Federal investigators said in an affidavit that they collected testimony and
taped conversations indicating that two Wal-Mart executives knew cleaning contractors
employed undocumented workers, the Associated Press reports.
In 2003, immigration officials conducted a raid on 60 Wal-Mart stores and arrested
245 undocumented workers who were employed by cleaning contractors hired to clean Wal-Mart stores. This year,
the company later agreed to pay $11 million to settle the case, which included
allegations that it knowingly hired contractors that employed undocumented workers.
In settling the investigation, the company denied any wrongdoing.
However, last week a U.S. district judge in Fayetteville, Arkansas, unsealed
an affidavit in which federal investigators alleged in 2003 that they collected
testimony and taped conversations indicating two executives knew the contractors
had hired undocumented workers, according the AP. The judge unsealed the affidavit
at the request of an attorney representing 200 janitors in a civil suit against
the company.
One former cleaning contractor told investigators that a Wal-Mart executive
suggested that the contractor create several subsidiaries so that the retailer
could continue doing business with the contractor by switching to another subsidiary
if one of them was caught using undocumented workers.
The company denies that the affidavit contains any incriminating evidence,
the news service reports.
"As we have maintained all along, no company senior official had any direct
knowledge that undocumented workers were working in our stores," Wal-Mart
spokesperson Marty Heires tells the AP.
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