Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said a while ago that he
will ask other states to join him in investigating allegations that
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. broke child labor laws, calling a recent related
settlement between the company and the Labor Department "a sweetheart deal."
Wal-Mart agreed some months ago to pay a federal fine of $135,540 for child
labor violations in which 85 minors operated hazardous equipment at
stores in Connecticut, New Hampshire and Arkansas. The investigations into
violations occurred from October 1998 through April 2002. The agreement
was signed Jan. 11 and announced Monday.
It states that the company will receive 15 days' notice "of any audit
or investigation at the stores covered by this agreement."
"We believe there clearly needs to be a state investigation in
Connecticut. These violations of law also would clearly break our state child
labor protections and could well involve separate penalties and
administrative or court orders," said Blumenthal, who said he was surprised by
the investigation's findings. "The federal deal seems very much like a
sweetheart deal. It involves a pittance of a penalty. It involves a
notice provision that gives Wal-Mart an easy opportunity to sweep under
the rug any future violations."
Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), ranking member on the Committee on
Education and the Workforce, requested a probe by the department's
inspector general this week, saying the agreement gives Wal-Mart preferential
treatment.
Gus Whitcomb, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said the company believes the
agreement resolves this issue. "However, if the Connecticut attorney general wishes to conduct his own investigation, we'll cooperate," Whitcomb said.
Karen Dulaney Smith, a Labor Department wage and hour investigator
until 1999, now consulting for corporations, said companies rarely had
advance notice when she was an investigator. "It seems to me unfair to
employers that Wal-Mart would get this kind of treatment. I don't like the
idea of just saying we're not going to show up on your doorstep
unannounced because you learn a lot about an organization that way."
Labor officials said in an interview that Wal-Mart's advance notice
would involve only child labor investigations, and that it is standard
practice in such cases. "We believe it's a more stringent agreement" than
previous agreements in child labor cases, said Howard M. Radzely, the
department's solicitor.
The department provided copies of agreements with Sears, Roebuck and
Co. and Foot Locker Worldwide filed after they were accused of child
labor violations in 1999 and 2000, to show the Wal-Mart agreement is
similar to others. The agreements stated Foot Locker and Sears would be
informed 10 days before a Labor investigation, but only at stores scheduled
for self-audits, in which the companies would list employees under 18,
describe their duties and hours worked.
Federal law limits the activities that can be assigned to minors.
That advance notice was to allow the companies time to complete audits
and share the results with Labor before an investigation began, said
John Fraser, a top department official during the first Bush and Clinton
administrations.
There is no self-audit in the Wal-Mart agreement. Radzely said the
Department of Labor will investigate.
Fraser said in the late 1990s the department began to try to forge
partnerships with companies to encourage them to comply with labor laws.
Now, Fraser said, "the effort to promote corporate activities to
achieve and maintain compliance has gotten so diluted that the department
giveth and the company doesn't. At least that's what this Wal-Mart
agreement looks like."