Wal-Mart workers enlisted to help search store after bomb threat

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The occupational health and safety commission in Quebec is investigating complaints by Wal-Mart employees that they were forced to help police search for suspicious packages in their store after it received a bomb threat.[...]

Three bomb threats in one week at the Wal-Mart store in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu left employees feeling edgy. But it's how their employer allegedly dealt with the threats that has them more concerned.

After the first bomb threat, workers said, a Wal-Mart manager forced them to help police search to see if there was a bomb, while shoppers were told to leave the building.[...]

Employees say they didn't think they could refuse to help with the search. But Wal-Mart management said it did not force the workers to stay and search for a possible bomb.

"Wal-Mart's policy is that we collaborate and trust police," said Wal-Mart spokesman Yannick Deschenes. "They are the experts in terms of bombs …"

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Even where laws exist to allow workers to refuse, they need a union to given them the knowledge and courage to use those laws.

[ 15 July 2006: Message edited by: unionist ]