Wal-Mart promoting 25,000 employees

NEW YORK — Wal-Mart Stores, faced with criticism about worker pay, is making public a round of promotions of about 25,000 U.S. store employees to help send a message that it offers economic security and opportunity.

The world's largest retailer and the nation's largest private employer kicked off the on-the-spot surprise promotions at ceremonies Tuesday in its Secaucus, N.J., store and about 15 other markets including Atlanta and Denver. It's dispatching top executives to stores nationwide for similar events for the rest of its fiscal year, which ends in late January.

The mostly hourly workers will be promoted to different jobs — some to store management positions — and will receive higher pay and increased responsibility.

"It's good a time as any to tell our story," said Bill Simon, president and CEO of Wal-Mart's U.S. namesake division. He was at the Secaucus store Tuesday at a ceremony to promote six to eight workers.

The move is an addition to Wal-Mart's announcement in September that it would move 35,000 workers from temporary to part-time status and another 35,000 from part time to full time by year-end. The campaign builds on a theme the discounter pushed throughout the year, including at its annual shareholders' meeting in June, in which it cast the company as a place where employees have a chance to advance.

It has often highlighted that 75% of its store management teams started as hourly associates.

The latest campaign comes as Wal-Mart remains a target of attacks by critics, particularly union-backed groups that have argued the discounter puts profit ahead of its workers and pays meager wages.

Last week, OUR Wal-Mart, a group of current and former workers that have been staging protests at its stores, held a press conference in Washington, to pressure the discounter to pay all of its full-time workers at least $25,000 a year. It's planning another round of protests at its stores on the day after Thanksgiving, the traditional kickoff for the holid! ay shopping season.

The union-backed group latched on to a comment that Simon made at the Goldman Sachs retail investor conference last month when he said that more than 475,000 Wal-Mart workers earned more than $25,000 last year. OUR Wal-Mart inferred that with Wal-Mart employing 1.3 million workers in the U.S., about 825,000, or 63 percent, make less than $25,000 a year.

Wal-Mart says the group has distorted the figure, noting that more than 70 percent of its full-time hourly workers who have worked at its stores and its distribution centers for more than a year make at least $25,000. Wal-Mart isn't counting those who work at its Bentonville, Ark., headquarters or as drivers. Wal-Mart doesn't break down numbers for part-time and full-time workers but noted that full-time workers account for the majority of its workforce.