Posted on 01/03/2007 6:20:39 PM PST by traumer
Wal-Mart Employees Ask Judge for Another $72 Million in Damages, Interest in Break-Time Case
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Wal-Mart workers in Pennsylvania who won a $78.5 million judgment for working off the clock and through rest breaks returned to court Wednesday to seek another $72 million in damages and interest.
They argue that about 125,000 plaintiffs in the class-action suit deserve an additional $500 each in damages, or $62 million, under Pennsylvania labor laws because the jury found that the world's largest retailer acted in bad faith. These so-called liquidated damages are designed to compensate people for the delay in payment.
The remaining 61,000 plaintiffs -- who do not qualify for those damages because of legal time limits -- should share in $10 million in interest on the back pay, lawyer Michael Donovan argued.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which denies wrongdoing and is appealing the jury award, opposed the added damages and interest. Company attorneys said that Donovan merely estimated the number of potential plaintiffs, and has not proven that each was shortchanged.
"They don't even know who they are," Wal-Mart lawyer Brian Flaherty said.
The workers already are expected to receive anywhere from about $50 to a few thousand dollars each from the initial award, depending on how long they worked for the company.
Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Mark Bernstein did not immediately rule on the issues argued Wednesday. He questioned why Donovan sought liquidated damages of $500 per worker when the statute could be interpreted to allow $500 in damages each time a worker was shortchanged.
"If I'm a claimant, I'm entitled to everything the law says I'm entitled to, and if that's $500 every time I was shorted and I was shorted 24 times a year, then it's $12,000," Bernstein said.
Donovan said he did not interpret the state wage law that way. He added that Wal-Mart's lack of record-keeping would make it impossible to determine the number of individual violations.
Bernstein oversaw the five-week trial, which culminated in October when the jury rejected Wal-Mart's claim that some employees voluntarily chose to work through breaks and that the off-the-clock work was minimal.
The suit covers current and former employees who worked at Wal-Mart and Sam's Clubs in Pennsylvania from March 1998 through May 2006.
Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Ark., earned $11.2 billion in profits on $312.4 billion in sales in the last fiscal year. Donovan argued at trial that the unpaid work gave Wal-Mart an unfair advantage in the marketplace.
Lead plaintiff Dolores Hummel said she put in about 10 hours each month off the clock to keep up with demands at a Sam's Club in Reading, where the single mother worked for 10 years to support her son. Sam's Clubs are a division of Wal-Mart.
Donovan has also petitioned the court for more than $40 million in legal fees, plus $5.5 million in expenses. Wal-Mart, which must pay the fees unless the verdict is overturned, objected to the request and asked for more details.
Wal-Mart is appealing a $172 million verdict in a similar California case and settled a Colorado suit over unpaid wages for $50 million.
Wal-Mart policy in Pennsylvania gives hourly employees one paid 15-minute break during a shift of at least three hours and two such breaks, plus an unpaid 30-minute meal break, on a shift of at least six hours.
Deadly serious. During my experience with helping to organize Solidarity (in Poland twenty six years ago) I realized that people cannot be free unless they organize themselves.
Everyone has the right to organize or not...it should not be mandatory to belong to a union in order to work in America..IMHO.
The difference is that you cannot appoint/vote for the management of the insurance company but in the union you could.
And that management that you have to vote for runs on the platform of how many goodies can they squeeze out of the eeevil management to the point that they make their industries noncompetitive and bankrupt their companies (see United Airlines, Delta Airlines and others who used to have a great employer-provided pension plan that the unions destroyed by their tactics.) A union will end up hurting it's workers that way, but the fat-cat union bosses still get their money and to heck with the folks that they are supposed to be helping
Now was there a time for unions? Certainly. But their time has past. Folks have got to realize that they're on the same team in a company.
Long term, companies have to realize that for the most part if they treat their employees fairly they will get great results. Companies that cling to old management-labor paradigms will go the way of the dinosaurs.
America is not Poland of twenty-six years ago. We are not trying to get out from under the yoke of communism, we are trying to keep from going under it.
In this country unions have become tools of the Democrats and forces for socialism. They are unecessary and ultimately damaging to those who desire good jobs at decent wages. Toyota makes a profit in this country; GM does not. One of the main reasons for this is unions. Toyota workers have jobs with good wages and benefits; GM workers are losing theirs.
If employees make themselves valuable enough to their employers, they will receive good wages and benefits. Conversely, if they do jobs that anyone could do (most WalMart jobs, burger flippers, etc.) or do their jobs poorly, then they will always be fighting an uphill battle to earn decent wages. That is a result of the free market. The good thing is that anyone is free to do the things that are necessary (gain skills, get an education, work harder and smarter than the next guy) to make himself or herself a valued employee. In such a system everyone benefits--the employee earns more money, the employer earns more profit. Win-win.
Should WalMart have people working off the books? Of course not. But as we see from this case, America has a system in place to ensure that such abuses are kept to a minimum and that employees are compensated when abuses occur. It is a system of checks and balances, and it works a whole lot better than any money- and freedom-grabbing union ever could.
You are right, I oversimplified. The actual implementation would be more flexible - you could ask for conscientious objector status for such case like:
Being a Objectivist or Libertarian or Anarchist or Free Market fundamentalist.
Being a Linux consultant who does not take bath
Your religion does not permit you to belong, like Cult of Management Worshipers for example.)
Having a case of ochlophobia (fear of crowd)
I am sure you would find some category to save you from this calamity.
Of you course you would have to forgo some privileges the union members would enjoy, but it will be small price to pay in you eyes.
"I realized that people cannot be free unless they organize themselves."
Unions are not the vehicle. I don't have a great answer, but I do know what goes wrong in a union. They make government corruption look like just some innocent fooling around. I understand the need for unions in some cases, but big unions = big corruption.
Mandatory union membership? Why half step? Why not just hand your money over to the government and the government can give you what you need? The government will negotiate for you, and you'll be cared for.
That's freedom?
Sure it beats having to train some young twerp from India to be your replacement after you worked in company for 20 years.
For a while, now the time IS BACK!
Folks have got to realize that they're on the same team in a company.
Not anymore, baby.
Death to the infidels!
In my plan you could join ANY unions, even Republican Conservative one. And you could organize the new one.
Yeah, lawyers and multimillion court cases.
Your plan is idealistic and impractical. It takes away peoples' individual freedom and makes them just more pawns of the collective. Whether that collective marches under the banner of socialism or conservative republicanism, it is still a collective. No thanks.
Why should an employee have to be a member of a union to negotiate with management? Under unions, stellar employees have no incentive to achieve, since they will receive the same wages and benefits as those who sit around with their feet up all day. Leeches have no incentive to do anything, other than when the boss is around. This affects productivity and reduces the company's flexibility and opportunity to earn profits.
I'm sure you would.
I'd quit on the spot if you ever came to work for my employer.
Sounds a lot like what happens when a company decides to outsource services that were once handled in-house. However, because outsourcing is usually management's bright idea, only the underlings complain.
Not unlike the fat-cat network that determines CEO compensation.
Oooo.... Good thinking!
Maybe someday the US could be as great as France!
Executive compensation is negotiated with the help of attorneys.
Couldn't we also ask what incentive corporate executives have to preform when severance packages net them more money than most of us can earn in several lifetimes of work? What impact do you think it has on the average employee to watch a CEO preside over a 40% decline in the value of his company and walk away from the failure wealthy, while he gets laid-off in the subsequent restructuring?
Nope. Nine out of ten are dumps. Steer clear unless you like ghetto gangbangers, trailer trash, and borrachos.*
FRIEND: I don't get you. Wal-Mart is cheaper. Why do you always shop at Target?
B-CHAN: because no one has ever tried to sell me half-wolf puppies out of a cardboard box in the parking lot at Target.
NOTE: I'm not saying that everyone from the ghetto or who lives in a trailer is a bad person. There are lots of fine folks living in both environments, just as there are plenty of trashy people living in pricey suburbs. These terms are verbal shorthand only.
Q. What's the difference between a burger-flipper and the CEO of Home Depot?
A. The burger-flipper doesn't get a $216 million severance package when he screws up his job.
LOL.
If everyone's on the same team in your average corporation, how come management gets rewarded for screwing up their jobs (big-bux severance packages) while the salaried schlubs and line-monkeys get nothing but a kick in the ass?
You and I both know that most companies fail due to bad management, not bad work. Yet when things go to hell it's the least responsible (the rank and file) who get hurt, while those who ran the company into the ground float safely to Earth on golden parachutes. Some "team"!
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