Warehouse Workers Petition Court to Add Walmart as Defendant in Wage Theft Class Action
Source: The Nation
Josh Eidelson
Attorneys representing workers in Walmart warehouses today announced the filing of a motion to add the retail giant as a defendant in an ongoing federal wage theft lawsuit. If successful, the motion would advance efforts by organized labor to punish Walmart for alleged rampant abuses, and to establish its responsibility for the actions of its contractors and subcontractors in California and elsewhere.
Lawyers say the wage theft class action could involve as many as 1,800 workers in Southern California’s Inland Empire (its class action status has been provisionally certified for a smaller group). As I’ve reported for Salon, Mira Loma, California, workers from three warehouses brought charges to the California Department of Labor Standards enforcement last year. Workers say that they exclusively move goods for Walmart; each of the subcontractors that hired them was employed by the Walmart contractor Schneider Logistics.
On a media conference call with the attorneys, Warehouse worker David Acosta said he worked unpaid overtime, and sometimes worked up to sixteen hours a day with only a single break. “There were years without respect,” Acosta said in Spanish. “Our dignity was thrown to the floors.”
According to workers, one of those subcontractors, Rogers-Premier, responded to a worker-prompted state investigation by moving to lay off all of its employees in one of the warehouses. With support from Warehouse Workers United, a project of the union federation Change to Win, workers sought, and won, a rare judicial restraining order enjoining the layoffs. That federal district court injunction, and two others against the warehouse companies, are currently on appeal.
FULL story at link.
Read more: http://www.thenation.com/blog/171543/warehouse-workers-petition-court-add-walmart-defendant-wage-theft-class-action#
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go walmrart emplowyees 
To weasel out of treating their employees right --and then try to pretend innocence when they're caught. Paying fines and back wages is not enough-people should be going to jail over this! 