Perhaps Wal-Mart wouldn’t have to keep fighting to prevent its workers from organizing if they would stop doing stuff like this. The essence of the article linked is that Wal-Mart has some really punitive sick leave policies being enforced at some locations, to the point where people are getting pay docked and “demerits” on their record for staying home sick or staying home because their kids are sick.

I am grateful that back in high school when I worked at Wal-Mart, I had a team of managers who were decent human beings and I doubt they would have pulled crap like this. From everything I’ve read, though, that is not the corporate culture at large within Wal-Mart. But how can it be? When you have a business model that’s basically nothing more than “low prices!”, then costs become king. And labor is usually the biggest expense of any business.

There’s a price to be paid for cheap goods. All too often, that price is the loss of decent human behavior.