Walmart finds a new way to exploit workers with a new dress code

Rss@dailykos.com (laura Clawson)
Thursday, September 18, 2014, 7:55 pm
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Walmart may have stirred up a little more publicity than it expected when it changed its "dress code" for employees recently. The low-paid workers are not happy that they'll be expected to buy the new clothes they're required to wear to work, and they've been making themselves heard. But wait. Federal law says that employers have to provide workers with required uniforms, right? Bryce Covert explains how Walmart is getting away with making workers pay:
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But, under the language used by the company, the new clothes aren't "uniforms." Instead, they're part of a new "dress code."

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As Reuel Schiller, a law professor at UC Hastings, told NPR's Marketplace, "There's a legal difference between a uniform and a dress code." Walmart skirts the regulation about uniforms and is able to pass the cost on to workers by calling it a dress code rather than a uniform. It also gets around it by making employees buy clothes that they could conceivably wear elsewhere, not ones branded with a logo, for which it would otherwise be legally required to pay.

Although, if workers don't already have the required clothes, Walmart has helpfully marked the tags on items that pass muster in case workers want to buy those clothes from Walmart. Isn't that thoughtful? Worker group OUR Walmart estimates that the company stands to make $51 million or more in sales to workers buying the new not-quite-uniforms.

Walmart will also be supplying workers with a vest they're required to wear-a vest that, for all the company's big talk about American-made products, is currently being made in Jordan. They promise that soon, the vests will be made in the U.S., but:
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Michelle Gloeckler, executive vice president of consumables and U.S. manufacturing at Wal-Mart, confirmed the vests were made in Jordan, explaining the retailer made this decision because it couldn't find a supplier in the U.S. to churn out 1.4 million vests under such a quick time crunch.

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"The sheer number of vests that we ordered for our associates is the reason that we utilized a current apparel supplier in that location," she said. "Our intent is to replenish the vests as needed through a U.S. supplier."

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What was so urgent about putting workers in new clothes that they couldn't wait long enough to get 1.4 million vests made here? And if it was hard for Walmart, with its massive profits, to get vests quickly enough, think about the strain for its workers, many of who are forced by their low wages and part-time hours to rely on food stamps and Medicaid, and are now required to quickly come up with the money to buy new work outfits.
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