BOYCOTT Wal-Mart & Help Debbie Shank
Mar 29th, 2008 | By H. Lukas Green | Category: UncategorizedWal-Mart has demonstrated they have no social or human conscience unless it serves their bottom line. This greedy multi-national giant has had ample opportunity to the Right Thing but consistently chooses not to.
Wal-Mart’s approach to securing wealth is to enter areas and squash small businesses out of existence and then exploit their employees. The heartless money-hungry corporation that occupies space in nearly every city and town in America has shown its true self in its treatment of a severely brain damaged woman and her family.
Do not let the pain and suffering felt by Debbie Shank and her family go unnoticed.
Hit Wal-Mart where it hurts most of all - kick them in the cash register
BOYCOT WAL-MART!
Let Wal-Mart Know in two ways jus how OUTRAGED you are at their lack of social responsibility and compassion by contacting them and letting them know that YOU WILL NEVER SHOP IN ANY OF THERE STORES AGAIN!
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Corporate Offices
Bentonville, Arkansas 72716-8611
479-273-4000
Global Ethics Office
702 Southwest 8th Street,
Bentonville, AR
U.S.A.72716-0860
800-963-8442
walmartethics.com
ethics@wal-mart.com
More importantly if you want to help the Debbie Shank, and her husband Jim, the a Daily Kos has reported there is a fund everyone can participate in, large or small. All anyone needs to do is walk into any “Bank of America” and say that they want to donate to “The Debbie Shank Fund.” If your particular branch doesn’t know about it, tell them they need to contact the branche in Jackson, Missouri to get the information (573) 339-6500.
Learn more about this story:
- Meet Debbie Shank - victim of Wal-Mart greed
- Wal-Mart Worst Person
- Today’s Editorial Pic: Greedy Wal-Mart Sues Severly Disabled Debbie Shank
- Debbie Shank puts a face to the US health care crisis
- Wal-Mart misses an opportunity to do right!
- Wal-Mart conference call boasts of $375 billion earnings in 2008
- Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
Other Resources:
- Wal-Mart Watch
- Movie - Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
- THE CORPORATION an award winning documentary, explores the nature and spectacular rise of the dominant institution of our time. Part film and part movement, The Corporation is transforming audiences.
PrideDEPOT.com Editor, Jody May-Chang, now blogs on "As I See It... on May-Chang.com
I just saw this story on the news, how can walmart
be inhuman to do this,after what this family has been through!!!!!!!!! Walmart sucks sucks sucks,,
there polices suck….. all they care about is the money and not debbie shank injuries or her family…
I will never shop at wal mart again. what they have done to this poor woman and her family is disgusting!!! Once again it’s the millionaires screwing the working middle class barley getting by1 WAL MART SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WAL MART SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not another dime from me will be spent at Walmart.
Don’t you wonder how much the trucking company is paying walmart to do this to the lady? There is not a day my family members or I doesen’t go to walmart. I guess we can all start going to Kmart or target to get what we need now.I know when we have benifits for charitable agencys in dire need our small buisnesses always atleast donate $100.00 dollars and if Walmart does anything it will be $25.00 dollar gift certificate after several days of waiting and board meetings. So I guess this just truly inforced what I thought about them to start with. I’m also surprized that the lady even got insurance with them since they usually want let employees get in enough time to even qualify for insurance. Boycott the H— out of them. This lady will pay the rest of her life for something out of her control. Walmart might have gave up 15 second of sales. hopefully walmart want have to shut down because of it……what a joke.
Jody, your statement is completely true. I worked for Walmart for over 11 years and left because of all of the UNethical treatment of it’s employees and people. I feel like my time spent there was a complete waste of time. Anything I have learned from Walmart is how NOT TO TREAT PEOPLE. I know what goes on behind the scenes FULLY. Walmart management spends hours and hours a day trying to figure out who to screw, fire, treat badly (hoping they will quit), in order to get bigger bonuses for less payroll on the books everyday. I guarantee you that Walmart is the most dishonest company I have EVER worked for. And you are completely right, the money they are trying to withold from The Shank Family is made in one second of time. It’s too bad they need it so badly, it’s just unfortunate for all of the time they have taken to stash all of these billions, they won’t be able to take it with them when they all croak. And that won’t be too soon for me!!! I guess that they think property in heaven is FREE and they’ll be able to build their own Walmart to live in when they all get there…Pity though, they don’t realize that their actions will be sending them the other direction and that their “Walmart” will probably be on fire upon arrival!!!! Off to hell you go Walmart heirs!!!
I live in a rural area yet have not spent one dime in Wal-Mart in nearly a year. Now that I know about Debbie Shank, I will never spend another dime there.
One of the most heartless acts I have ever heard of. To Hell with Wal-Mart
Wal mart has been where I shopped for years now. Because their empire is so strong in China I fear for all of our safety. Never again! Lets take a stand for the millions of employees they have abused worldwide. I will donate to the shanks through Bank of America
I would like you all to see the exchange between Walmart and me. My first e-mail was sent through their website, space was limited. They have not replied to the second e-mail. NOTICE THERE IS A WALMART E-MAIL ADDRESS AT THE TOP OF THEIR RESPONSE
—Your Original Comments Were—-
Country: USA; Comments: After discovering what your company did to Debra Shank, a missouri employee hit by a truck and brain-damaged, I will no longer be shopping in your stores. Neither will my family or my fellow employees and friends. A company who waves the flag, promotes family and community in ads and commercials should follow thorough. Taking the last cent of a nursing home bound, injured woman who gave her son to the Iraq war is NOT family or American values. What is legal isn’t always what’s right Be ASHAMED.
wrote:
Thank you for your message.
Dear Cynthia,
When our associates, or their family members, suffer injuries or medical conditions which are the responsibility of others, our plan steps in to pay covered medical expenses so the associate and their families don’t have to worry about their bills or have large out-of-pocket expenses. It is only after the associate or their family member receives a monetary payment from the responsible party, that our health plan becomes entitled to reimbursement.
While the Shanks case involves a tragic situation, our responsibility is to follow the provisions of the plan which governs the health benefits of our associates. These plans are funded by associate premiums and company contributions. Any money recovered is returned to the health plan, not to the business. This is done out of fairness to everyone who contributes and benefits from the plan. The Supreme Court’s denial of the Shank appeal concludes all litigation. The Court ruled that the benefit plan was entitled to the funds in the trust account, which was about $280,000, which is all it requested.
Thank you,
Wal-Mart Customer Relations
Reply to; Wal-Mart Customer Relations
There is what is legal, and what is moral. What you have done is immoral. The money returned to your health insurance provider benefits WALMART by reducing your insurance costs. Even more so than normal if, as it appears from your answer, Walmart insures itself.
There comes a time when even a corporation, especially one that promotes itself as a warm-and-fuzzy-family-and-country-loving corporation, needs to be satisfied with its 11 Billion dollar profit and leave someone alone. If your health insurance company sued on its own, without the cooperation of Walmart, your corporation should have stood up for its employee and helped out.
With the amount of money earned in profits last year alone, Walmart could have shown some concern and some heart by establishing a fund for Ms. Shank and started the ball rolling by donating the same amount she lost due to your use of a less than patient-centric or caring insurer. This act would have created more publicity for, and fellow-feeling toward Walmart than you can imagine. The kindness and decency of this act would have garnered enough at the cash register to far exceed the amount paid out to Ms Shank; people react when they think a company cares, just as they react when they think it does not. I myself would have driven to Walmart instead of a closer store more often than I have.
So, since it is ONLY $280,000.00, not the over $400,000.00 as being reported, caring would have cost Walmart much less, and perhaps a tragically injured woman would have a little cushion, and her family less fear and worry to go along with their sorrow.
It might behoove you to do a little math- this is a big country. If only 28,000 people in the US decide as my family, friends and many of my colleagues have, that this most recent blemish on the corporate “soul” of Walmart is the last straw, and THE reason to avoid patronizing Walmart, you only have to loose $100 from each to make up that ONLY $280,000.00. We normally visited your store at least twice a month, and generally spent more that that $100.00 on each visit. Not any longer.
Yesterday we returned our most recent purchases to Walmart for a refund. We will from now on do as we did yesterday; drive on to Home Depot, for light bulbs, paint, and hardware, drive to Michael’s for the children’s craft supplies, stop at the mall for towels, buy our cleaning supplies at the grocery store. Spring is coming and many stores have bulbs, and soil, plants and pots. We will find one that is not Walmart.
I must admit that in the past convenience has often won out over the concerns I felt about Walmart, but no longer. I will take the extra time and the extra driving over complicity. The past sins of your company do not compare to this, and I cannot in good conscience continue to give custom to a company willing to further injure the chronically and irreversibly injured. I will not share the shame you deserve for this action by shopping in Walmart or Sam’s Club. It is not worth a few extra dollars or a little extra free time.
I am sure my reasons for returning several unopened items purchased only a day or so earlier provided the clerk in the returns department with food for thought. How could it not? Millions of Americans worry about their health insurance, or their lack there of; Walmart has now given the insured a new concern.
I do not know if this incident will injure Walmart in anyway, but I do know that I will not be contributing to your rather healthy bottom line any longer.
Thank you,
Cynthia Meier
The e-mail address left out is cstreply (USE THE AT SIGN)wal-mart.com
Way to go Cynthia VERY well said. There is NO argument that holds any amount of water that Wal-Mart could make to justify such unconscionable behavior
To: Wal-Mart - DITTO!!!
I praise Cynthia Meier, for putting together exactly what I was thinking!!
I will NEVER shop Walmart again, and rest assured all of my friends and family will know of this case, and how Greedy Wal Mart is…
This is a utterly disgusting act by such a large company, I can not believe how Heartless they are … What if this had happened to one of the CEO’s family members, would there be fine print in that case? Probably, not. No more Wal Mart here, ever ever again!!!
Calling on all moral Americans, please help me to expose this gross example of corporate greed and together let’s force Walmart to do what is right and not allow them to hide behind corporate policy.
My First E-mail to Walmart:
I am disgusted with what Walmart did to Debbie Shank. This poor lady’s husband is working two jobs now, and she is left alone in a nursing home, because Wal-Mart needed 700K to recoup what it spent on her medical care. FYI, your company made $11,284,000,000 in fiscal year 2007. Although Walmart had the “legal right” to subrogate the claim it had a moral obligation to not further financially cripple a woman who is already physically crippled. I hope the 700K is worth the ill will and bad PR.
Walmart’s Pathetic Reply:
Thank you for your message.
Dear Scott,
When our associates, or their family members, suffer injuries or medical conditions which are the responsibility of others, our plan steps in to pay covered medical expenses so the associate and their families don’t have to worry about their bills or have large out-of-pocket expenses. It is only after the associate or their family member receives a monetary payment from the responsible party, that our health plan becomes entitled to reimbursement.
While the Shanks case involves a tragic situation, our responsibility is to follow the provisions of the plan which governs the health benefits of our associates. These plans are funded by associate premiums and company contributions. Any money recovered is returned to the health plan, not to the business. This is done out of fairness to everyone who contributes and benefits from the plan. The Supreme Court’s denial of the Shank appeal concludes all litigation. The Court ruled that the benefit plan was entitled to the funds in the trust account, which was about $280,000, which is all it requested.
Thank you,
Wal-Mart Customer Relations
For further correspondence regarding this issue, please reply to this email
My Rebuttal:
To Whom it may concern,
I appreciate your prompt response however I take issue with the following line from your reply:
“our responsibility is to follow the provisions of the plan which governs the health benefits of our associates.”
This “policy” may make the Walmart executives sleep better at night but a “one size fits all” policy like you are describing hardly seems appropriate and each case should be judged on it unique circumstances.
This woman is no longer able to work or have a meaningful relationship with her husband or even function normally for that matter. That money was awarded to her because of her suffering and her loss of future enjoyment of life. To think that Walmart somehow deserves that money because they did what virtually any other responsible corporation would do is greedy and self serving.
I bet if Lee Scott or another Walmart executive was the person injured your “policy” would not be inforced. It’s amazing what money and status can do for a person, or not do for a person if you lack it.
I’m sure Sam Walton would be proud.
I’d like to know what Lee Scott himself thinks about that!!
What Wal-Mart has done here is terrible. I will never shop there again. This is disgraceful. I hope someday they will get what is coming to them. What they do is put the bottom line over people, their unconsciable actions are ridiculous. This is what happens when you put money ahead of the people that make your money for you. Shame Wal-Mart.
I notice that Walmart is sending Cynthia and Scott the same canned email that it’s sending to CNN’s Anderson Cooper and MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. It’s no wonder the response is so prompt!
I watched the documentary, The Corporation, last year and have not stepped into a Walmart ever since. The Debbie Shank case is by far the worst example of human cruelty I’ve seen come from a corporation.
It’s no wonder they’re kin to China, not only through their reverence for cheap junk, but their blantant disregard for the human condition. I hope the PR people who wrote this lame, canned email and the company representatives, who went after Debbie’s trust, rot in hell one day! They are inhuman drones who deserve what they get.
Having not gotten a response from Wal-Mart for my first letter I have sent this one:
Wal-Mart Board of Directors,
CEO, H. Lee Scott
RE: Deborah Shank
Suing is an option NOT A REQUIREMENT, particularly since you waited to the VERY LAST MINUTE just before the statue of limitations were to expire. That was low and calculated. Your mantra “out of fairness for everyone in the medical plan”, is nothing but spin for Corporate Greed in a failed and transparent attempt to cover your morally bankrupt corporate soul!
We are using all the tools that are available to us to aggressively advocate that EVERYONE BOYCOTT Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club. Our readers, my family, large network of friends and I are ALL committed to never spend another red cent in any of your stores EVER AGAIN!!!
You kick your “Associates” in the solar plexus daily, purchase products from child labor and sweatshops, crush local small businesses and are the number on culprit in this America’s race to the bottom. Wal-Mart supports China’s economy over that of our own, that which has made you so filthy rich, majorly off the backs of your poverty level “Associates!” You Sir’s are Un-American to the core!
So then what can consumers do? Kick you in the Cash Register by boycotting your entire company, until you do the ethical, moral and right thing.
I urge you to return the Shanks Money TODAY INCLUDING what you cost them in attorney’s fees PLUS interest as you are charging these poor people. You can make that money back in 5 minutes. To you this is it is pocket change.
Shame, shame, shame on you H. Lee Scott & Wal-Mart
Jody May-Chang, Editor
PrideDEPOT.com
I have sent this “Letter to the Editor” of the Manhattan (Kansas) Mercury — I hope they print it:
The decision by Walmart to make Debbie Shank (of Jackson, Missouri) repay them for medical expenses incurred by her automobile accident in May, 2000, is appalling and has no moral value. Yes, it is their legal right to do so; but what about the moral issue? It is my understanding that of the $417,000 paid by Walmart, $277,000 remains in a trust fund for Debbie’s care. Besides the initial medical costs, Debbie now lives in a nursing home and requires constant care. If Walmart really cared about its employees, they would be willing to compromise and work out a favorable solution — and not one that just benefits them! If Walmart is not willing to drop the issue, work out a compromise, or transfer funds from another source to help Debbie Shank, then they have joined the ever-growing club which I affectionately call, “Blood Suckers of America” — and I will no longer shop at Walmart. I also encourage everyone in Manhattan (and other towns) to boycott Walmart as well, until they decide to do the right thing, the “moral” thing!
Phil Schlee
Manhattan (Kansas) resident
I agree with Cynthia Meier and have started my boycott. Well put! I hope the public outcry is overwhelming! I probably spent 200 average each time I went. I will share my opinion with family and friends and encourage their boycott as well. For the ones that won’t boycott I will ask them to spend $100 that they would have spent at Walmart to a another competitor. Interestingly, I haven’t received the canned response to the email I sent Walmart a few days ago. I won’t support a company that kicks someone when they are down.
I’m suprised at how they’ve surpassed their previous record for a lack of compasion and humane treatment of their employees. I’ll drive to a nearby town for all my shopping and spend more just to never support walmart again. This is outradgous.
OUR FAMILY HAS BOYCOTTED ALL WAL-MART STORES ANYWHERE, PERIOD. NOT UNTIL THEY CAN HAVE COMPASSION FOR HUMANS, ESPECIALLY THE ONES THAT ARE THE POOR AND MIDDLE CLASS LIKE US. WE ARE AT LEAST 95% OF THEIR BUSINESS. THE RICH WONT EVEN STEP A FOOT IN WALLYS WORLD. WAL-MART NEEDS TO LEARN HOW TO TREAT THEIR CUSTOMERS ESPECIALLY THEIR EMPLOYEES. WE WILL SUPPORT THE SHANKS FAMILY AND WILL CONTINUE TO NOT SHOP AT WAL MART UNTIL THEY RESOLVE THIS ISSUE TO THE SATIFASTION OF THE SHANKS FAMILY. THIS STORY TOUCHED OUR HEARTS AND IM SURE TO MANY OTHER FAMILIES.
Disgusting,
I mean come on!!!!!! This woman is toast…. doing what is legaly your right is not always what is moral. You did not have to sue… you have enough money in your vault to take care of this women… if you wanted the money back… then why did you not set up a DEBBIE SHANK FUND???????? My family use to always shop at your store…. there was one point where we spent 120 a week at the super wal-fart for food… never again!!!!!
Wal Mart also buys life insurance for their workers, the dead workers kin get nothing as the sole beneficiary is Wal Mart. Clearly the worst company in the world, never shopping there ever again.
I knew that the fish thing sucked but i didnt know thy would stoop this low. im out of walmart
Humans and animals alike walmart and petsmart need to reconsiter before they loose there business