Wal-Mart locks in workers on the night shift, leading to situations where workers can\’t get out in an emergency. They have to call the night manager who has the key and wait for him to show up, if he even bothers to answer the phone. Managers threaten to fire workers if they use the fire exit in any situation other than an actual fire.

Several Wal-Mart employees said that as recently as a few months ago they had been locked in on some nights without a manager who had a key. Robert Schuster said that until last October, when he left his job at a Sam\’s Club in Colorado Springs, workers were locked in every night, and on Friday and Saturday nights there was no one there with a key. One night, he recalled, a worker had been throwing up violently, and no one had a store key to let him out.