Aaron,

The labor laws do not allow such behavior.

It's very clear, you must get paid for every hour you work. An employer can ask for extended shifts, or send you home early, but they can not make you work without pay.

I believe you when you say it happened to your son, but that is the result of the local manager, and he should be fired and/or brought up on charges.

And despite what many will say, I'm positive that Corporate Walmart would agree.

All companies want to turn a profit, but all companies also want happy employees.

I find a lot of facts in this thread to be somewhat biased and untrue.

After reading through this, I can't seem to understand the accusations that are being mentioned as fact by the above posters. For example, in California Wal-Mart employs 80% of it's employees on full-time employee status, and Wal-Mart also has a great healthcare plan. The average hourly wage nationwide for them is almost $10 per hour. Wal-Mart is also the largest charity giver in the USA to both non-profit and the military.

80% of it's employees are full time....that is WELL above the national retail average of 20-40%.

So, who do I believe?

I think WalMart is an example of how consumerism has grown to the point that our own need/want to buy stuff possibly has come back around to make things IN SOME CASES worse for the worker/consumer.

I want things as cheap as possible. WalMart does that better than anyone. However, what I buy may rarely be produced by Americans. And small business owners might take it up the ass because WalMart can beat them on my bottom line cost.

As far as jobs at WalMart...there seems to be some discrepancy. Maybe it varies state to state...don't know. Some workers get screwed...others are taken care of. And unless it is a provable criminal action by WalMart, there is little that seems to be in place to protect those that get screwed.

The trade off for me personally is that when I go to WalMart, it is packed...lines at the checkout are ridiculous even though they have 40 lanes (though 1/3 are open at best). I have to wade through entire families in the way of where I need to go. I can't get out of the place in less than half an hour even if I just need 4 or 5 things.

But I keep going.