Walmart Settles Class Action Suit ($35 Million to 88,000 workers)

[Omaha Steve]

Source: KPLU

Labor reporter Bellamy Pailthorp SEATTLE, WA (KPLU) - After eight years of legal wrangling, it's official. Wal-Mart has agreed to pay up to 35-(m) million dollars to settle a class action brought by workers in Washington State. As many as 88-thousand people who have been employed by the discount retailer here are covered by the suit.

The class action says Wal-Mart routinely forced workers to skip meal and rest breaks and put in extra hours without pay. Managers would sometimes lock them in the store at the end of the day after they had clocked out, then demand they work another half hour or more before they could leave. Toby Marshall is one of the lawyers who worked on the case. He says the 35-million dollar settlement will cover attorneys' fees and provide monetary relief for the workers.

"And it also requires Wal-Mart to take steps to provide proper rest and meal breaks and pay for all hours worked going forward into the future."

Read more: http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kplu/news.newsmain/article/1/0/1533406/KPLU.Local.News/Walmart.Settles.Class.Action.Suit

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Full story and audio at link. Where is the MSM?

[bluestateguy]

1. How much are the lawyers getting?

After the lawyers take their cut--and I'm sure it will be a big cut--the rest of the pie will be split into 88,000 very small pieces.

[AnneD]

19. Let me defend the lawyers...

God I can't believe I said that........They generally take a case like this without money up front. They only get paid if they win. How long did this last?????Eight years. Eight years without a paycheck.....Yes the workers should have gotten more-where was the state labour board when employees complained. At least they got more from the lawyers than WM gave them.

I work and I have a union. Every time we try to organize-It's like pulling teeth. We offer folks a way and they piss in their pants because their bosses might not like them when they stand up and demand their rightful due. Folks....if you want union wages and benefits, JOIN A UNION. Our union spends most of our time preventing our bosses from shooting themselves in the foot. The smart bosses realize this and we work together well and it is a win/win situation.

God, I hate folks that refuse to stand up for themselves. I deal with too much spinelessness to have empathy any more. Or maybe as I have gotten older, I suffer fools less. You want to protest your boss cheating you and want to stage a protest...I'm there. Want to snivel in the corner and back bite-call me later when you decide to do something constructive.

[LiberalFighter]

2. That only amounts to just over $397 per worker.

[Kolesar]

18. Hey, that's half a month's pay at their LOW*WAGES or a year's pay in Asia

...where they manufacture their products

[Uben]

3. 400 bucks apiece

Generous bastards aren't they?

[Mythsaje]

4. I've contemplated what I'd do in a similar situation

and decided that I'd either call the cops and have the management charged with unlawful imprisonment, ram a shopping cart through the front door and leave, or just duck out the fire exit and go the fuck home. Then again, I'm an asshole that way.

[Old Codger]

5. LOL

I would seriously consider charging them with unlawful detainment and kidnapping

[Mythsaje]

6. Sure, why not.

Talk about embarrassing the company. LOL

[WestSeattle2]

7. I'm in total agreement, and I for one would not lose a blink of

sleep if something unfortunate were to happen to the manager's car or home. Not that I would do anything of course, or even suggest anything, I'm just saying that IF anything were to occur, I wouldn't lose any sleep. And really, would they want me to lose sleep? I mean to be a proper Wal-Mart employee, one must be well-rested and ready to devote 110% to the company. And in the case of Wally World, they do demand 110% but feel they should only pay for 100%.

Yup, I'd charge the son of a bitch with unlawful imprisonment, just for kicks and giggles. I'd love to see the store manager become Bubba's, or Bubbette's bitch for a few months.

[Mythsaje]

9. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't come to THAT

(and I'm sure Bubba is happy as hell about that) but it would embarrass the hell out of the company, which would be fine by me.

[Buzz Clik]

8. A reporter for a local paper went to Walmart to get a response on the settlement

Unfortunately, every time the reporter found a blue-vest clad worker in the aisles, the worker would avoid eye contact, quickly turn around, and darted in and out of the shelves. After twenty minutes of being unable to get within 50 feet of a Walmart floor employee, he went to the checkout lane to talk to a cashier. Despite his most aggressive attempts, he could not interrupt the conversion between his cashier and the one in the lane next to his.

[liberal N proud]

10. FYI - Wal-Mart workers don't wear blue vest

They haven't for several years now.

Besides when they wore blue vest, the vested people wouldn't be able to comment anyway as the managers did not apply the same dress code.


I am as pissed about Wal-Mart as most, maybe more considering the way the screw with my wife. We had vacation planned for the first week of August. Planned it in January to attend an important family event. This week, they demanded that she change it. This means missing the event and I had to pull favors at my place of employment if I wanted to go on vacation with her. Required canceling meetings and begging others to take my place in still others. Hotel reservations were made and plans were made. They are notorious for pulling this last minute switch on people just to prove they own you.

[provis99]

15. huh?

I was just at WalMart yesterday, and the employees all had on their blue vests. Are you sure you know what WalMart stores are?

[liberal N proud]

17. They all had blue shirts and kaki pants

No vest.

Trust me!

[Buzz Clik]

20. EDIT: global replace "blue vest" with "blue shirt". Nothing changes.

1. Trying finding a floor worker in Walmart.
   
2. If that succeeds, good luck making eye contact.
   
3. If they see you coming, they're gone. They're as elusive as wild turkeys.
   
4. Not all Walmarts have surly, negative workers. I went to a Walmart in West Virginia about 3 years ago to find a fuse for my car, and I actually found someone there to help me. I damn near died.
   

The closest store of any kind to my home is a Walmart. I'm willing to drive past it to the more expensive local stores and small chains (e.g., Radio Shack) because Walmart sells inferior crap and the Walmart help is awful.

I heard a prediction yesterday that Walmart's dependence foreign goods will be their undoing when oil prices get high enough. Thank God!

[lexanman]

11. $375 a piece

and after the lawyers take their cut it will probably be more like 40 bucks a piece. Huge win for the workers!:sarcasm: And they locked them in the store. I thought something like that is considered criminal. Oh well, at least they didn't get shot in the head like they do in Honduras or Columbia when workers complain.:patriot: God Bless Walmart and the US(but no one else) SICKENING.

[earth mom]

12. Chump change, crumbs, that's all this is.

:puke:

[caseymoz]

13. This is too low to be a settlement. I'd call it an "asshole tax."

Any Wal-Mart boss should have to pay it whenever they pull any of that kind of shit.

[Proletariatprincess]

14. Forced overtime didn't start at Walmart.

It's been allowed to flourish in the private and public sector for decades and that is a crime and a shame. In union shops it is negotiated but not eliminated. Workers have never been willing to strike to stop it because a union contract provide premium wages for overtime. But it is insidious and has become ubiquitous over the years...especially in service industries. "Needs of the Service" the bosses often site. Forced overtime has even spread to the USA military in the infamous "Stop Gap"....and the site "Needs of the Service".
It's due to our outdated and sometimes Draconian Labor Laws. It will require more than the modest Card Check legislation to give workers a fair shake in the workplace. It will require a major overall to bring the US in line with other more civilized industrial nations Labor Laws. American workers put it 20% more time at work than our European brothers and sisters and we get far less in compensation and benefits. They have better job satisfaction and a much higher quality of life than workers in the USA.
Good labor law would also eliminate the so called illegal immigration problem. If work rules were fair, we could open up borders and the employers wouldn't be able to pit worker against worker in a race to the bottom.
I'm glad to see this settlement against Walmart, but dismayed that it took so many years to address this egregious violation of human dignity on the job.

[DarthDem]

16. Right Result, Low Dollar Figure

All of the pluses and minuses of class action litigation are on display here. First, WM was able to drag this out for eight years, for heaven knows what reason; second, each individual worker is not getting much; third, although this may be "chump change" to WM, it's still a financial hit, and the bad pub hurts as well; fourth, there are non-monetary components to the settlement that will (if implemented properly) prevent this from happening again; and fifth, while the individual workers did not get much, class counsel did.

It's a mix of good and bad, mostly good. Had any given individual worker brought suit, their claims might have been tossed by a right-wing judge before ever getting to a jury, they would have been branded a liar and a crazy person, and would have more directly endangered their job security. And the damages wouldn't have been all that much, either - - probably $10,000 per person, depending on the lost break time and the value of the false imprisonment.

[sybylla]

21. That doesn't fix the problems in my state

Those bastids are pulling the same shit everywhere else. Fearlessly. My cousin works for Walmart and they pull the same crap on him all the time.

[Kingofalldems]

22. But wait! Karl Rove's DU pal says Walmart is a great company!