For Christians and Secularists alike this is an excellent seasonal gift hot off MSNBC:
Jury awards Wal-Mart workers $172 million
From AP
OAKLAND, California - A California jury on Thursday awarded $172 million to thousands of employees at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. who claimed they were illegally denied lunch breaks.
The world's largest retailer was ordered to pay $57 million in general damages and $115 million in punitive damages to about 116,000 current and former California employees for violating a 2001 state law that requires employers to give 30-minute, unpaid lunch breaks to employees who work at least six hours.
This is great news on the heels of a story on the TWU going back to work. Labor and the Left need to come together and there's no better place to start than Wal-Mart:
The class-action lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court is one of about 40 nationwide alleging workplace violations by Wal-Mart, and the first to go to trial. The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer, which earned $10 billion last year, settled a similar lawsuit in Colorado for $50 million.
In the California lunch-break suit, Wal-Mart claimed that workers did not demand penalty wages on a timely basis. Under the law, the company must pay workers a full hour's wages for every missed lunch.
I've heard people grouse about Union work 'stoppages' and so forth. The point is not the work stoppages or the 'breaks' per se. It's the ability to control when and how long you break. Without that, no workers have rights. If the company becomes 'uncompetitive as a result, tough donuts. Frankly, until a Wal-Mart's CEO is willing to give up his 'lunch hour' and his 'compensation package' to remain competitive, there's no reason on earth that Wal-mart employees OR ANY worker in this country (or any other country, for that matter) should give up a minute of their time. Management and especially executive managment needs to cut their pay FIRST and DRAMATICALLY. Period. Then, and only then, should labor even begin thinking about talking to these greed heads. It really is that simple
Attorney Fred Furth, who brought the case on behalf of the workers, said outside court that the jury "held Wal-Mart to account."
The lawsuit was filed by several former Wal-Mart employees in the San Francisco Bay area in 2001, but it took four years of legal wrangling to get to trial.
The verdict comes as the company is waging an intense public-relations campaign to counter critics aiming to stop the retailer's expansion and make it boost workers' salaries and benefits.
Paul Blank, campaign director for WakeUpWalMart.com, an union-affiliated advocacy group that believes Wal-Mart's policies over wages, health benefits and other issues harm families and communities, said he was delighted by the verdict.
"It is a sad day when Wal-Mart provides these so-called low prices by exploiting their workers and even the law," Blank said.
They are Illegal AND unethical; pretty much the Republican platform, isn't it?