Wal-Mart suddenly closed 5 stores and laid off thousands of workers and no one knows why<\/h1>\n\n\n\n\n
Walmart has denied that the closures had anything to do with labor activity or Jade Helm.<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\nThe 5 stores that Walmart mysteriously closed are finally reopening<\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n
Email icon An envelope. It indicates the ability to send an email.<\/p>\n\n\nTwitter icon A stylized bird with an open mouth, tweeting.\n\n\n
Twitter LinkedIn icon The word “in”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
LinkedIn Fliboard icon A stylized letter F.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Flipboard Facebook Icon The letter F.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Facebook Email icon An envelope. It indicates the ability to send an email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Email Link icon An image of a chain link. It symobilizes a website link url.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Walmart suddenly closed five stores in April without warning, laying off more than 2,200 employees in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Six months later, the retailer is now reopening the stores and inviting previous employees to reapply for their jobs, Reuters reports .<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Walmart said it closed the stores in California, Texas, Oklahoma, and Florida because of persistent plumbing issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
But Walmart employees \u2014 who said they were blindsided by the closures \u2014 have a different theory about why the stores may have been closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
They say Walmart shuttered the stores in retaliation against workers protesting for better pay and working conditions, w hich is something Walmart has been found guilty of doing in Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The UFCW \u2014 a labor group representing Walmart’s laid-off workers \u2014 filed a claim with the National Labor Relations Board demanding that the company rehire the employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Walmart employees weren’t alone in their skepticism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The closures also fueled a bizarre conspiracy theory that the US military was planning to enact martial law this summer under the guise of a special-operations exercise called Jade Helm 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
According to the theory \u2014 which has no apparent basis in reality \u2014 the military was planning to use the shuttered Walmart stores as “processing” facilities for Americans once martial law was hatched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Walmart has denied that the closures had anything to do with labor activity or Jade Helm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
“The reason for the closures is to address the plumbing issues that we have at these stores,” Walmart spokesman Lorenzo Lopez told Business Insider in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
All laid off workers received paid leave for two months. After that, full-time workers could become eligible for severance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Some workers were also hired at nearby Walmarts during the closures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Wal-Mart suddenly closed 5 stores and laid off thousands of workers and no one knows why<\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n
Email icon An envelope. It indicates the ability to send an email.<\/p>\n\n\nTwitter icon A stylized bird with an open mouth, tweeting.\n\n\n
Twitter LinkedIn icon The word “in”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
LinkedIn Fliboard icon A stylized letter F.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Flipboard Facebook Icon The letter F.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Facebook Email icon An envelope. It indicates the ability to send an email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Email Link icon An image of a chain link. It symobilizes a website link url.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Wal-Mart suddenly closed five stores in four states on Monday for alleged plumbing problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
The closures could last up to six months and affect roughly 2,200 workers in Texas, California, Oklahoma, and Florida, CNN Money reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Wal-Mart employees say they were completely blindsided by the news, having been notified only a couple hours before the stores closed at 7 p.m. Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
“Everybody just panicked and started crying,” Venanzi Luna, a manager at a store in Pico Rivera, California, told CNN Money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
All workers will receive paid leave for two months. After that, full-time workers could become eligible for severance, according to CNN Money. But part-time workers will be on their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Local officials and employees have questioned Wal-Mart’s reasoning for the closures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
According to ABC News, “no plumbing permits have been pulled in any of the five cities where the stores were suddenly closed for at least six months.” The cities where locations were closed include: Brandon, Florida; Pico Rivera, California; Livingston, Texas; Midland, Texas; and Tulsa, Oklahoma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
A city official in Pico Rivera confirmed to CBS Los Angeles that the city has not received any permit requests for building repairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
In Midland, Texas, where another store was closed, a city official told ABC News that his plumbing inspector was turned away when he visited the store and offered to help secure construction permits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Wal-Mart plumbing technician Codi Bauer, who worked at the now shuttered store in Brandon, Florida, questioned the company’s time frame for the repairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
“Even if they had to replace the whole sewer line, it wouldn’t take six months to replace a whole sewer line in that store,” he told WFLA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
We reached out to Wal-Mart for comment and will update when we hear back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
A Wal-Mart spokesman told Consumerist that the company had not secured permits “because we have yet to know the full extent of the work that needs to be done. We may also have to do additional upgrades that may require additional permits.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Some employees believe that the stores were closed because of worker protests for higher pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Employees of the Pico Rivera store were among the first to hold Black Friday protests in 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
“This is the first store that went on strike,” an employee told CBS Los Angeles. “This is the first store in demanding changes for Walmart.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
If you work at Wal-Mart and have a story to share, email us at retail@businessinsider.com.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n]]><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sesglobal.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sesglobal.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sesglobal.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sesglobal.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sesglobal.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sesglobal.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sesglobal.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sesglobal.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sesglobal.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}