Personal Injury Law

Wal-Mart Will Pay $54.25 Million To Uncompensated Workers

By Jane Akre

They say they clocked out but continued working at Wal-Mart for no compensation.

100,000 current and former hourly workers joined a class-action against the giant retailer in Minnesota over the last decade.   Next month they were scheduled to go to trial. Wal-Mart faced a possible  $2 billion in back wages and punitive damages.

Instead Tuesday, Wal-Mart agreed to pay $54.25 million to the workers who were employed at Wal-Mart and Sam's Clubs in Minnesota over the last ten years.

Wal-Mart will maintain an electronic system and comply with wage and hour policies and Minnesota law as part of the agreement, according to the Seattle Times. A company spokesman says the company is committed to paying its workers for all hours worked. Managers who do not allow meal breaks and violate other policies are subject to being dismissed, says the company.

Last July, a county judge ruled that Wal-Mart cut into worker break times and had employees work off the clock, a violation of Minnesota labor laws.

This isn't the first time. In Pennsylvania, workers won more than $78 million in 2006 for having to work through breaks and off the clock.   In California, Wal-Mart had to pay a $172 million for denying lunch breaks. Appeals are pending in those cases.

Still ahead - 76 similar class action lawsuits in courts around the country.  

Former employees and some shoppers at Wal-Mart tell their stories on the web site Walmartsucks.com and a YouTube video tells another story of a former employee who was brain-dead after an accident then had to pay Wal-Mart settlement she received from an insurance company. 

A wrongful death lawsuit will be filed in the death of a temporary guard who was killed in a Wal-Mart stampede on Black Friday.

The three sisters and brother of Jdimytai Damour have plans to file after Damour, 34, a 6-foot 5-inch, 270-pound temporary worker died the day after Thanksgiving when he was trampled by thousands of shoppers eager to get into a 5 a.m. sale at Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, Long Island. #

Full post as published by InjuryBoard on December 09, 2008 (boomark / email).