A Pennsylvania Walmart Supercenter videotaped employees and customers in a unisex bathroom, several former and current Walmart employees alleged in a lawsuit filed this week. Seven former and current employees from the Tire and Lube department at the Walmart in Easton, Pa., filed a lawsuit in county court against the Arkansas-based corporation and four local managers Dec. 21.
Several employees discovered an “off-the-shelf” video camera in a store bathroom March 31, 2008, according to the court filing. The unisex bathroom, which also served as a changing room, was used by employees and customers. Customers and employees were not notifed of the surveillance, according to the court filing.
“I am incredulous that anyone would think that it’s appropriate conduct for any reason to photograph people in a changing room and bathroom,” said Erv McLain, the plaintiffs’ attorney. The company declined further comment.
Why anyone would patronize this Anti-American cesspool just baffles me. Oh, I forgot, cheap crap made from slave labor in China…… great.
Walmart claims the camera was placed in the bathroom by rogue employees. The plaintiffs claim it was part of loss prevention and they were fired for complaining about it. Might be a case worth following. If Walmart is found to be responsible in this case I wonder if customers could follow suit.
There is not enough eye bleach to watch those videos.
Any evidence that this was Walmart policy, and not just your Walmart hatred and snobbery making assumptions?
#3. I see, so you believe that WalMart is working for it’s countryman’s (which includes employees) best interest? You know, until idiots like you get the fact that we were sold out by the FTA. America is sooooo fucked.
Moron. Why do you hate this country?
#4 I don’t think finding a camera in a bathroom has anything to do with the FTA and country hating. I’m no Walmart fan but I’m guessing recording fat people in the john with a off the shelf camera isn’t standard operating procedure.
“Why anyone would patronize this Anti-American cesspool just baffles me. Oh, I forgot, cheap crap made from slave labor in China…… great.”
Compared to the expensive crap made by slave labor in China in your more upscale stores.
What’s the FTA?
FTA = Free Trade Agreement
also known as F**c The Americans
I live in a town of 60,00 people.The food I buy at WM is at least 30 percent cheaper than at other stores in our area.My blue jeans cost 9 bucks.I can’t afford to be a Wal-Mart snob.Our country is better for having invented Wal-Mart.I don’t like parts of the company but it reacts and changes faster than our government does.We should put them in charge of health care and watch the prices and death rate drop.
Cameras in department store changing rooms and toilets is standard in Britain.
Walmart is one of the better department stores in Canada. Maybe it’s our regulations.
I’ve also noticed that prices have increased at Walmart to about par with many other stores (when comparing same brand names and models).
There isn’t one department store in North America that doesn’t buy anything from Asia.
This is actually not a isolated situation. There have been other cases of “surveilance” in some wal-marts. One highly touted AP or Loss Provention associate (DIANE)in and around albuquerque NM was know for her, ‘PUSHING the limit’ ways, including camera’s in the bathrooms as well as “money drop” and “lost purse” setup’s to get rid of “high risk” associates. {very wide open definition with WM including suspected thieves, WORKMEN’S COMP expense, UNION SUPPORTING and sometimes even TENURED ASSOCIATES!) With WM under the direction of the new CEO SCROOGE MC DUKE (mike duke’s online nickname), and the huge double digit negative comps for the first part of the fouth quarter and huge profit cut, I’d sure expect alot more of the searching for ‘reason’ to eliminate everyone and anyone for any reason he can!! He’s shooting for an average of 200 associates per walmart store, and average cut of 40% of there workers. A plan that may be accellerated after the huge losses of the fourth quarter. So look out WM share holders and ASSociates.
Yawn…
Some people just can’t stand the idea that poor people can buy things at low prices. How can they have a higher status, when the poor are able to get reasonably close within their means?
That is why they demonize Walmart, and push for higher prices on basic goods like electricity and health insurance.
Incredible to believe that these “megastores” can’t spare the room for more than one sex bathroom. What? Do they take turns or shifts, in there? That’s pretty pathetic for some a multi billion dollar corporation. If they cared enough to have and keep honest, hard working employees. Then their dressing and rest facilities ought to be nearly lavish. But it the same old “slave quarters” treatment. And I’ve seen the same with thing when I worked at a major steel mill. They acted as if the employees didn’t deserve a nice clean place to take a wizz in private. While the executive lavatories were much better (I seen them, using a pirated key).
These greedy corporations really go out of their way to make its hourly employees feel like 3rd rate citizens. My theory is that they believe that workers treated as such, won’t ask for better working conditions. Because they’ll eventually come to believe that they don’t deserve better. Kind of like living and working at a coal mine, or on an oil derrick. But at least in those cases, you expect the location causes problems with sanitation. But why anywhere else, in the middle of heavily populated civilization? It’s all part of the “keep `em down, and they’ll stay down”, labor management strategy.
I don’t and will never shop at this scab establishment. It is no wonder the average employee last around 11 months.
The most deplorable and probably hardest to defend will be the three employees fired for complaining.
Next, look for some of the public that have (or claim to have) used this washroom to come forward.
WalMart claims in their employee handout that they warn some areas may be videotaped. What WalMart forgets is that their policies do not trump the law. They still need a court authorization to tape their employees without their consent.
I understand why a place would want to put cameras in a changing room. I am not saying it’s right. Let me explain. I used to work for a department store. There were no cameras in the fitting rooms and every so often someone would pee or go #2 on the floor of a fitting room leaving the mess for some poor employee on the janitorial staff to clean up.
Trust me. That ruins your day when you have to clean up after people who literally behave like animals. This was in an upscale department store. I hate to think of what Walmart has to go through in that area.
That doesn’t make filming a fitting room right, but it does make it understandable. Just like fitting rooms, bathrooms end up getting trashed or are a location where people shoplift things.
Walmart is a logical result of the FTA as is the de-industrialization of the USA. Back in the Ronnie Raygun days, the US had one of the highest standards of living in the world. So, obviously their products couldn’t compete price-wise with products manufactured in countries with the lowest standards of living. So instead of becoming more competitive, which was the hype Ronnie used to sell FTA, the USA stopped manufacturing on consumer goods almost altogether and other industries are languishing (OMG please buy american made).
Walmart is just the product of the context that produced it.
I’ll bet the spy cameras used were MADE IN TAIWAN.
Actually, in NEW MEXICO. there was no applicable law to cover the incidents until recently (one was slammed through after rumors of the incidents surfaced). So it was not illegal to have video surveillance in private area’s until after the acts accurred. Some states still do not have laws that cover these acts. As for wal-marts low prices, some people fall for anything. A actual comparison and even insider leaking has shown, not only do they not have the lowest prices anymore, they are very high in some areas, they raise prices before “rolling them back” to a new higher price. And actuall maintained a higher intial margin nearly double of say costco’s and some other retailers! Do a test, you’d be very surprised, that’s why they were sued and not allowed to use the “always the low price” mantra any longer. They changed it to “always low prices”. A completely different meaning.
I would have pissed on the camera by accident, me stupid.
#9 I live in a town of 60,00 people.The food I buy at WM is at least 30 percent cheaper than at other stores in our area.My blue jeans cost 9 bucks.I can’t afford to be a Wal-Mart snob.Our country is better for having invented Wal-Mart.I don’t like parts of the company but it reacts and changes faster than our government does.We should put them in charge of health care and watch the prices and death rate drop.
I understand that sentiment, but you better hope that whatever your company makes, they don’t start selling it at Walmart. Because if they do, you’ll be out of a job so fast it’ll make your head spin, because they’ll be moving all the manufacturing to China to get cheaper prices. Good luck.
Oh, and you also better hope that the cheap food you’re buying at Walmart wasn’t made so cheap by skimping on safety and quality.
#9 And one more thing… you better get ready for higher prices once Walmart drives all the competition out of business and they have a monopoly. See #19.
#22 “#9 And one more thing… you better get ready for higher prices once Walmart drives all the competition out of business and they have a monopoly. See #19.”
Actually, once that happens, new competition will come in to out-Walmart Walmart.
Years ago, there was a news story about cameras in high end department store fitting rooms here in California, and IIRC, the practice was fairly widespread. So it’s nothing new, and it’s nothing specific to Walmart.
Now, I rarely shop at Walmart, as it’s far away, and the closest one is in a bad neighborhood. But who are you guys kidding about Walmart’s business practices. #6 got it right. We don’t make anything here anymore, most things are made in China, and since that is the case, why not buy them for cheap instead of having the extra $ go to Macys or Sears?
#23 Actually, once that happens, new competition will come in to out-Walmart Walmart.
That’s the theory. Walmart is one of the most powerful companies in the country. If competition comes in, it’ll temporarily bump its prices down again to drive the new competition out of business, and jack them up again. Repeat as necessary. Eventually potential competitors will look at all the failed Walmart competitors and decide it’s not worth it. And Walmart will have its monopoly.
I’ve known people who work in retail, so I understand the need to have security cameras in changing areas and rest rooms. Some people will steal whatever they can, given the chance.
#26 Not to mention the people who decide to do #2 on the fitting room floors so that the janitorial staff has to clean that up. I wish our fitting rooms had cameras in them in case so we could get our hands on those people and stick their nose in it.
I don’t think this was a company policy.
If somebody has to watch me use the bathroom…God have mercy on them.
Fusion, We videotape our employees all the time and we don’t need a court order to do it. What are you talking about?