Foreigners Missed the Boat to Sue Wal-Mart (for locking them in, not paying min wage, overtime)
Foreigners Missed the Boat to Sue Wal-Mart
(CN) - Undocumented workers waited too long to accuse Wal-Mart of forcibly locking them in stores at night and failing to pay them minimum wage and overtime, a federal judge ruled.
Victor Manuel Zavala and eight other undocumented immigrants who worked for independent contractors that cleaned Wal-Mart stores filed a federal class action in November 2003. Although more than 100 individuals opted in between 2004 and 2005, a federal judge in New Jersey held that the plaintiffs were not similarly situated enough to qualify for class certification.
Roughly half of the opt-in plaintiffs filed a nearly identical lawsuit in October 2010, claiming Wal-Mart hired them knowing they were undocumented, and paid them in cash or by personal checks from labor contractors. The retail giant also put them to forced labor through coercion, and "violated immigration, money laundering and protective wage and hour laws," according to the complaint.
Most of the 42 plaintiffs' names indicate Eastern European descent, particularly Polish and Czech. Many say they worked more than 40 hours a week, seven days a week.
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The class claimed Wal-Mart "sheltered" them "by arranging or providing lodging for them and routinely transporting them across the United States to work at different Wal-Mart locations."
The company allegedly structures its business operations "in multiple shell corporations so as to shield the continued employment of the migrants from detection" - a scheme which senior executives "permitted ... to flourish."
http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/07/29/59788.htm