US retail powerhouse Wal-Mart should pay $172m for cheating employees out of lunch breaks, a civil jury in the California city of Oakland said yesterday.
'We are very satisfied,' said Chris Lebsock, one of the lawyers representing the 116,000 Wal-Mart workers that sued the company. 'The jury found there was malice, fraud and oppression in denying the lunch breaks,' he said.
After the verdict, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer and single largest private employer in the US, issued a written statement vowing to appeal the verdict.
Wal-Mart conceded it had 'compliance issues' regarding giving workers legally mandated lunch breaks back in 2001, when the civil suit was filed, but said it has since corrected the behaviour. 'We appreciate the jurys service, but disagree with its conclusion and will appeal,' Wal-Mart said in the release.
The retailer has come under widespread attack in recent years for paying low wages and blocking the unionisation of its work force. 'Our basic theme was that Wal-Mart runs itself on a skeleton crew because it is cheap,' Lebsock said. 'I do believe workers were abused by Wal-Mart, taken advantage of.'
In some cases there was explicit denial of meal periods, but the majority was subtle coercion by managers who pressured workers to forgo meals in order to serve customers, according to lawyers.
State law that went into effect in 2001 calls for shift workers to get meal breaks or be compensated with extra pay. Wal-Mart workers got neither, the lawsuit charged. Wal-Mart said part of its appeal will be on the grounds that paying workers extra for skipping meal breaks amounted to a penalty fee, and that meant the company shouldn't be punished again as part of the jury award.
An unresolved part of the civil suit charging Wal-Mart with refusing to give workers legally required rest breaks is still before the courts in Oakland.
