walmart121008
On the homepage
Vikings
Out There
Pardon Board
Petters
Continued: Wal-Mart to pay $54 million to settle suit over unpaid work
Print this story
E-mail this story
Save to del.icio.us
Share on Facebook
Share on Digg
Minnesota business by the numbers
See Minnesota's top earning companies, CEOs and non-profits
Related Content
Debbie Simonson
More from Business
A seven-year fight by four Minnesota women ended Tuesday when Wal-Mart Stores Inc. agreed to pay as much as $54.25 million to settle a class-action lawsuit claiming that it forced Minnesota employees to work through their breaks without pay.
Wal-Mart could have faced up to $2 billion in punitive damages had the lawsuit continued into its penalty-setting phase in January.
The four Minnesota women, who worked at Wal-Mart, filed their suit in 2001. The class-action settlement covers about 100,000 current and former hourly workers who were employed at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores in Minnesota from Sept. 11, 1998, through Nov. 14, 2008. An undisclosed part of the settlement will go to the state of Minnesota.
An attorney for the four Minnesota women who filed the suit said the plaintiffs wouldn't comment Tuesday pending Dakota County District Court approval of the settlement. The four women are Nancy Braun, who worked at a Wal-Mart store in Apple Valley; Debbie Simonson and Cindy Severson, who worked in Brooklyn Park; and Pamela Reinert, who worked at stores in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Each has said she worked off the clock and was denied meal and rest breaks.
The attorney, Justin Perl of Maslon Edelman Borman & Brand in Minneapolis, said only that he was "gratified that these hourly workers will now be paid after seven years of litigation."
The Wal-Mart settlement comes just a month before Dakota County court proceedings that would have determined the amount of punitive damages the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer would have to pay in the case. The punitive damages could have ranged up to $2 billion based on an earlier ruling that Wal-Mart broke Minnesota labor law more than 2 million times over six years by routinely forcing some employees to work off the clock through lunch and rest breaks.
Wal-Mart argued in court that some employees had missed breaks or meals voluntarily. But Judge Robert King Jr. ruled that Wal-Mart knew about and allowed the work. The plaintiffs in the suit already have been awarded more than $6.5 million in damages as a result of a July court ruling that the Wal-Mart workplace violations were willful.
Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar said the company is committed to paying its workers for all time worked and to make sure they get rest and meal breaks. Managers who violate its policies are subject to punishment including firing, he said. As part of the settlement, Wal-Mart has agreed to maintain electronic systems, surveys and notices to make sure it complies with wage and hour policies and Minnesota laws.
Wal-Mart has faced similar lawsuits in other states. In Pennsylvania, workers won a $78.5 million judgment in 2006 for being forced to work off the clock and through rest breaks, and the company was hit with a $172 million verdict in California in 2005 for illegally denying lunch breaks. Wal-Mart has appealed those rulings. Wal-Mart also settled a Colorado lawsuit over unpaid wages for $50 million.
Union organizer Bernie Hess, who has tried to organize Wal-Mart workers to get better wages and benefits, said he's disappointed the company didn't get fined to the fullest extent possible.
"They got their hand slapped," said Hess, an organizer with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 789 in St. Paul. "People forget that Wal-Mart does $35 million an hour. ... This is merely the cost of doing business for them."
The Associated Press and staff writer Jackie Crosby contributed to this report. Steve Alexander • 612-673-4553
Previous pageRecent Business stories
Former US House Speaker Newt Gingrich sets Cincinnati town hall on jobs, 1st of planned series - December 9, 2008
Former US House Speaker Newt Gingrich sets Cincinnati town hall on jobs, 1st of planned series - Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich has scheduled the first of a planned series of town halls on jobs for Cincinnati next week. More
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.
Comment on this story | Read all 10 comments | Hide reader comments