This story was produced in partnership with Type Investigations.

On a chilly Sunday afternoon exactly two years ago today, Janikka Perry arrived for her bakery shift at a Walmart supercenter in North Little Rock, Arkansas. Once she began working, she started to feel unusually faint. As the hours wore on, she told her co-workers she wasn’t feeling well, and retreated to a bathroom for rest. But the store was short-staffed, and her manager allegedly told her to “pull herself together.”

Janikka had heart problems and diabetes—conditions management was aware of—and had worked through ailments before, because that’s the norm at Walmart. As recently as 2019, the company allowed employees to accrue nine penalizing points every six months before firing them. Today, it’s five. Workers receive those points for a whole host of reasons, like showing up late, leaving early, or taking unplanned time off, even if they’re sick or need to attend an important family function.

But Janikka rarely missed work or went home early. She once left her own birthday party to go to work, leaving loved ones to vent that Walmart was taking too much of her time. One of her sons, Austin, once pleaded with his mom to quit. “She was like, ‘Who else is going to pay the bills and put clothes on your back?’” he said. “I couldn’t say nothing else.”

Her commitment to Walmart came second only to church. No matter her schedule, Janikka never missed Sunday service at her local congregation. Each week, she would sing and pray in front of the pulpit’s large illuminated cross. On the morning of that shift in January, she attended mass with her mother, Fay, then wished her goodbye. “Mommy, I love you,” she said on her way out the door. “I’ll see you later.”

Hours later, as night set in and Janikka’s shift neared its end, she withdrew to a stall in one of Walmart’s white-tiled restrooms for the second time in as many hours. Eighty-seven minutes later, at 11:21 p.m., she dialed 911 from the bathroom.

“I’m having difficulty breathing,” she told a dispatcher between coughs. “I feel like I’m about to pass out.”

When an ambulance arrived, nine minutes after Janikka called, medics found her unconscious. They later rushed her to St. Vincent North Hospital, where she was pronounced dead of a heart attack. She was 38.

Janikka spent many of her final years in between the walls of that store. But after her death, people there seemed afraid to talk about her. During a fall 2022 reporting trip, over a dozen associates at the supercenter declined to participate in this story when asked if they knew Janikka. I met one woman folding jeans who seemed open to talking, but seconds later, a store manager approached us and said that associates are prohibited from speaking with journalists on the clock. “You’re putting her at risk of getting in trouble,” the manager said. Then she called the police.

This isn’t the only way in which Janikka has been disappeared: Her death does not appear in federal workplace fatality data, and her heart attack does not show up in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s records, according to the agency. As a result, the agency never investigated her death.

In Walmart founder Sam Walton’s view, in-store workers like Janikka, called “associates” in corporate parlance, were “the real front line” of the company, and he was hyper-focused on ensuring that customers viewed them as happy and helpful. For decades, customers would first encounter this cheeriness in the form of “greeters”—employees stationed near entrances to welcome shoppers. Then, inside, they’d encounter associates wearing name badges with smiley faces, all of whom have a mandate to begin their shifts with a rousing Walmart cheer.

To enhance Walton’s vision of the polished customer experience, executives in recent years have tested new store designs with interactive digital screens, 100 percent cashierless checkout, and a product-stocking app that uses augmented reality. They are adopting artificial intelligence and pushing into the metaverse. In May, Walmart remodeled a store in Bentonville, the company’s hometown, to double as a “high-tech” fulfillment center. And it is now building a sleek new global headquarters there too—200 miles northwest of where Janikka worked—estimated to cost $1 billion, as part of a broader effort to rebrand the town as the Silicon Valley of the South. As Walmart ventures into the twenty-first century, top brass has claimed that company practices have become more worker-friendly.

“We know our associates will always be the biggest difference-makers in our business, so we will continue to evaluate how … to best serve customers and also balance the needs of our associates,” wrote then–senior vice president Drew Holler in a 2021 company blog post about personnel policy changes. “We’re committed to offering good jobs that provide access, stability and opportunity.”

The veneer of a humane and pleasant work atmosphere is reflected in government data, especially in the company’s home state: Complaints to the National Labor Relations Board from Arkansas Walmarts are scant, and data compiled by OSHA, the federal agency responsible for enforcing workplace safety standards, suggests that Walmart has an abnormally high percentage of stores in Arkansas that record zero injuries, illnesses, and deaths compared to its stores in other states.

But the reality in Arkansas falls far short of the P.R. image. An investigation from Type Investigations and The New Republic reveals that this lack of damning injury data—which, crucially, is self-reported—does not capture employees’ experiences in stores. Many workers are pressured to work while ill, in pain, or through other extenuating circumstances, according to workers and labor organizers. Several injury and illness cases that should have been reported to OSHA weren’t, according to government data, court records, and interviews with associates, suggesting that Walmart’s recording practices in Arkansas coincide with unreported issues and unrealized investigations. Failure to properly report to OSHA and failure to keep accurate annual records are violations and can result in fines. One former OSHA official said that given the injury rates at retail stores nationally, a Walmart recording zero injuries “should set off some red flags.”

Walmart did not respond to most questions for this story. “Janikka Perry was a beloved member of the North Little Rock team,” a company spokesperson wrote in a statement. She added that our characterization of Janikka’s passing is “simply not true,” but did not provide a reason why and cited employee privacy concerns. She did not respond to multiple follow-ups asking her to specify which claims the company disputes.

Despite all the money being poured into Bentonville and into the state’s stores for futuristic upgrades, Arkansas workers are largely left to fend for themselves—with little support from oversight agencies, unions, or the company. Many sources for this story requested anonymity, citing fear of retaliation, legal action, and professional consequences because of Walmart’s stature in the state.

“In this state, everybody’s afraid of Walmart, ’cause they’re a billion-dollar company,” Janikka’s mother, Fay, told me. “But my daughter is worth more than a billion dollars.”

A Walmart bakery can be a particularly difficult part of the store to work in: Janikka worked mostly on her feet, often in hot and cold conditions. Bakery staff haul heavy pallets of food out from the freezer, and some tend to an oven in the store’s poorly ventilated bakery, according to Cara Michelle, who filled Janikka’s position after her death. “It gets extremely hot back there,” she told me.

According to workers I spoke to, managers have some discretion over how they deal with an associate’s issues. One store manager (who was also Janikka’s friend) was uniquely sensitive to Janikka’s conditions. He often let her take short breaks so she could go to the bathroom to sit down and rest. But he left early during her last shift. Still, that day, Janikka told management she was feeling sick. In response, she was told that the store was short-staffed and she needed to keep working, according to store sources and an organizer from United for Respect, a nonunion group that emerged from an unsuccessful campaign to unionize the company and now organizes for workers’ rights there.

Walmart did not respond to specific questions about Janikka’s experience with management during that shift.

“Walmart offers full- and part-time associates paid time off and protected paid time off to use for just about anything,” wrote the Walmart spokesperson in response to questions........

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