Wal-Mart Investigates Seafood Supplier

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Wal-Mart suspended the Sam’s Club supplier C.J.’s Seafood, Breaux Bridge, La., after the National Guestworker Alliance advocacy group accused the supplier of creating hostile working conditions for guest workers, The New York Times reported earlier this week.

The Guest Worker Alliance claims the supplier has forced H-2B guest workers to work 24-hour shifts without overtime, verbally abused the employees and locked them in the plant.

“As soon as we heard about these allegations we engaged one of our third-party global compliance auditors who, within less than a week, was at the C.J.’s Seafood facility to conduct an investigation," Wal–Mart spokesman Lorenzo Lopez said in a statement to the press.

"While we were unable to complete a full investigation at that time, we did uncover violations of some supplier standards. OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Aministration] and the DOL [Department of Labor] are also still conducting investigations." 

On Friday, the Alliance said it has found forced labor conditions in 12 out of 14 Wal-Mart suppliers it has investigated.