The AP reports that in a class-action lawsuit, a Minnesota judge ordered that Wal-Mart pay $6.5 million in compensatory damages for violating state labor laws 2-million times. Violations were incurred when the company reduced break time for employees and “willfully” allowed them to work off the clock. Other infractions include the failure to keep time records and denying employees time for meal breaks. Details, inside…
The article says,
Dakota County Judge Robert King Jr. on Monday ordered Wal-Mart to pay $6.5 million in compensatory damages, but Wal-Mart could end up paying more than $2 billion after a jury in October considers civil penalties and punitive damages.
The judge said Wal-Mart should have known the employees were working off the clock while at computer-based training terminals and “willfully allowed” it to continue. The company also failed to provide employees with rest breaks more than 1.5 million times and shortened employees’ breaks more than 44,000 times, according to the order.
Wal-Mart was also found in violation of statutes relating to making and keeping employee time records and failing to let employees have any time for a meal break. While the plaintiffs won’t receive compensatory damages for those violations, Wal-Mart is subject to a $1,000 civil penalty for each incident.
The ruling, which was given to the parties Monday evening, comes after judgments against Wal-Mart in Pennsylvania and California found similar violations.
In Pennsylvania, workers won a $78.5 million judgment in 2006 for working off the clock and through rest breaks. A $172 million verdict against Wal-Mart in 2005 found the company illegally denied lunch breaks in California. Wal-Mart is appealing those rulings.
May justice be fair and swift.
Minn. judge rules against Wal-Mart on work breaks [AP] (Thanks to Erik!)
(Photo: chasingfun)
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@howiedi2: When your job is at risk for not doing what is told, and you have little other options, then no it ISN’T the workers’ faults… As for other countries labor issues…. who do you think is fueling that situation? We’re at fault for not enforcing protection of workers where we get products from. And yes, as a moral society WE are responsible for the rest of the world…
I know the Wal-Mart in Aberdeen, WA is guilty of making (or letting) people work off the clock. We were getting paint one night and the clerk helping us kept calling up to the front to get someone else back there because her shift had ended 15 min ago. She was still working. I told her “well, thanks for helping us out, at least you get overtime” and she said “well, no I don’t, they don’t like us to clock any overtime” — so she was working but not getting paid for it, and apparently the mgmt knew all about it but discouraged people from getting paid for their work.
I could see a policy where they didn’t want people to work unapproved overtime, but what I don’t understand is why people would continue to work overtime if they knew they weren’t going to get paid.
Myself, if I knew I wasn’t getting paid after 8:00 PM, I’d be clocking out on the dot. Nobody to help in paint? I guess that’s the management’s problem.
The only trick would be to be sure to not get started doing something at 7:55 PM that would last longer than 5 minutes.
@The_IT_Crone:If you are an hourly employee, then Apple is breaking the law in requiring that training off the clock. If it were me, I would leave a anonymous note citing the infraction for the management. If that doesn’t work, I would call my state’s labor division. I have on more than one occasion cited labor laws when companies I worked for have tried to enforce illegal working conditions (for example, one place said we had to stay on premises while on an UNpaid lunch- they can’t require that and I told them such and they acquiesced.) Of course I was not looking at being evicted or losing needed insurance at the time. But I still have no problem sticking up for myself, I can also see how others may not have that luxury.
@odhen: I think it has to do with regional management. I do think you’ve lucked out, since it seems that this is extremely wide spread in occurrence. Just hope you don’t get one of those lousy regional managers in your area, because they’ll start to replace the good managers with bad ones and you’ll be SOL…
MrWashy and others:
The Wal-Marts in China are the only ones that have an employees’ union. It was a condition set by the PRC government in order to do business there.
It is almost worth a trip over there just to see what they sell. It’s very, very different than here.
IIRC, Hillary Clinton used to be on Wal-Mart’s board of directors. Make of that what you will.
ouch
@valarmorghulis: Unlikely. The Supreme Court just ruled in the Exxon Valdez case that punitive damages cannot exceed actual economic damages.
The saddest thing is so many people hate where they work so much. I know it used to look good on reviews and promotion lists when you do a bit more than “just enough to get by”. Companies used to reward employees. Now its expected and if you dont do that extra mile you might lose your job or position.
I know many professional jobs I have worked have expected a lot of unpaid overtime. Walmart seems like a scapegoat though as many other workers dont get paid for the extra time they put in.
I guess only pharmacists get to clock out and go home whether or not they are working.
@Myrddraal: I know. I just get emotional about this stuff.
It isn’t just min wage jobs either. While I was working at Wells Fargo they were brought to trial in a class action suit over not allowing breaks/lunches and not paying overtime or comping employee’s. Needless to say Wells Fargo lost the case and all of the employee’s who didn’t opt out of the suit got a few thousand dollars plus a percentage of back pay based on hours logged. After the suit the enforcement of breaks and lunches was great.
Lawsuits are the weapon of the people in this day and age. I am not in support of frivolous suits but if a company is breaking the law then they should be fined and fined repeatedly until they change their policies. The amount might not be high enough to really hurt Walmart but if they continue to do this then there will be more and more lawsuits until they do.
@azntg& @TinyBug& @Myrddraal& @Orv:
Prepare to be schooled, ya’ll!
(1) This WAS a class-action lawsuit by the employees
(2) The part that says the plaintiffs “will not receive compensation for these violations,” refers to certain violations only. It does not mean they won’t receive compensation for the other violations
(3) The $1000 per violation is a civil penalty provided by statute. This is different than punitive damages (although those might also be available), so the comments about the Exxon Valdez case are irrelevant.
You’re welcome for this valuable service. Or, in other words RTFA!
Too little, too late, and it will invariably be overturned or thrown out by a judge who either loves Walmart or hates poor people or both.
c’mon guys. i vote for a face off in worst company between comcast and walmart. may the worst company… win?
now they need to make fast food companies do the same. i’m looking at you jack in the box.
@Jesse: That is what it was like in my last two jobs. Breaks sometimes didn’t happen. We would get a lunch, but it was easy to falsify the record and take a few hours. Managers did it all the time. When are people going to start going after other companies for their terrible working conditions such as McDonalds (I never worked there but I know some in college who did). Oh wait…I forgot it would not be as kewl.
@odhen: I think what it is is different store managers. Just like in every industry and company on the planet, there are bad managers. What most people do is then generalize the actions of a few to all. Of course, that is ridiculous and unintellectual but that is apparently not important to many.
@nequam: Finally, someone who understands the difference between civil penalties and criminal penalties. And it’s someone who actually read the article.
I’m impressed.
@sisedi: Not all unions are corrupt and you’re making a very broad conjecture. My job is unionized and the union and company have struck a very fair balance. The union ensures we have good pay, great benefits, and are treated fairly and equally by the employer, but the union will NOT protect you from disciplinary action if you are a terrible worker, have a bad attitude and are generally disrespectful to co-workers and supervisors, or have poor attendance.
@darksunfox: At my unionized job, our union mandates that all employees MUST take their scheduled breaks and lunches. You can actually get in trouble and even receive disciplinary action if you’re caught intentionally working off the clock. I think Wal-Mart employees would benefit from this kind of policy.
@Myrddraal: Note how the article points out, in the very first sentence, that it IS a class-action lawsuit.
i sort of want to get a job at wal mart just so i can file a suit like this
I work at Walmart:
What I don’t understand is that the registers won’t let you sign on unless you are clocked in.. thus getting paid. The training computers are the same.
When it comes to working off the clock… I have only been asked to do this by customers and not management and it is usually asking me where something is.
@Jesse: Sorry to contradict your preconceptions about Minnesota and liberals, but King was a Republican appointee.
Does that change your opinion of the ruling at all? Likewise, this is the third wage & hour class action suit Wal-Mart has lost. The others were in California and Pennsylvania. So it’s not like the MN ruling was a bolt from the blue.
@GMFish: I worked for a large fast food restaurant in the 90′s as a hourly manager on the closing shift and couldn’t count the number of hours I worked for free.
i.e. Coming in early to set up my shift, staying late so my employees could go home(lets schedule everyone to allow 1 hour for closing and not allow OT!) or trying to take my required meal break while running the drive-thru window and cash register. I guess I should blame myself for being young, naive and stupid but I didn’t know any better at the time and the management was totally aware of what was going on. It’s likely the workers at Wal-Mart were in the same situation and I truly hope that their lot improves.
Great, so a large sum of money gets transferred from a corrupt company to scummy lawyers, while the people who got walked on will get little or nothing.
THIS will wipe the smile off the face of that little #$!$!!! thing that’s supposedly rolling back prices while it hides the grocery shrink ray behind its back.
I blame alot of this on the education system and the lack of knowledge about history.And at the beginging of a new melenium you have management or managers who actually have the gaul to pull stunts like this.I don’t know wether they’re just ignorant of the law,lack morality and or conscience.And the fact that it has happend in so many different locations tells me corporate knows something.
And these are just the cases that were reported from around the turn of mellenium.I knew someone who worked for Walmart for years and they said after Sam Walton died and the family took over it went to pot.
@Shadowfire:
It is N-E-V-E-R the fault of “individual managers,” no matter what they WANT you to believe. Corporate gives the local store management their marching orders.
Wal-Mart is not a franchise; Wal-mart management is not allowed to make independent decisions.
It should be noted that this isn’t just “one Wal-mart store,” this is a chain-wide issue.
@murphy1701:
On the subject of being asked to work off the clock by customers… yes. I wish people would stop doing this. When I tell you that I’m taking a break/lunch/whatever from my job – be it McDonalds’ cashier or internal helpdesk at Rockwell – you need to take that as a hint that I’m not working, not on the clock, not being paid.
I might call someone else to deal with your issue, but I’m suddenly and rapidly going to lose all interest in helping you if you roll your eyes and sigh at me. I don’t screw with your breaks, so don’t screw with mine.
More often than not what probably happens in these situations is that people aren’t directly ASKED to work off-the-clock, or get unpaid overtime. It probably runs something like this;
“Manager, my shift was up 5 minutes ago.”
“Yes… Well, employeeX is supposed to replace you, and she hasn’t come in yet. She called and said she’d be in in about half an hour” (of course this NEVER happens, employeeX is always much later than that).
Employee thinks, well, if I hang on for half an hour, I can maybe score points with management. Plus, if I leave now and I make the job more difficult for my co-workers, they won’t trade shifts with me when I need it. If I make management mad, they’ll deny me requested days off and promotions when they become available.
A word doesn’t even really need to be said, the employee feels pressured by things outside of their control. And believe me, in all the retail and food places I’ve worked at, a person willing to quietly bear the brunt of this crap is more likely to get promoted (and yes, more likely to be taken advantage of). It might be a crap job, but would you rather stay at the bottom of a crap job forever, or move up?
I’m not saying it’s ok and I’m certainly not trying to justify it, but I can understand it. Kudos to these people that spoke up and started this suit.
@RvLeshrac: When people would ask me to work and I was not on the clock, I would politely explain that I was on a break. When they pressed me (be it a customer OR management), I would explain that it was illegal, and I was not willing to violate laws. That was usually the end of it!
@deadspork:
Good idea in theory… I guess it really depends on the intelligence of the person you’re speaking with.
When I try to politely explain that I’m at lunch or off the clock, I almost inevitably get the “Well, you just don’t want to help me *storms off*.” Seems like people get more and more impatient as time goes on, they rarely give me a chance to offer to find someone to help them anymore.