Wife of soldier (in Iraq) upset over losing job (at WalMart)

[NewHampshireDem]

http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=47445

A Manchester mother of two whose husband is serving in Iraq said yesterday she had to leave her Wal-Mart job after her bosses would not switch her schedule to accommodate her medical needs.
<snip>
My kids have been living without their dad since last December, and I've been struggling. I've been working for them for the past four years," she said.

A Wal-Mart official said the store did try to make a schedule switch work for Downey. But doing so would have negatively affected other employees.
<more>

[rfranklin]

1. Walmart supports our troops!

As long as it doesn't cost anything.

[MSgt213]

2. So much for that family oriented bullshit huh? All those bullshit

commericals are down right lies. What other employees are going to be adversely affected anyway? Some one from the hypocritical bullshit company wanted to explain that.

[zbdent]

3. Oh, so NOW they're concerned about the bulk of their employees

when it actually comes down to a person who is trying to make a living on their slave wages.

Whatever happened to that happy "manager" that was portrayed in the Wal-Mart radio commercials? You know, the WOMAN? Yup, promote one, and there, your "quota" is complete.

Kinda like those insurance radio ads. Where the woman says "Yeah, right. Like they're going to say that someone else has a better rate." and then the insurer "does". You find the one success story out of all the failures/reality, and you only hear from that one.

[mark11727]

4. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...

... to bastardize some vintage Star Trek.

On edit... I don't necessarilly hold with that, BTW.

[luaneryder]

5. I despise Walmart

This adds to my hatred. They give less than a shit about their
employees. The Walmart employees I know have no other recourse for work and often work another job as well (although Walmart doesn't care for that). They hesitate to talk about the problems with the corporation for fear of being fired.

[FightinNewDem]

6. Violation of the law?

Get thee to the NH Human Rights Commission!

There may be both state and federal causes of action here. Obviously, the FMLA and ADA are possibilities, but NH also has a rather broad "public policy" exception to its ostensible employment-at-will doctrine.