debbie shank and how many others

The good folks at Wal-Mart Watch want you to know that Debbie Shank was the tip of the iceberg.

Debbie Shank, you'll recall, was a Wal-Mart employee. She was permanently disabled and brain-damaged after a truck hit her car on the highway. Debbie now lives in nursing home. After Debbie's husband, Jim Shank, won a modest settlement from the trucking company that hit Debbie, Wal-Mart sued him for the cost of her care.

Yes, even though it takes Wal-Mart only 38 seconds to earn the $470,000 that they spent on Shank's care, they sued her suffering family to get the money back. And they got away with it! Which says something about the justice system, no? Only the huge public campaign publicly shamed Wal-Mart into reversing course.

So what it does mean that Debbie Shank is the tip of iceberg? Wal-Mart is the world's largest employer, and the single biggest employer in the United States. Yet fewer than half its employees are covered by the company health care plan. For those that manage to qualify, health care is still neither affordable nor accessible. Go here for details.

And this is some kind of iceberg.

Did you know Wal-Mart Watch is currently facing the largest class-action discrimination suit in history? 1.6 million current and former female Wal-Mart employees are charging the company with paying women less and offering them fewer opportunities for promotion.

But wait, there's more. There's a class action lawsuit filed by African-American truck drivers, and millions of dollars spent to settle lawsuits for discrimination against people with disabilities and violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Details and sources here.

Have you seen the "secret" Wal-Mart tapes? These videos were released to the public after the company gave the standard Wal-Mart treatment to (translation: screwed over) a production company that was making a video for them. Wal-Mart watch is using it as a handy organizing tool.