Wal-Mart has been hit with another class-action lawsuit by its employees, claiming they were denied meal and work breaks and were forced to work off the clock. This time it's in New Jersey.
A trial judge and an appellate panel had denied class-action status, saying the plaintiffs had access to the state's Division of Wage Collection at little cost to them. But the New Jersey Supreme Court disagreed, and gave the lawsuit class-action status. It is believed that the class will contain about 80,000 workers.
The New Jersey Supreme Court said many of the low-wage workers would be hesitant to file a claim because of "legitimate fears concerning employer retaliation, lack of resources, or a sense of powerlessness when confronting their would-be corporate adversary. We cannot ignore the reality that if the proposed class is not certified, thousands of aggrieved employees will not seek redress for defendant's alleged wrongdoing."
Wal-Mart has already had to pay out big money in several other states for these kinds of employee abuse including:
$78.5 million in Pennsylvania,
$172 million in California and
$50 million in Colorado.
How many more states will it take to award judgements like this before Wal-Mart learns its lesson? All they have to do is pay a decent wage and stop making employees work off the clock. Many other American companies don't seem to have any problem doing this.
I don't understand why companies like Wal-Mart think the best place to lower costs is always to abuse their employees (except for management). They seem to have forgotten that a happy employee is a much more productive employee, while an abused employee is just trouble waiting to happen.
Wal-Mart already has falling sales numbers and a bad reputation. How much more trouble do they want?
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