“Creating Hourly Careers: A New Vision for Walmart and the Country” exposes the barriers to career development at the country’s most powerful retailer, and makes the case for a new way of doing business. Rather than finding opportunities for professional growth, Walmart associates are faced with a cap on wages, ever-changing schedules, expensive benefits, and an arbitrary discipline system. And given the limited number of managerial positions, most employees must develop a career as an associate if they want to stay with the company. Unfortunately, thanks to Walmart’s current policies, that’s an option that most of the company’s employees simply can’t afford.

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Last month, Wal-Mart settled more than 60 wage-and-hour lawsuits and agreed to pay as much as $640 million in back wages to workers. Today, American Rights at Work published an open letter to new Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke, agreeing that the time is ripe for a new Wal-Mart, and outlining further steps the world’s largest retailer can take to ensure its workers have a fair share in the company’s success.

These steps include ensuring workers are free to choose a union to improve their wages, benefits, and working conditions without the fear of intimidation or reprisal and ending Wal-Mart’s opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act.

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