Wal-Mart to Settle 63 Lawsuits Over Wages

[DainBramaged]

Source: Washington Post

Wal-Mart Stores said yesterday it will pay as much as $640 million to settle 63 federal and state lawsuits claiming the company cheated hourly workers and forced them to work through breaks.

The settlement ends actions pending in most state courts and in federal court in Nevada, and comes two weeks after a similar agreement was reached in Minnesota. The company will record an after-tax fourth-quarter expense of $250 million, or about 6 cents a share.

The settlement is "fair and reasonable" for Wal-Mart and Sam's Club hourly workers, said attorney Frank Azar, who represents employees in 14 states. "Wal-Mart has made tremendous strides in wage-and-hour compliance."

Wal-Mart faced more than 70 wage-and-hour suits, including class actions claiming the company failed to pay for all hours worked or didn't properly compensate workers properly for overtime. The workers claim that Wal-Mart's own records show that hourly employees were cheated. Wal-Mart has denied the allegations.


Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/23/AR2008122302473.html?wprss=rss_business

[Selatius]

1. Wal-Mart had to settle. It left a papertrail documenting the abuses.

In any lawsuit, there would be subpoenas for those documents, and if they did not bring out those documents, they'd be hit with contempt of court.

[pattmarty]

2. Merry Xmas, Wal Mart........ Here is your present: EFCA!!!!!!!!

[Acadia Blue]

3. Please stop shopping at pig-mart. Any other discounter....just stop