Archive for Company
WalMart Settles Gender Discrimination Complaint
Posted by: | CommentsWal-Mart Stores Inc. agreed to pay about $12 million in back wages and damages as well as hire more female applicants for warehouse jobs to settle a sex discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency announced Tuesday.
Wal-Mart’s London, Ky., distribution center denied jobs to qualified female applicants from 1998 through February 2005, and regularly hired male entry-level applicants for warehouse positions, the EEOC said.
“Wal-Mart regularly used gender stereotypes” for filling certain positions, the EEOC said in a statement.
Executives with hiring authority told applicants that order-filling positions were not suitable for women, and that they hired mainly 18- to 25-year-old men, the EEOC said. Excluding women from employment or excluding them from certain positions because of gender violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
As part of the settlement, WalMart agreed to pay $11.7 million in back wages and compensatory damages; its share of employer taxes; and up to $250,000 in administration fees. The settlement also requires Walmart to provide order-filler jobs, as they become available, to eligible and interested female class members, as determined by a claims administrator.
“We’re pleased the matter has been resolved,” said WalMart spokesman Greg Rossiter. “The claims do not reflect WalMart’s continuing commitment to build an even more inclusive workplace through hiring and training initiatives.”
Johnson & Johnson files Tylenol consumer complaints late
Posted by: | CommentsLegal news for New York product liability attorneys— McNeil Consumer Healthcare’s agency filed consumer complaints a year later.
New York, NY (NewYorkInjuryNews.com) –The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) www.fda.gov has announced that McNeil Consumer Healthcare’s Johnson & Johnson unit should have taken action to recall Tylenol and other over-the-counter products after filed complaints of a strange smell of the product, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The FDA’s office of compliance sent the company a letter informing them of the violation of agency reporting rules and manufacturing practice rules. Consumers had been complaining about a mildew, moldy smell coming from the products in September 2008, and the agency did not begin a full investigation into the problem or report the complaints to the FDA until September 2009.
Friday, January 15, 2009, McNeil Consumer Healthcare expanded the recall to more than just Tylenol, but also recalled several other products such as Benadryl, Motrin, St. Joseph’s Aspirin. There were also complaints of musty-smelling Rolaids. There were consumer reports of nausea and temporal stomach issues due to use of the medication.
Investigations revealed that the moldy smell was linked to traces of a chemical that is applied to wood pallets used to ship the products. The company first recalled the Tylenol products in November 2009, simultaneously; the FDA was inspecting one of the agency’s plant in Puerto Rico. The FDA reported that, with the expanded recall, there were 50 million bottles recalled. It was noted that in 2009, Tylenol made up about $1 million in sales across the country. A report released by company, which stated that it failed to test if the Tylenol was contaminated, even after numerous consumer complaints.
EPA Revises Guidelines In Response To Navistar Complaint
Posted by: | CommentsThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued revised guidelines for complying with tougher emissions standards on diesel engines, a move intended to counter complaints by Navistar International Corp. ( NAV) that the agency’s previous guidance was flawed.
Navistar, which is suing the EPA over its certification process for a popular technology to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions, said the new guidelines are largely cosmetic. The company said truckers will still be able to operate 2010 model trucks for long stretches without a functioning pollution-reduction system.
“Both the new and the old guidance allow that to be done over and over again,” Navistar said in a filing this week with the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. “The net effect is that for a substantial time on the road, uncontrolled nitrogen oxide will be spewed into the air by millions of trucks.”
The EPA’s latest compliance guidance removed the suggested limits on the hours and miles trucks can operate without sufficient levels of the urea solution before the trucks begin to lose power and eventually become inoperable. The EPA said removing specific parameters eliminated confusion over whether the guidelines are actually binding requirements.
“While EPA understands that a certain amount of time or mileage may be needed to provide the driver enough time to have the vehicle serviced, EPA is not determining in this guidance what specific amount of time or mileage … would be needed,” the agency said.
The EPA is leaving such limits for truck and engine manufacturers to determine. Navistar complained that the agency’s 1,000-mile limit in EPA’s earlier guidance would have permitted truck drivers to disregard the new regulations for 1,000 miles every time the urea solution in their trucks ran out. But the company argued the agency’s latest approach doesn’t reduce the likelihood of trucks operating without functioning SCR systems.
Illinois-based Navistar is the only truck maker in North America that is not treating nitrogen oxide with SCR, opting instead for a process that recirculates cooled exhaust through its engines.
Nexus One upgrade fee lowered after complaints
Posted by: | CommentsIn a surprise move, Google and T-Mobile have announced that some T-Mobile users wanting to upgrade to the Nexus One can now do it for $100 less.
Caving in to wide spread complaints about the handsets initial $379 price tag, some T-Mobile users are now eligible to own the phone for $279.
Additionally, similar to Apple’s handling of the rapid price drop of the original iPhone, Google will be mailing out $100 rebate cheques to early adopters who opted to upgrade ahead of the announcement.
While it’s still uncertain who exactly is eligible for this particular upgrade, as apparently changes are being made on that end as well, overall it’s an interesting move from the folks over at Mountain View that we guess is more than a little related to the initial guesstimates of slow first week sales.
Now as it currently stands, the HTC-built, Google-branded handset will cost a mere $179 for those willing to sign a new 2-year contract, while an unlocked unit purchased directly from Google will remain at $529.
Google cyber-complaint is the tip of a silent iceberg
Posted by: | CommentsCoordinated attacks on IT systems are common, yet companies and governments have kept largely silent. The growth of computer services that rely heavily on the Internet means the stakes are growing higher. That may explain why Google spoke up about recent attempts to steal its intellectual property — and why the US State Department has also taken China to task.
The scope of the recent attacks points to a complex operation. More than 30 companies were attacked simultaneously through an undiscovered software security hole. The incursions appear to have had the blessing of the Chinese government, if not its direct involvement. It is hard to imagine who else would be interested in the email accounts of political dissidents, which Google claims were targeted.
The concerted assault also bears similarities to one on 100 companies last year, according to security experts at iDefense. So it shouldn’t be dismissed as a one-off or rogue operation.
The amount of information and money at risk from such attacks is growing. An increasing percentage of many companies’ value comprises patents and trade secrets. The theft of physical goods is rarely life-threatening for their manufacturer. A software company, on the other hand, can be destroyed if its secret sauce is stolen.
Microsoft, for instance, has persistently complained about piracy of its software in China and elsewhere. But Google has gone a step further, squawking about a security breach that makes it look vulnerable. Other companies, and governments, have mostly kept quiet about this kind of trouble.
That may change, because Google’s problem is rapidly becoming everybody’s. The growth of cloud computing — where services such as email, spreadsheets and word processing are served online — increases the vulnerability of companies and governments to Internet-based attacks. Hillary Clinton’s State Department appears to be backing up Google’s complaint.
Western governments are heavily involved behind the scenes with tackling gaps in Internet security. But cyber-attacks that appear to be state-sponsored arguably call for a more public response as well. Clinton’s decision to point a finger openly at the Chinese government could just be the beginning
Complaints rolling in about Google Nexus One
Posted by: | CommentsGoogle’s Nexus One phone may have been one of the most anticipated devices of the last few weeks. But since the smartphone’s launch last Tuesday, it has left a string of unhappy customers in its wake.
Nexus One has been plagued by consumer complaints including spotty 3G connectivity, a high early termination fee, poor customer support from Google and problems with the touchscreen.
“There are some aspects of the experience that Google didn’t think through as carefully as they should have,” says Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research. “This has implications for the store they have launched and their future ambitions for it. Google, clearly, has a lot of work ahead of it.”
Google introduced the Nexus One as the first device to be sold by the search company itself, rather than a manufacturing or carrier partner. The Nexus One, which runs Android 2.1, has been designed by HTC and works with T-Mobile’s network in the United States.
But contrary to initial speculation, the device isn’t free. It will retail for $180 with a 2-year contract with T-Mobile. An unlocked version is also available for $530 — a price similar to most other smartphones — and that version will work on other GSM phone networks worldwide as well as AT&T in the United States, although with some limitations.
The difference, though, is the Nexus One is available only through Google’s online store. Unlike with a Motorola Cliq or a HTC G1, users can’t walk into a T-Mobile store and buy the Nexus One.
They can’t even count on T-Mobile’s customer service representatives in store or the company’s phone support to solve their problems.
It’s a strategy that has backfired on Google. The company’s support forums are full of customer complaints around the Nexus and the company’s poor service.
“A lot of complaints and frustration that people are expressing would normally be handled by going back into the store or by calling the support help line,” says Golvin. “Having a physical location where you can take your phone back helps customers and Google seems to have underestimated that.”
“Solving customer support issues is extremely important to us, because we want people to have a positive Nexus One experience,” says a Google spokesperson. “We are trying to be as open and transparent as possible through our online customer help forums.”
Many of the customer complaints are centered about the device’s inability to connect to T-Mobile’s 3G network. The Nexus One does not pick up the 3G network or keeps switching to the slower EDGE network, say some user”Google provides a subsidy for devices purchased with T-Mobile USA service. If a consumer cancels service after 14 days, Google recoups this subsidy in the form of an equipment recovery fee,” says the Google spokesperson.
“After 120 days, the equipment recovery fee will no longer apply. This is standard practice for third party resellers of T-Mobile and other operators, and you will find similar policies for other mobile service resellers. The T-Mobile early termination fee is separate and handled by T-Mobile.”
Despite the problems, Google can bounce back, says Golvin. Customer dissatisfaction is likely to be just a small speed bump in the road for Google’s mobile ambitions, he says.
Nexus One unleashes a googol of complaints
Posted by: | CommentsLess than a week old, the new Nexus One “superphone” from Google Inc. is producing more questions and complaints from early adaptors than Google’s infrastructure is prepared to deal with, according to PCWorld.
Its post says that Google – whose name derives from the similarly spelled mathematical term for the number 10 to the 100th power – is generating a flood of queries but little response.
And Google’s evidently fielding only e-mail questions and promising replies in only a day or two.
Nexus owners apparently are also calling T-Mobile, which PCWorld says is sending them to HTC Corp. that made the device, which is sending them back to T-Mobile.
Google not only launched the phone on Tuesday but began selling them itself online. Typically, customers go to a cellular service provider and ask what phones they carry but Google wants to turn that process on its head.
Instead, PCWorld makes it look as though Google has left Nexus buyers scratching their heads.
Making People Poor at Walmart
Posted by: | CommentsAt the world’s largest and most profitable retailer, low wages, unpaid overtime, and union busting are a way of life. Now Wal-Mart workers are fighting back.
* In 2001, sales associates, the most common job in Wal-Mart, earned on average $8.23 an hour for annual wages of $13,861. The 2001 poverty line for a family of three was $14,630. ["Is Wal-Mart Too Powerful?", Business Week, 10/6/03, US Dept of Health and Human Services 2001 Poverty Guidelines, 2001]
* A 2003 wage analysis reported that cashiers, the second most common job, earn approximately $7.92 per hour and work 29 hours a week. This brings in annual wages of only $11,948. ["Statistical Analysis of Gender Patterns in Wal-Mart's Workforce", Dr. Richard Drogin 2003]
Complaints about understaffing and low pay are not uncommon among retail workers — but Wal-Mart is no mere peddler of saucepans and boom boxes. The company is the world’s largest retailer, with $220 billion in sales, and the nation’s largest private employer, with 3,372 stores and more than 1 million hourly workers. Its annual revenues account for 2 percent of America’s entire domestic product. Even as the economy has slowed, the company has continued to metastasize.
Given its staggering size and rapid expansion, Wal-Mart increasingly sets the standard for wages and benefits throughout the U.S. economy. “Americans can’t live on a Wal-Mart paycheck,” says Greg Denier, communications director for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW). “Yet it’s the dominant employer, and what they pay will be the future of working America.”
Wal-Mart has responded to the union drive by trying to stop workers from organizing — sometimes in violation of federal labor law. In 10 separate cases, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled that Wal-Mart repeatedly broke the law by interrogating workers, confiscating union literature, and firing union supporters. At the first sign of organizing in a store, Wal-Mart dispatches a team of union busters from its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, sometimes setting up surveillance cameras to monitor workers. “In my 35 years in labor relations, I’ve never seen a company that will go to the lengths that Wal-Mart goes to, to avoid a union,” says Martin Levitt, a management consultant who helped the company develop its anti-union tactics before writing a book called Confessions of a Union Buster. “They have zero tolerance.”
Wal-Mart’s success story was scripted by its founder, Sam Walton, whose genius was not so much for innovation as for picking which of his competitors’ innovations to copy in his own stores. In 1945, Walton bought a franchise variety store in Newport, Arkansas. The most successful retailers, he noticed, were chains like Sears and A&P, which distributed goods to stores most efficiently, lowered prices to generate a larger volume of sales, and in the process generated a lot of cash to finance further expansion. These, in turn, would serve as basic principles of Walton’s business. As he explains in his autobiography, Sam Walton, Made in America, he drove long distances to buy ladies’ panties at lower prices, recognizing that selling more pairs at four for a dollar would bring greater profits than selling fewer pairs at three for a dollar. The women of northeastern Arkansas were soon awash in underwear, and a discounter was born. Walton opened his first Wal-Mart Discount City in 1962 and gradually expanded out from his Arkansas base. By 1970 Wal-Mart owned 32 outlets; by 1980 there were 276; by 1990, 1,528 in 29 states.
Beware firing employee after a leave or complaint
Posted by: | CommentsTerminating employees who have tried to enforce their rights under any statute, whether it be the Employment Standards Act of Ontario or the Ontario Human Rights Code, can be an expensive business.
Julie began working for a tour company that arranged bus trips from Toronto to Casino Rama for a mostly Asian clientele in 1999.
In December 2005, she told her employer she was pregnant and asked for a transfer to an office position.
The employer said no such position was available, and Julie was put on an unpaid leave.
Unfortunately, Julie had a miscarriage. After she returned to work she filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission alleging the employer had failed to properly accommodate her pregnancy.
Once the employer was served notice of the complaint, Julie was called into a meeting with a vice-president of the company.
She was chastised for filing the complaint and told that it didn’t make any sense for her to work there anymore. She was told if there were any across-the-board wage increases she would not get one.
When Julie indicated she planned to try to get pregnant again she was told if she did become pregnant she would not be allowed to work.
A few months after, while the complaint process was still going on, she did not receive an annual bonus that everyone else got despite the fact she had an excellent rating as an employee.
As promised, when all the other employees got salary increases, Julie got nothing.
When none of this was successful in provoking Julie to withdraw her complaint, the company president told her outright that if she withdrew the complaint she would get her bonus and salary increase.
By this point, Julie was afraid to resolve her complaint even if she wanted to. She felt her termination would follow any settlement.
Despite that, in the spring of 2007, in exchange for just over $5,000 she signed minutes of settlement and a full and final release.In normal circumstances, an employer has the right to terminate a non-unionized employee without any reason at all. As long as the employer provides the Employment Standards Act minimums and pay in lieu of notice, they can do what they want.
But when you terminate somebody who has just gone through a statutory complaint process, you better have a good reason or a much bigger bill will have to be paid.
Julie filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal alleging she had been terminated as a reprisal for her having filed the first complaint. Of course, she won. It is a wonder why the company didn’t just settle again.
While the judge did consider how Julie was treated during the first complaint process, the decision was based only on the termination. Since Julie had signed a release at the end of the first complaint process, she could not later go back to try to get damages for the things that happened before she signed off.
That history, however, likely contributed to the judge’s finding that the termination was a reprisal. The shoe certainly fit.
Julie was an eight-year employee in a non-management position and in normal circumstances might have received six or seven months’ pay in lieu of notice. Instead, she was awarded 19 months lost wages until the date she found new full-time employment — more than $42,000 — as well as $15,000 for the violation of her human rights. Who knows how much they spent on lawyers’ bills defending the claim.
How to Check a Company’s Complaint Record
Posted by: | CommentsWhen you’re about to make a large purchase, it’s wise to check a company’s record. You have every right to demand great customer service. This advice is provided in conjunction with Feedback Direct
1. Call, write or e-mail your local consumer affairs office or your state attorney general’s office and request information about a company’s complaint history. Know the exact name and the business address of the company you’re inquiring about.
Step 2. Be specific about what information you request. It isn’t enough to know the number of complaints that were filed.
Step3. Find out the nature of the complaints if you can.
Step4. Ask to look at the actual complaint files to learn more about the complaints and see how the company responded to them.
Step5 Inquire about any special investigations of the company.