Wal-Mart violated workers’ rights
more than 2 million times, judge says
Carpenters throw area standards picket
The Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters conducted an area
standards picket against general contractor Gray Purcell July 24 at SE 28th
and Ankeny in Portland. The condo project is the same site where a nonunion
crane operator damaged an electrical line, knocking out power to about 8,000
homes and businesses in the neighborhood. Police were called to the July 24
picket with threats of arrest for trespassing. Carpenters organizer Cliff
Puckett said the general contractor has set up chain link fences and entrance
gates for the project right to the street line, leaving no room for pickets.
“Purcell says we can’t be on their property, and the police say they’ll cite us
for being in the street. It’s a tactic they’re using to make it more difficult for
us to picket,” Puckett said. The Carpenters stood their ground when police
suggested they picket across the street from the jobsite. “That’s not fair to the
homes and businesses. We could get sued,” Puckett said. “If Purcell puts a
gate in the street, that’s where we have to be. They can’t take away our federal
rights to picket a jobsite.” After much discussion, a compromise was reached
as to where pickets could and couldn’t be.
Office and Professional Employees
#11 family members get scholarships
College students Erin Farquhar and
Sarah Caird have won scholarship
awards through the Office and Profes-
sional Employees Howard Coughlin
Memorial Scholarship Fund.
Each student received the top
award of $6,000, to be disbursed over
two years in increments of $3,000
Q
each year.
Farquhar is the daughter of Dennise
Farquhar, a Local 11 member em-
ployed at Lower Columbia Longshore
Federal Credit Union.
Caird is the daughter of Local 11
member Kirby Caird, who works at
NW Natural.
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AUGUST 1, 2008
By BARB KUCERA
Workdayminnesota.org
HASTINGS, Minn. (PAI) — In
what may well be a world record, Wal-
Mart, the world’s largest retailer, known
for its anti-worker and anti-union
stands, broke labor law more than 2
million times over a six-year period by
denying workers time for breaks and
forcing them to work “off the clock”
for no pay, a Minnesota judge ruled.
Dakota County District Judge Rob-
ert King ordered the retailer to pay
wronged workers $6.5 million in back
pay. In addition, Wal-Mart faces fines
as high as $2 billion for the wage-and-
hour violations.
King’s ruling culminated a seven-
year legal battle by four former Wal-
Mart workers who filed a class-action
lawsuit on behalf of 56,000 current and
former employees who worked at Min-
nesota Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club
stores between Sept. 11, 1998, and Jan.
31, 2004. His ruling echoes similar
judgments against Wal-Mart for break-
ing wage-and-hour laws in other states,
including Oregon, California, Col-
orado and Pennsylvania. Those work-
ers have also won millions in back pay.
“I was treated like so many of my
co-workers,” said Nancy Braun of
Rochester, Minn., one of the four
plaintiffs. “There was just too much
work to do and never enough time to
do it. There just wasn’t enough time in
the day to take the breaks we were enti-
tled to.”
Judge King found Wal-Mart repeat-
edly and willfully violated Minnesota
labor laws or its contract with its em-
ployees on the issues of contractual rest
breaks, statutory meal breaks, shaving
time from paid rest breaks, and failure
to maintain accurate records.
He also found Wal-Mart was aware
its employees were not receiving
breaks to which they were entitled. “In
essence, they (Wal-Mart) put their
heads in the sand,” King stated.
Minnesota law requires every em-
ployer to provide its employees with a
sufficient time to eat a meal. Wal-Mart
wouldn’t let them eat. King stated: “No
time to eat a meal is not a sufficient
time to eat a meal.”
He found Wal-Mart violated the
meal break law alone 73,864 times.
The judge ordered a second phase
of the trial to begin Oct. 20 to allow a
jury to determine the amount of puni-
tive damages and the amount of statu-
tory penalties to be imposed against
Wal-Mart. Minnesota’s wage-and-
hour laws allow for a penalty of up to
$1,000 for each violation. If the jury
awards the full $1,000 penalty for each
of the 2 million violations, the award
could be in excess of $2 billion.
“This first award from Judge King
is just the beginning,” said William
Sieben, one of the attorneys represent-
ing the workers. “This award only re-
imburses these employees for compen-
sation they should have already re-
ceived from Wal-Mart. The next phase
of the trial will be to punish and penal-
ize Wal-Mart for willfully violating the
rights of these 56,000 people whose
average wage was under $10 an hour.”
In testimony that began last Sep-
tember, attorneys presented mountains
of evidence — everything from payroll
records, tax records, and company re-
ports to memos and e-mails. Wal-Mart
keeps voluminous records on all its
stores on a computer larger than the
one in the Pentagon. Attorneys for the
workers were able to use the com-
pany’s own records against it.
The United Food and Commercial
Workers, which has been trying for
years to organize Wal-Mart, lauded
Judge King’s ruling. “Wal-Mart’s vio-
lation of wage-and-hour laws is part of
a pattern that includes union-busting,
employment discrimination and child
labor infractions,” said UFCW Local
879 of South St. Paul.
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