Walmart Ex-Employee Was Handcuffed in Front of Workers

[Omaha Steve]

Source: The Nation

Josh Eidelson

A former Walmart employee was handcuffed Wednesday when he visited his old store to talk to workers about next week’s “Black Friday” strike. Alex Rivera, who was fired in September, told The Nation that Walmart management intentionally misled Orlando police, leading them to detain him for twenty minutes in the store. The incident was denounced by the union-backed workers’ group OUR Walmart, which alleges that Walmart has been breaking the law to keep its workers in line.

“It was really humiliating,” said Rivera. “Because who would expect being handcuffed in front of a lot of [workers] and customers? Customers that pretty much know you, because you worked for the company for three years.” Rivera predicted that seeing him handcuffed will make some of his co-workers more hesitant to get involved with OUR Walmart: “They’re going to say, ‘If I join the organization and do something like that, this is what’s going to happen to me.’

Snip: According to Rivera and an OUR Walmart organizer who accompanied him to the store, Rivera was leaning over to drink from a water fountain when a police officer grabbed his arm without warning, put him in handcuffs and led him to an office. Rivera said that the officer told him that Walmart management had informed the police that Rivera had previously signed a written trespassing warning obligating him not to return to the premises. Walmart “lied to the police officer.…” said Rivera. “That’s why they handcuffed me.”

Rivera added that when the store’s “asset protection” manager suggested additional details for the officer to add to the police report, “The police officer told him three times. He said no, I’m not going to add that stuff.” Rivera said that after discovering that the police department had no trespassing warning on file for him, the officer asked the store’s co-manager to produce a copy of it. At that point, according to Rivera, the co-manager backtracked, and the police officer “started making faces” at the manager, and quickly released Rivera’s handcuffs. Rivera and the OUR Walmart organizer said that the officer issued them a trespassing warning against returning to the store, but told them that he never would have handcuffed Rivera if he hadn’t been told incorrectly that he had already violated such a signed warning.

FULL story at link.



Read more: http://www.thenation.com/blog/171281/walmart-ex-employee-was-handcuffed-front-workers

[Sherman A1]

1. I wonder if this would be actionable in court

sounds like their lies led to him being falsely detained.

[srichardson]

13. Not much for frivolous lawsuits....

but in this case, he needs to sue, sue, sue. Show the monopoly they aren't above the law. Sam Walton is turning in his grave!

[azurnoir]

2. ah isn't it against the law to lie to the cops in such a manner?

no mention of charges about that

[OnlinePoker]

4. That was my first thought as well.

If I was the cop, I would have taken the cuffs off Rivera and told the manager to turn around, slapped them on him and walk him out of the store in front of everyone.

[davidpdx]

5. True

But the manager wouldn't have had to have someone slam him down and put handcuffs on him without warning. It's a little different when you know something is coming. The guy who had the handcuffs put on him was probably scared shitless.

The officer should have arrested him for attempting to file a false police report, then let him sit in jail over night. Somehow even then it doesn't seem like it would be enough.

[dotymed]

11. Isn't that convenient?

Too bad "our" law enforcement doesn't "serve and protect" us, just corporate "people." The officer should have at least written the wal-mart manager a citation for filing a false report.
I have organized as a carpenter an helped other trades during (usually) winter months and even though the police are Union "brothers" they usually side with the corporate interests. I have been jailed for felony intimidation of a police officer after a very nasty strike. The charges were reduced to a misdemeanor, I spent 3 days in jail. The steel company I was helping to organize (on my own time in my small community) closed it's doors again and opened up under a different name again. Replacing the Union "agitators" with people who agreed to not join a Union. The workers were paid minimum wage and no overtime pay. Many business people in our community disliked me after that...greedy bastards.

[Tigress DEM]

14. It's called "making a false report" to a police or peace officer depending on the state involved.

http://criminal-law.freeadvice.com/criminal-law/white_collar_crimes/false-police-report.htm

<snip> Filing a false police report can lead to multiple criminal consequences. Many states call this charge "false report to a peace officer." It is one of the few types of speech that is not constitutionally protected. Lying to a law enforcement officer can result in a criminal conviction.

Depending on where you live and the extent of the deception, the criminal charge of filing a false police report can either be a misdemeanor or a felony. Cases that cause less inconvenience to police and other authorities tend to be classified as misdemeanors, while people who create greater confusion or harm by filing a false police report may face felony charges.

[UCmeNdc]

3. Seems this is a perfect lawsuit.

Sue the store for lying.

[savebigbird]

7. You beat me to it!

Would he have grounds to sue the police dept. for acting without just cause?

[Festivito]

6. Sounds like the officer then should have cited the manager. /nt

[Swagman]

8. false imprisonment, false arrest..sue every one of them

the police, Walmart..it's all they understand. Sue them.

[fasttense]

9. Interesting that the police officer believed Wal-Mart before even talking to Rivera

Why would the police officer take Wal-Mart's manager's word as if it were fact and not even question Rivera before slapping handcuffs on him? It's as if the word of a corporation is more believable and can be taken without question over the word of an average citizen.

The more appropriate action would have been for the police officer to have calmly spoken with Rivera before slapping handcuffs on the man. But of course when you live in a fascist nation, the word of a corporation is so much more important.

[wtmusic]

23. That's one side of the story, anyway. nt

[tclambert]

10. The top priority for the AFL-CIO should be to unionize Walmart.

Walmart has become the standard for how businesses want to treat employees--as badly as legally possible. And they often don't stop at legal. They have lost so many lawsuits over mistreatment of workers. But it hasn't stopped their extremely aggressive approach to "keeping labor costs low."

[dotymed]

12. IDK, but I suspect

that wal-mart stores in some places in Europe are Unionized. It often happens that European companies (not Arkansas wal-mart) open in America and deny Americans the right to Unionize. We are so near 3rd world status.

[Ikonoklast]

18. The UFCW split with the AFL-CIO over their ambivalence over organizing Wal-Mart

The UFCW leadership begged the AFL-CIO executive council to put more funding into helping us organize Wal-Mart employees over twenty damn years ago because we were well aware of what Wal-Mart's plans for market expansion into retail food was, but as per usual, they crapped all over us, because we were a 'service' union full of unskilled workers, whereas they were still concentrating on manufacturing unions, whose memberships were in steep decline.

OUR union membership was growing, no thanks to them, and the AFL-CIO had no problem taking part of our member's money and used it to subsidize organizing efforts in a declining segment of unionized employment just as long as they were industrialized manufacturers that used 'skilled' labor.

We got very little back in return, any efforts at organizing retail stores we did on our own dime.

Labor has been dropping the ball on choosing who they looked to for membership growth since the days of George Meany. The class divide between the skilled trade Unions and unskilled membership still exists to this day in the ALF-CIO. Service union members are second-class members in the AFL-CIO still.

There is a good reason the SIEU doesn't belong to them anymore, after rejecting SIEU Union President Andy Stern's* attempts along with UFCW leaderbership to pass a reform platfrom at the AFL-CIO convention, they, along with the Teamsters, left the AFL-CIO. (The Teamsters have since re-affiliated).


ORGANIZE EVERY WORKER, not just the ones that you deem 'worthwhile'.





* That is the same Andy Stern who initially supported Barack Obama as a candidate, stills supports Barack Obama, and who used to date Jane Hamsher....who then became virulently anti-Obama after Andy Stern broke up with her, just to spite ex-lover Andy Stern.

Just a little thing most members here didn't know.

[jerseyjack]

15. Sue the store and file a citizens complaint for issueing a false complaint.

Regarding the false complaint, I don't know Fl. law but a good lawyer should be able to help him

[Dustlawyer]

16. Not all cops are bad. This is what their job is like, getting lied to all day or night.

He should have cuffed the store manager for giving a false report to police!

[wtmusic]

24. +1

[Tigress DEM]

17. Making a "false report" and practising "UNION BUSTING" tactics COULD make this a FELONY charge.

http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/the-anti-union-network/for-profit-union-busters/unionbusters-101.html


Seven Sophisticated Unionbuster Techniques

Supervisors as Frontline Soldiers: Supervisors, who themselves have no legally protected right to be represented by a union, are manipulated into delivering anti-union letters, speeches, and informal chats prepared by unionbusters, essentially doing the dirty work of the unionbusters and management.

One-on-One Meetings: During organizing drives, 78 percent of workers are forced to attend closed-door or isolated meetings with supervisors.5 These aren’t friendly impromptu chats, but well-planned meetings to decipher employees’ feelings about the union and persuade them against the union.

Captive Audience Meetings: So-called ‘captive audience’ meetings are held for employees during work hours to disseminate propaganda against union representation and to attempt to discredit the union. Employees are almost always required to attend, but union organizers may be intentionally disinvited. Often, the meetings are rigged so that workers who are already against the union are assigned to ask questions to sow misinformation.

Delay: Unionbusters often attempt to delay union representation elections by legal maneuvers so they have more time to implement other tactics needed to increase tension, dissension and the employer’s chance of winning the election.

Divide & Conquer: The unionbuster creates opportunities and crafts persuasive messages to make employees feel that there is a tense division among staff concerning the union election. They may go so far as to pit one group of employees against each other, based on race or ethnicity.

Letters, letters, letters: A unionbuster’s specialty is hammering out materials—be it cartoons, leaflets or management correspondence—to make the case against the union. 92 percent of companies involved in organizing drives mail anti-union materials to employees’ homes.6

Love offerings: In order to convince employees that they don't need a union, unionbusters may advise clients to provide indirect bribes, like unexpected increases in wages or benefits or ‘feel good’ measures like free food and lottery tickets.

[Tigress DEM]

19. Side note: Employers creating "fake 'union-like' committees" to address previously IGNORED concerns.

CLASSIC use of the 7 Union Busting Techniques if you read the whole piece it ends with the COMPANY being found guilty of creating the Sales Assistant Committees to convince employees they didn't NEED Unions to bargain collectively while behind closed doors they manipulated the Sales Assistants to their own agenda.



https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/753/753.F2d.471.83-5808.83-5677.html


The Lawson Company petitions this court to review and set aside an order of the National Labor Relations Board, 267 N.L.R.B. No. 75 (1983), which found that Lawson had violated section 8(a)(1), (2), and (3) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 158(a)(1), (2), and (3). The Board has cross-applied for enforcement of its order. With one modification, we grant the Board's application for enforcement.

Lawson operates about seven hundred convenience food stores in Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Michigan and has its principal office in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. All of the incidents at issue occurred in northeastern Ohio, the Company's "Region Four." The unfair labor practices resulted from Lawson's attempt to disrupt the effort of the United Food & Commercial Workers Union to organize Lawson's retail sales assistants in Region Four.

On Wednesday, February 18, 1981, a sales assistant at one of Lawson's stores near Akron was murdered while on duty. The murder was widely publicized and scores of employees telephoned the Company to complain that the Company's security measures were inadequate. Many customers threatened to boycott Lawson stores until security was improved. Several stores were forced to temporarily close because employees refused to report to work.

On Friday morning, February 20, 1981, fifteen sales assistants telephoned the organizing director of the UFCW, asking that a Union organizational effort be undertaken in these stores. That evening and the next morning union organizers visited sixty stores in and around Akron. The organizers passed out authorization cards and invited the sales assistants to attend a union meeting. On Sunday, Lawson's president telephoned the Union's organization director and called his attention to a permanent injunction against solicitations on Company property. The injunction had been entered by a state court during a prior union campaign in 1977. The Company threatened to have union organizers arrested if they continued soliciting on Company property.

[Tigress DEM]

20. Union Busting is ALL the RAGE in Texas - Go figure

http://www.chron.com/business/article/Union-organizer-arrested-in-protest-that-blocked-3706026.php

<snip>Smith said that Salcedo, who was leading the protest, was warned she and others would face arrest if they didn't stop blocking traffic. The union is representing about 3,200 janitors who are working without a contract. They are seeking wages of $10 an hour; most now earn a top wage of $8.35 an hour.

ONE THING IS - without a PERMIT you are not allowed to block an intersection with a PROTEST of ANY TYPE.

SO if you participate in these types of protests, UNDERSTAND THAT, you WILL be WARNED and you WILL be ARRESTED.

For a Union Rep, that is a chance to be heard in COURT and get it on the record as to the WHY of the Protest.

<snip>"It was ridiculous," said Martinez, who was standing near Salcedo at the protest on Thursday. "She was on the curb and not doing anything. The police just grabbed her."

AS the ORGANIZER in CHARGE Salcedo "doing nothing" was failing to comply with the Police Order to clear the street.

IF THEY DIDN'T WANT TO BE ARRESTED, all they had to do was move orderly to the sidewalk and continue their protest.

Sometimes the arrests will generate more press, where a protest will be ignored by the media.

[hootinholler]

21. That is false imprisonment. The Cop should have arrested the manager that lied to him.

I hope he wins his suit big.

[Kingofalldems]

22. K and R for the Walmart fans

What a great 'business plan'!