Archive for Retail stores
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.”
Retailers hoping for a bright new year
Posted by: | CommentsRecession-wracked city retailers say they were holding their own over the holiday shopping season while hoping to cash in on a happier 2010.
Traffic through electronics purveyor Soundsaround was strong but it was harder to make a buck, said Tony Scaffeo, the chain’s vice-president.
“Sales-wise, it’s been unbelievable — the only complaint is, we’re not making any money because the customers are getting such good deals,” said Scaffeo.
Holiday season 2009 will become known as the year of the television, he said, with the 32-in. model proving king among all the flat-screened bargains.
But he said the recession, teamed with price erosion and product saturation, weighed heavily on profits.
“It was the perfect storm — I’m glad 2009 is over and we’re looking forward to 2010,” said Scaffeo, adding customers conformed to retailers’ advice to wait until Boxing Week.
One of the city’s biggest shopping centres — Market Mall — reported Boxing Day traffic by 5% compared to 2008, though Christmas Eve was 7.7% better.
The prime shopping week beginning Dec. 14 was down by 1.3% at the northwest mall versus the previous year.
Retailers say an increase in Internet shopping has reduced foot traffic.
At Southcentre Mall, final sales numbers weren’t available, but spokeswoman Krista Moroz said shopping crowds were reasonably robust.
“On Boxing Day, we did over 35,000 people,” she said.
Crowds compared well with those of 2008, when the recession was just beginning to bite in the city, said Moroz.
“It seems people are still out shopping — hopefully it bodes well for 2010,” she said.
Eerie Canadian flag display spurs complaint to Zellers
Posted by: | CommentsMuch to the horror of at least one shopper, a Canadian flag serves as a backdrop for a Halloween display behind the customer service counter at a Zellers store in Oshawa.
Hanging on the wall behind a bank of cabinets, the flag and its red maple leaf are almost obliterated by dangling spider webs and creepy creatures. Every few minutes a witch’s head lets loose with a hideous cackle and flashing eyeballs
“Oh boy, you can’t even wish people Merry Christmas any more,” she grumbled when told a shopper found it offensive.
A woman who identified herself as the store manager, but wouldn’t give her name, said she wasn’t aware of any objections.
“It wasn’t meant to be disrespectful,” she said of the display. “If someone complained, we’d take it down.”
She said the display and flag weren’t part of a corporate program but something her store has been doing on its own for years.
“The flag is just something this store put up and left up.”
“Are they trying to say Canada’s dying?” he said, peering at the ghosts and tombstones perched on cabinets. “I wouldn’t do that.
“They should have removed the flag first.”
While there are no laws governing how Canada’s flag can be displayed, the federal agency Canadian Heritage offers a long list of guidelines
It should be displayed “only in a manner befitting this important national symbol; it should not be subjected to indignity or displayed in a position inferior to any other flag or ensign,” their website says.
Despite complaints, lottery company wants Arkansas contract
Posted by: | CommentsA company that has accused Arkansas lottery officials of creating an unfair bidding process is still interested in working for the lottery, a spokeswoman said today.
When lottery officials opened bids Wednesday for the contract to run Arkansas’ instant-win games, they found three submissions, one of them from Providence, R.I.-based Gtech. Last week, Gtech said it refused to submit a bid to run the state’s drawing games — or games involving a number drawing as opposed to an instant-win, scratch-off ticket — because the bidding process was flawed.
Gtech has contracts with 26 lotteries in the U.S. It is not unusual for a lottery to have one vendor for drawing games — known in the industry as “online” games — and another vendor for instant-win games, Wiczek said.
Passailaigue said today the letter of protest Gtech submitted last week will have “zero” impact on the process of selecting an instant-win vendor, a process in which points are awarded for meeting certain criteria.
“Whoever has the highest amount of points, that will be the company that I will recommend to our commission and the legislative oversight committee to award the instant-ticket contract,” he said.
Athens, Greece-based Intralot was the only company to bid for Arkansas’ contract for drawing games. The Lottery Commission voted Wednesday to issue a notice of intent to award the contract to Intralot.
Professor Elizabeth Warren speaks about the Consumer Financial Protection Agency
Posted by: | CommentsConsumers can enter the market to buy physical products confident that they won’t be tricked into buying exploding toasters and other unreasonably dangerous products.
They can concentrate their shopping efforts in other directions, helping to drive a competitive market that keeps costs low and encourages innovation in convenience, durability, and style. Consumers entering the market to buy financial products should enjoy the same protection. Just as the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) protects buyers of goods and supports a competitive market, we need the same for consumers of financial products — a new regulatory regime, and even a new regulatory body, to protect consumers who use credit cards, home mortgages, car loans, and a host of other products. The time has come to put scaremongering to rest and to recognize that regulation can often support and advance efficient and more dynamic markets. She describes what her ideal consumer financial product safety commission (F.P.S.C.) would do:
Like its counterpart for ordinary consumer products, this agency would be charged with responsibility to establish guidelines for consumer disclosure, collect and report data about the uses of different financial products, review new financial products for safety, and require modification of dangerous products before they can be marketed to the public. The agency could review mortgages, credit cards, car loans, and a number of other financial products, such as life insurance and annuity contracts. In effect, the F.P.S.C. would evaluate these products to eliminate the hidden tricks and traps that make some of them far more dangerous than others.
An F.P.S.C. would promote the benefits of free markets by assuring that consumers can enter credit markets with confidence that the products they purchase meet minimum safety standards.
Indeed, there can be no doubt that some portion of the credit crisis in America is the result of foolishness and profligacy. Some people are in trouble with credit because they simply use too much of it. Others are in trouble because they use credit in dangerous ways. But that is not the whole story. Lenders have deliberately built tricks and traps into some credit products so they can ensnare families in a cycle of high-cost debt.
Sears Holdings Settles FTC Behavioral Tracking Complaint
Posted by: | CommentsSears Holdings Corp. has settled with the Federal Trade Commission on a complaint that it persuaded consumers to agree to the collection of data about their online activities without giving them a full warning about the scope of the collection effort.
The charges relate to a complaint by the FTC against online market research SHC conducted from April 2007 through January 2008. During that time, according to the commission, Sears delivered pop-up ads to 15 of every 100 visitors to its Web site, inviting them to submit their e-mail address. Those who did so were then invited to join “My SHC Community” by downloading software that would monitor “online browsing.”
Users were allegedly told that joining the community would help them keep track of items such as warranties on their Sears-bought appliances. They were also offered $10 as an inducement to opt in.
According to the FTC, the Web tracking Sears then engaged in extended to non-Sears sites and included online banking transactions, names and addresses of e-mail correspondents, online video rentals and health and prescription information users had stored on the Internet.
Most users did not realize the real scope of this monitoring at sign-up, the commission alleged. While the software license produced at download explained that the program would track all Web activity, the offering e-mail did not make it sufficiently clear that the program would follow and retain data on “nearly all of the Internet behavior that occurs on consumers computers,” the FTC complaint said.
Instead, the FTC seemed to be signaling its will to pursue complaints in which marketers are simply crossing the limits of behavioral tracking without paying proper attention to disclosure.
Bond Dinettes complaint: furniture store owner needs to provide better service
Posted by: | CommentsFor a small-business man, Stephen Pawlak Jr. is unaware of several crucial facts about his Newington store, Bond Dinettes of Fairfield.
Pawlak said he was unaware that his company has an F rating from the Better Business Bureau for failing to respond to some complaints.
He said he’s unaware that there are judgments against his company from Connecticut small claims court that he hasn’t honored.
And he said he doesn’t understand how some customers can complain about waiting for months for special orders when he and his salespeople fully explain the possibility of delays because of factory problems overseas caused by the recession.
He insists that he has responded to every complaint filed with the Better Business Bureau and has paid all judgments in small claims courts. The data must be incorrect, he said Wednesday. He said all calls are returned.
Yet every few weeks I receive complaints from customers saying they’ve been misled by promises that their furniture will arrive within a certain time frame.