Wal-Mart Pays $40 Million to Settle Worker Pay Dispute
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is paying $40 million to settle a lawsuit with the state of Massachusetts over a pay dispute with workers who claim they never got state law mandated breaks and overtime.
Bloomberg reports:
The group lawsuit, filed by hourly workers, claimed Walmart's managers required them to work off the clock and denied or cut short breaks. The settlement covers more than 87,000 current and former hourly workers in Massachusetts Walmart and Sam's Club stores, employee lawyers said today.
The Massachusetts agreement brings the total amount of Walmart wage-and-hour lawsuit settlements to almost $900 million. This includes a December 2008 agreement to pay as much as $640 million to settle more than 60 wage-and-hour class actions filed in state and federal courts. The Massachusetts case wasn't among those settled.
"The settlement provides that Walmart's hourly employees in Massachusetts will recover between $400 and $2,500 for having been denied earned pay and benefits," workers' lawyer Carolyn Beasley Burton said in court papers filed today. The settlement will 'provide a mini-stimulus to Massachusetts as the money is distributed and spent by class members around the state," she said.
Wal-Mart decided to settle on the eve of trial. Clearly its lawyers felt that a jury was going to rule for the disgruntled workers. Wal-Mart has been working hard to clean up its poor image and getting this case off the dockets will help with that, although it's a big payout that shareholders are not going to be happy about.
