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Wal-Mart has had a history of litigious labor relations.
2007: Wal-Mart agrees to pay more than $33 million in back wages to thousands of employees for paying too little overtime over the past five years. The company turned itself in to the U.S. Labor Department after the errors were discovered in an internal audit.
2006: Agrees to include birth control in its basic health insurance coverage. The action dismisses a class-action suit filed in 2001 alleging that the company's prescription drug benefit discriminated against women in its failure to cover contraceptives.
2005: Fined $11 million for using about 345 illegal immigrants as contract janitors at stores in 21 states.
2004: A federal judge in California rules that a lawsuit initially brought in 2001 accusing Wal-Mart of discriminating against women can proceed as a nationwide class-action potentially covering 1.6 million current and former employees. It is the largest workplace-bias lawsuit in U.S. history. The case is ongoing.
2004: Settles a lawsuit filed in Texas courts over its practice of taking out life insurance on employees and making itself the beneficiary. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
2001 to 2008: Nearly 40 "off-the-clock" class-action lawsuits are filed nationwide alleging that the company did not provide work breaks. In 2006, workers in Pennsylvania won a $78.5 million judgment. In 2005, a California court awarded workers $172 million.
Source: News servicesRecent Business stories
Energy prices rising despite glut as weak dollar attracts investors to the market - July 1, 2008
Energy prices rising despite glut as weak dollar attracts investors to the market - The dollar's sway over energy markets was on full display Wednesday, with oil and gasoline futures rising sharply as the U.S. currency tumbled to 15-month lows. More
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Blog: Patent Pending
Lights out at U energy conference. Irony police notified.
Just as Lawrence Kazmerski, a top official at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, was about to give the keynote address at the University of Minnesota's annual E3 conference at the RiverCentre in St. Paul, the lights went out, bathing the audience in darkness and a deep sense of irony.
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