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.
Mo mo mo mo money for the lawyers who rep the victims!
Different perspectives. Americans sometmes forget that it was a Polish union that was instrumental in starting the demise of the Soviet Empire. Poles sometimes forget that American unions have an unworkable "business model."
...and both show what's wrong with American unions.
Yep. I bet the lawyers got multi-million dollar checks while their clients received pennies on the dollar. And the clients are just too stupid to realize that they're being hosed.
...I would say that it was Catholicism that was a bit more instrumental in defeating Sovietism than the unions in Gdansk, although they did fire the first shot.
The union provided an organizational structure for the shipyard guys and the "activists" were mostly drawn from the union ranks.
Understood. The unions in Poland back then served a similar purpose as the unions did here at the turn of the 19th Century. Irrelevant now...
Irrelevant now...
In their current form, they're absolutely irrelevant. But that doesn't mean they can't be relevant again. Somebody in the near or far future is going to earn a PhD by studying why the unions didn't change their business model to adapt to a changing world.
And reading A. Pole's posts reminds us where that mindset comes from, eh?
The first thing they need to do is add value for both the company and the workers.
Because the present model is probably more profitable for the union bosses than would be any model that worked to the mutual benefit of companies and workers.
Because the present model is probably more profitable for the union bosses than would be any model that worked to the mutual benefit of companies and workers.
See, that's just the thing, apparently it isn't -- because the unions are shrinking/failing. Any organization should be able to adapt with the times. Somehow unions have missed the boat.
Aye...there's the rub. How do you help two opposing sides at the same time? Muy difficile, no?
Aye...there's the rub. How do you help two opposing sides at the same time? Muy difficile, no?
You assume they are opposing sides. I say they aren't necessarily opposing sides. They certainly aren't in Japan.
What if unions took over the healthcare responsibility? Certainly a national union would have more clout with insurance companies than a single firm. This isn't unheard of here in the states -- both the Screen Actors Guild and Actors Equity offer excellent health plans as well as retirement homes for aging thespians.
I'm out for a bit...more later.
I heard something very much like that from a CEO, "we're in the software business, not the welfare business". This very same CEO ran the business into the ground, and escaped with a golden parachute that included lifetime medical benefits for two sons. It is also reminiscent of HP CEO Fiorina's statement about Americans right to jobs. Perhaps there is a connection between the attitude and performance.
As for the "feelings" of any particular employee, one might just as legitimately ask how employees "feel" when they lose their jobs because the union demanded wages and benefits the company couldn't afford to pay over the long term.
There is plenty of abuse on all sides.
These days unions are a small player; according to the census bureau, 14% of the workforce belong to unions.
Unions served a purpose when conditions were awful, eg, child labor, unsafe conditions (Triangle fire), etc. They have outlived their usefullness, IMO, and should just go away. Unions are now run by thugs and their hangers on (remember Jackie Presser and Jimmy Hoffa?) and have brought about the demise of American industry along with their own jobs.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I have a strong suspicion that the money that union bosses have milked from the current system exceeds the present cash value of the likely proceeds from a union that benefited companies and workers.
A piano-roll maker may adapt itself very well to new technologies (QRS, a long-time manufacturer, is on the web) but I don't think there's any way to get as much money out of the piano roll market today as one could in the 1920's.
Perhaps wiser policies would have allowed union bosses to milk more money from companies before dragging them under, but had they milked less aggressively it's possible the companies would have dwindled anyway, even if more slowly, leaving less money for the union bosses to capture.
Hey, persecuting smokers or making car insurance mandatory is not less totalitarian. I would rather have unions and freedom of smoking. :)
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