Business & Tech

Letter to the Editor from an Unhappy Walmart Employee

A worker at Stone Mountain's Walmart airs his grievances.

By Mike Warren

Back in April of 2013 you wrote an article about the new Walmart store that was coming to the Stone Mountain area. You wrote wonderful things about Mr. Fagan, the store manager, and he spoke highly of the things that were coming to the neighborhood.

The 300 employees Mr. Fagan hired have been drastically reduced in number. He has been firing those same employees he welcomed with open arms and the store has been open less than a year.

Mr. Fagan held a meeting with us and told us to get rid of as many employees as we could; he told us to start with associates who came to work late then work our way down the list; he told us we needed to get rid of 60 associates during the holiday season.

Those associates he has not fired or bullied into quitting have had their hours reduced. Associates are complaining about not being able to pay their bills and about how they can't buy their families Christmas gifts.

Mr. Fagan told his new hire associates that the average associate makes $12 an hour but all of his new hires make only $8.50 an hour.

What I have told you is only the beginning of many sorrows - how about the rotting fruit and vegetables that is constantly in produce. And when our customers come into the store they can never find what they need, maybe because there is more merchandise in the backroom and out in the several trailers than there is on the sales floor.

There is a trailer full of turkeys that were supposed to be put out on Thanksgiving and they continue to sit in the trailer. Old food such as meat that has been in the back for months is constantly pushed out to the floor and I fear customers will get sick from it.

This once wonderful thing has become a nightmare to the current and former associates and soon will be a nightmare for our customers. Mr Fagan has blamed the firings and reduced hours on the store not having WIC and he has stated to us that Walmart corporate office is making him do so against his will, which I don't believe. 

Walmart on Patch


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