract a Wally-basher to this thread.
I guess they took too long getting rid of their illegal employees even though the Feds weren't so fast acting themselves. The government started investigating in 1998 but didn't tell Wal-Mart about the illegals until 2001.
I think the main reason for this investigation was so the Feds could get their hands on Wal-Mart's money.
Wal*Mart does not knowingly hire Criminal Aliens.Didn't in 1998 and still doesn't today.
This lawyer, instead of chasing the contractors who actually did the hiring, has instead chosen to chase WMT.
I sincerely hope WMT will mount a vigorous defense.
Sorry, I tried to get here faster, but I got stuck in traffic.
I'm sure no other corporation that benefits from the low wages paid to illegals knows anything about their involvement, either.
I want them charged and fined to the fullest extent of the law, and then I want the laws toughned. We need to go after those who give illegals that they know to be illegal jobs. Those are the people who are at fault for our wave of immigration. Were we not hiring millions of this illegals, we wouldn't be getting millions of them into our country.
deep pockets - these contractors prolly don't have $quat.
Precisely!
100,000,000.00 fine would be fine: )
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