{"id":5779,"date":"2008-12-10T05:01:59","date_gmt":"2008-12-10T12:21:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=5779"},"modified":"2008-12-10T05:01:59","modified_gmt":"2008-12-10T12:21:47","slug":"always-low-wages-always","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=5779","title":{"rendered":"Always Low Wages. Always."},"content":{"rendered":"

Just in case you’d forgotten, Wal-Mart sucks<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world\u2019s biggest retailer, agreed to pay $54.3 million to settle a Minnesota lawsuit over wages after a judge ruled the company broke state laws by requiring employees to work off-the-clock.<\/p>\n

The settlement covers workers employed between Sept. 11, 1998, and Nov. 14, 2008, at Wal-Mart and Sam\u2019s Club locations, the retailer said today in a statement. The agreement prevents the case from being presented to a jury, which would have been asked to order Wal-Mart to pay as much as $2 billion.<\/p>\n

The company required hourly employees to work off-the-clock during training and denied full rest or meal breaks in violation of state wage-and-hour laws, Hastings, Minnesota, District Judge Robert King Jr. ruled July 1, following a non-jury trial. King said Wal-Mart broke labor laws more than 2 million times and ordered the retailer to give employees $6.5 million in back pay. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wal-Mart, of course, has aggressively fought unionization, because unions tend to dislike it when you require workers to work for no pay.<\/p>\n

While it’s good to see the suit settled, and employees compensated after a decade of stalling, I’m a bit disappointed that it’s being settled. As noted, a jury trial could have cost the company $2 billion, and that kind of money might have motivated them to, you know, pay their workers and give them adequate breaks. Instead, Wal-Mart will pay their parking ticket and continue to screw over their workforce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just in case you’d forgotten, Wal-Mart sucks: Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world\u2019s biggest retailer, agreed to pay $54.3 million to settle a Minnesota lawsuit over wages after a judge ruled the company broke state laws by requiring employees to work … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics-and-the-like"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}