Stephanie Mencimer

Home Despot

Cross-posted from The Tortellini

I was reading Gretchen Morgenson’s column($) in the New York Times Sunday and heartened to see her give the “What Would Stalin Do?” award to Robert Nardelli, the CEO of Home Depot, for running the company’s shareholder meeting like a Gulag chief.

Nardelli, if you’ll recall, appeared with George W. Bush early last year at the White House Economic Conference panel on tort reform, a cause Nardelli has embraced as his company’s safety record has deteriorated. Home Depot shareholders this year finally got a good taste of the paranoia about public scrutiny that the company has shown in dealing with injured workers and customers.

In 2003, the Atlanta Business Chronicle published a disturbing investigation into the dangers that lie in Home Depot’s aisles of plumbing pipes and aluminum siding, including the story of a 3-year-old who was crushed to death by 2,000 pounds of falling kitchen counter tops. The series highlights Home Depot’s legal strategy of covering up stories about people injured or killed in its stores through aggressive use of confidentiality agreements at all levels of litigation, not just in settlements. (keep reading)

Posted at 10:00 AM, Jan 03, 2007 in Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)