LOS ANGELES — A Wal-Mart Stores employee here has launched an online petition calling for two of the company's top executives to resign at next month's annual meeting.
By early last week, approximately two weeks after it was posted, the petition had collected more than 13,000 signatures. The petition was developed through Change.org, a website that seeks to promote social change through online petitions. Change.org said the employee, Venanzi Luna — who has worked her way up from cashier to department manager — plans to attend the shareholder meeting and present her petition calling for Mike Duke (pictured), chief executive officer, and Rob Walton, chairman, to step down and for the company to launch a full investigation into alleged corruption immediately.
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On the website seeking petition signatures, Luna said she has been working for Wal-Mart for seven years. She said she takes care of her father, who is ill, and she started the petition "[because] he always told me to be a fighter. I’ve given a lot to this company, and I’m very angry that top executives at Wal-Mart are said to be involved in bribing public officials in Mexico and then trying to cover the whole thing up. I’m worried because while I am working hard, now I’m hearing that they’re risking our company by lying and cheating.”
A report in the New York Times earlier this month said Wal-Mart had paid more than $24 million in bribes to Mexican officials to facilitate the company's rapid expansion there and then shut down its own internaal investigation of the matter.