Home Depot stops doing business with federal government (even cash!)

Saint Louis Today ^ | June 16, 2002

[John Jorsett]

Home Depot Inc., the nation's largest hardware and home-improvement chain, has told its 1,400 stores not to do business with the U.S. government or its representatives.

The Post-Dispatch checked with managers at 38 stores in 11 states. All but two said they had received instructions from Home Depot's corporate headquarters this month not to take government credit cards, purchase orders or even cash if the items are being used by the federal government.

[TheCPA]

I agree with you. I like Lowe's much better, but there are some things I can find only at Home Depot.

[Teacher317]

You chose your FR moniker well, my friend!

[kcvl]

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission moved to intervene in a 1995 lawsuit covering 310 Home Depot stores east of the Mississippi. A third lawsuit is pending in New Jersey. This is the largest sex discrimination case the EEOC has ever taken on. The HD response? Home Depot said it was "puzzled and outraged" that the federal government has intervened in a class-action sex discrimination lawsuit against the nation's largest building supply retailer.

Home Depot employs a total of more than 95,000 workers. According to one media account, 70% of the company's merchandising personnel are men, and 70% of the cashiers and back-office employees are women. Discrimination against Home Depot is alleged in hiring, job placement, training, promotions, and compensation. An attorney with the EEOC said: "While Home Depot has a glass ceiling, it traps its female employees in what amounts to a glass basement, with glass walls." According to the EEOC, "in too many instances, women at Home Depot were hired only for jobs such as cashier's positions--but not others." The company told reporters: "We are very proud of our record of hiring and promoting women to every level in the Company." In a memo to employees entitled "What We Are Committed To", Home Depot's management said: "The Home Depot is not going to bend to the pressure of those who seek to capitalize on our success- -and your success--so that they can pursue their own self-interested agendas...we are fully confident that the truth will ultimately be realized by all--that there is no better place for women and men to work than The Home Depot."

[Alas Babylon!]

Right. The HD here in Montgomery, Alabama wont take government checks & PO's, but lots of GI's from Maxwell and Gunter AFB's are there, in uniform, buying stuff everyday.

[thepitts]

If you don't like the Fed Govt ways of doing business then elect better congress people

Wasn't this (just recently) made nearly impossible?

[TiaS]

That is odd -- what about former federal government employees?

[Starwind]

FYI;

A real life example of a company deciding that having the Federal Government as a customer can distract the company from pursuing it's main business and larger market, the retail customer.

I'd guess they were also spending inordinate resources (shrinking profit margins) processing slow payments, return merchandise, disputed bills, special orders, audits, as well as having to comply with a lot of red tape that had nothing to do with business and everything to do with social engineering.

Five years from now, when Lowes looks up from their "growing" Fed Gov business, Lowes will have doubled in size and lost profitability, while Home Depot will have grown 5 fold at least, maintained margins, and taken market share that Lowes will never catch up.

[Lessismore]

If you're going to do business with the US Govt., you need to set up a separate subsidiary to do it. Otherwise the costs of complying with government legal, contracting, accounting, regulatory, ..., requirements will slop over into your commercial business and make you non-competitive.

Home Depot can't afford to sell a $15 hammer to the USG for $15. USG hammers cost $100s or $1000s once the paperwork is done.

[cake_crumb]

"Last year, it had sales of $53.6 billion."

How much of that came from the federal government? What is their problem? "Not our olicy"....that is the largest amount of hogwash packed into the shortest statement that I have seen in a long time. I'll never shop there, and I just informed my sister in-law, who is employed by the federal government, that she should no longer any business with Home Depot and why.

I think I'll knock off an email to Mom, with a link to this thread. And Dad, who is an aquisitions manager for an extremely large company...and a veteran.

Hmmmm....who owns Home Depot?

[TaRaRaBoomDeAyGoreLostToday!]

Odd. Is there credit bad? :-) Odd.... hmmmmm.

[section9]

I work at a Home Depot here in South Florida. I'm almost positive this has to do with long term government business. Home Office probably got wind of some regulatory monsters coming down on them and decided to bail on official, large scale government business.

We're not going to piss off our customer base by telling guys in Uniform to go pound sand.

This will be straightened out when the guys at Legal sit down with the Justice Dept. and make sure that our butts are covered. What the people at Lowe's haven't figured out is that when you do big business with the Feds, they can often call the tune.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[TaRaRaBoomDeAyGoreLostToday!]

LOL in the Navy ONE hammer is $2500.00 once all red tape paper work is done that is why I do not understand Home Depot.

[CGASMIA68]

"LOWES"

[SauronOfMordor]

Home Depot's response is to refuse service to uniformed military personnel? How patriotic.

Take another look at the policy. They seem to be trying very hard to NOT be considered a "government contractor" and thus subject to all sorts of laws and regulations.

If you go in to buy something for your own PERSONAL use, as opposed to buying supplies for your BASE, then they would have no reason under that policy to refuse you

[Fish out of Water]

fyi

[tall_tex]

Well I am one of the many owners of HD. They are a publicly traded company on the NYSE and one of the few that have at least held off major declines in their stock price the last couple of years. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out in the next week or two.

[Mike4Freedom]

We will probably find out that they have had some trouble already with those specific statutes and they want to protect themselves. They are well within their rights to sell to someone who imposes unacceptable terms and conditions on them.

[litany_of_lies]

Blame elected officials - not the government workers that have sworn to carry out these laws.

I wish it were that easy. True, Congress passes vague laws that give bureaucrats way too much leeway. But the bureaucrats stay up late and night thinking about creative ways to twist the laws even further to harass businesses even beyond the level Congress intended.

I have mixed feelings about HD. My brother, who is a manufacturers' rep for a number of US companies, sells to them, and he's PO'd because they are constantly beating up on him as to when he's going to have his client companies manufacture stuff in (slave labor Communist) China. So on the one hand, I'd be more impressed with HD if they didn't appear to be so hell-bent on getting goods from foreign countries, especially China.

OTOH, I admire them for trying to avoid business with the government. They had better be ready for a helluva fight. The bureaucrats' weapons will at least be the following:

- Conducting stealth purchases by government employees for cash ("temporary exceptions to the GSA's under-$2500 rule"), and telling HD that they're doing biz with the Feds whether they like it or not, and whether they know it or not.

- Sending out every OSHA, EPA, and EEOC auditor they can round up to give their respective root canals to every store, every branch, and every office.

- Pit-bull IRS auditors on every audit relating to their income tax returns and employee-benefits plans

- Rumor-mongering from "sources withing the SEC" about "dubious accounting practices" or "insider trading."

- Antitrust actions from the DOJ, alleging that HD has used predatory pricing to eliminate the small-time hardware stores.

- Lawsuits by the Feds claiming that HD engages in interstate commerce, and is BY DEFINITION subject to the laws and orders they are trying to avoid having to comply with. After all, how do customers get to the store (federally-funded interstate highways)? Who do their trucks pay excise taxes to (the feds)?

- The probably pounding that the stock will take when various items of bad news referred to above are reported.

Like I said, they had better be ready.

[Righty1]

I salute them. This is the only way that reverse discrimination can be fought. Unfortunately numerous jackles will take up the slack.

[537 Votes]

Let's see, the United States is at war.

I get really tired of this 'We're at war' crap. It worked when Osama bin Laden was alive. But now the war is against everyone Muslim, and it's going to last forever, and oh by the way, the FBI needs to read all your e-mail now, even though there's irrefutable evidence that the September 11 attacks could have been prevented if it had merely bothered to read its own e-mail.

Yes, we are at war. We are at war with politicians who wish to use a bizarre terrorist attack as a pretext for vastly expanding the power of the federal government and vastly curtailing our civil liberties. I'm not biting, and neither is Home Depot.