A Win for Workers’ Rights
Posted by MEC on October 3, 2007
Workers win $62 million in damages because Wal-Mart forced them to work “off the clock” or lose their jobs.
About 125,000 people will receive $500 each in damages under a state law invoked when a company, without cause, withholds pay for more than 30 days.
A Philadelphia jury last year awarded the workers the exact amount they had sought, rejecting Wal-Mart’s claim that some people chose to work through breaks or that a few minutes of extra work here and there was insignificant.
Wal-Mart’s defense was that the employees skipped their rest breaks and kept working after quitting time by choice. Um, yeah. I’d believe that the kinds of jobs hourly workers do at Wal-Mart are just so fulfilling and enjoyable that people forgot to stop working.
Oink, oink, flap, flap.
Charles said
I’ve always wondered whether Wal-Mart’s low, low prices aren’t completely attributable to lawbreaking. There was a debate on Brad DeLong’s boards, with journalist James Surowiecki taking the position that WM is just more efficient.
I wonder how he feels about that now.
MEC said
“I’ve always wondered whether Wal-Mart’s low, low prices aren’t completely attributable to lawbreaking.”
Wal-Mart’s antipathy for American workers goes way beyond its own employees. More than one supplier has revealed that they were pressured to relocate their manufacturing out of the country in order to reduce the cost — which eliminates American manufacturing jobs, reduces income, and makes Wal-Mart the only place the former factory workers can afford to shop. Funny how that works out.