Court outlaws Wal-Mart de Mexico worker vouchers

REUTERS

8:08 a.m. September 5, 2008

MEXICO CITY – Mexico's Supreme Court ruled that the country's top retailer, Wal-Mart de Mexico, violated the constitution by paying workers in part with vouchers only redeemable in the chain's outlets, the court said Friday.

Wal-Mart de Mexico, also known as Walmex and a unit of U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc , gave store coupons as part of salaries, harking back to exploitative labor practices of over a century ago, the court said.

During the long dictatorship of President Porfirio Diaz, which ended in 1911, wealthy landowners and businessmen paid employees with special currency only valid in company stores.
The stores, which sold goods to poor workers at inflated prices, were banned in the constitution after labor uprisings sparked the Mexican Revolution in 1910.

“A labor contract that requires workers directly or indirectly to buy items in certain stores violates the constitution and will be declared null and void,â€