Class-action suit vs. Wal-Mart

No matter how they try to sell it, Wal-Mart’s image just sustained another well deserved blow on Jan. 16 when a Penn sylvania state court judge certified a class-action suit against the billion-dollar chain store for failing to give meal and rest breaks to its workers or to compensate them for time worked through those breaks.

Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas Judge Mark Bernstein granted the class-action treatment of the wage-and-hour claims. The Pennsylvania suit could cover nearly 150,000 current and former employees.

The proof was in the retail giant’s computerized records that showed that breaks were skipped on a routine basis and there was no compensation when those breaks were missed. Instead of “slashing prices,” Wal-Mart was slashing workers’ wages—already almost a $1 an hour lower than the industry average.

Wal-Mart tried to claim that their time sheets were not reliable. The company then tried to explain the discrepancy by offering up deposition testimony from some workers who said they voluntarily worked without pay.

However, under the store’s own policy, each employee is entitled to one paid 15-minute break during each three-hour shift. For each six-hour shift, an employee is entitled to two paid 15-minute breaks and an unpaid 30-minute meal break. Wal-Mart’s own records revealed that over 40 percent of their employees failed to receive the required breaks.

The Pennsylvania class action suit is not the first brought against Wal-Mart, nor is it likely to be the last. In a similar case in California, a state court jury awarded $172 million to Wal-Mart workers when the company failed to provide lunch periods for thousands of employees or pay them for the missed time, as required by state wage-and-hour laws.

In fact, Wal-Mart’s practice of failing to properly compensate its workers is so wide-spread that a federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation in Orlando, Fla., will hear argument later this month to consider a motion to centralize six such suits in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada. The cases being considered for inclusion in the multi-district litigation proceeding come from federal courts in Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada and South Dakota. This would allow all the cases to be heard in one federal court by one judge.

The Pennsylvania class action suit is expected to be heard in September, but Wal-Mart workers aren’t sitting back waiting for the courts to give them justice.

After 20 percent of the workers had their hours cut at a Central Florida Wal-Mart, they went directly to the local community with a petition to reinstate their time. After 390 signatures were collected in three days, the company was forced to restore their hours. This action and many others like it was initiated by the Wal-Mart Workers Association, representing over 300 current and former Wal-Mart workers in 40 states.

These workers aren’t waiting for a court-licensed use of collective actions. Despite the lack of a union, workers are demonstrating that they have the right to organization and action on their own behalf, regardless of what the bosses say.