Kansas firm airs candid Wal-Mart videos

[marmar]

from AP, via Yahoo!



Kansas firm airs candid Wal-Mart videos
By MARCUS KABEL, AP Business Writer
Wed Apr 9, 2:47 PM ET


Wal-Mart's internal meetings are on display in three decades worth of videos made by a Kansas production company scrambling to stay in business after Wal-Mart stopped using the firm.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. dropped longtime contractor Flagler Productions in 2006. In response to losing its biggest customer, the small company has opened its archive, for a fee, to researchers who include plaintiffs' lawyers and union critics seeking clips of unguarded moments at the world's largest retailer.

Those moments never meant for public display include a scene of male managers parading in drag at an executive meeting, a clip used by union-backed critics at Wal-Mart Watch for a recent advertisement castigating the retailer's attitude toward female employees.

"The videos provide insight into the company's real corporate culture when they're not in the public eye," Wal-Mart Watch spokeswoman Stacie Lock Temple said Tuesday.

Much of the interest in the candid videos is coming from plaintiff lawyers pursuing cases against Wal-Mart.

"The rarity is that it exists at all," said Brad Seligman, lead attorney in a massive class-action lawsuit that alleges Wal-Mart discriminated systemically against female employees.

"Once in a while you come upon documents that are helpful in a case," the Berkeley, Calif.-based lawyer added. "What's amazing about this is that this company has a video record going back many years showing senior management in at times fairly candid situations."

Seligman said one clip from Lenexa, Kan.-based Flagler shows Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton in the late 1980s telling the board of directors that not enough women were in management.

Wal-Mart denies it discriminates against women and in recent years has published its annual women and minority hiring statistics.

Wal-Mart said it is unhappy with the public airing of its video record. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080409/ap_on_bi_ge/wal_mart_videos_2

[ClassWarrior]

1. LOL... Too funny...

NGU.

[Melynn]

2. Wal-Mart screwed over the wrong company

Wal-Mart screwed over so many people they probably thought that they screw over this small business too without consequences. WRONG! Ha,ha,ha. This is funny.