Wal-Mart now making its employees "on call" - no fixed hours or schedule!!

I work a split schedule overnight shift in tech support that really messes with my sleep. They pay me extremely well to do it, but it's probably gonna take years off my life.

Walmart is outta there mind. People are not gonna be on call like that to have thier lives disrupted continually. Their workforce will burn out.

They're trying to beat them down.

Wal-Mart Employees Seek More Damages
Wednesday, January 3, 2007

PHILADELPHIA - Wal-Mart workers in Pennsylvania who won a $78.5 million judgment for working off the clock and through rest breaks returned to court Wednesday to seek another $72 million in damages and interest.

They argue that about 125,000 plaintiffs in the class-action suit deserve an additional $500 each in damages, or $62 million, under Pennsylvania labor laws because the jury found that the world's largest retailer acted in bad faith. These so-called liquidated damages are designed to compensate people for the delay in payment.

The remaining 61,000 plaintiffs - who do not qualify for those damages because of legal time limits - should share in $10 million in interest on the back pay, lawyer Michael Donovan argued.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which denies wrongdoing and is appealing the jury award, opposed the added damages and interest. Company attorneys said that Donovan merely estimated the number of potential plaintiffs, and has not proven that each was shortchanged.

"They don't even know who they are," Wal-Mart lawyer Brian Flaherty said.

The workers already are expected to receive anywhere from about $50 to a few thousand dollars each from the initial award, depending on how long they worked for the company.

Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Mark Bernstein did not immediately rule on the issues argued Wednesday. He questioned why Donovan sought liquidated damages of $500 per worker when the statute could be interpreted to allow $500 in damages each time a worker was shortchanged.

"If I'm a claimant, I'm entitled to everything the law says I'm entitled to, and if that's $500 every time I was shorted and I was shorted 24 times a year, then it's $12,000," Bernstein said.

Donovan said he did not interpret the state wage law that way. He added that Wal-Mart's lack of record-keeping would make it impossible to determine the number of individual violations.

Bernstein oversaw the five-week trial, which culminated in October when the jury rejected Wal-Mart's claim that some employees voluntarily chose to work through breaks and that the off-the-clock work was minimal.

The suit covers current and former employees who worked at Wal-Mart and Sam's Clubs in Pennsylvania from March 1998 through May 2006.

Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Ark., earned $11.2 billion in profits on $312.4 billion in sales in the last fiscal year. Donovan argued at trial that the unpaid work gave Wal-Mart an unfair advantage in the marketplace.

Lead plaintiff Dolores Hummel said she put in about 10 hours each month off the clock to keep up with demands at a Sam's Club in Reading, where the single mother worked for 10 years to support her son. Sam's Clubs are a division of Wal-Mart.

Donovan has also petitioned the court for more than $40 million in legal fees, plus $5.5 million in expenses. Wal-Mart, which must pay the fees unless the verdict is overturned, objected to the request and asked for more details.

Wal-Mart is appealing a $172 million verdict in a similar California case and settled a Colorado suit over unpaid wages for $50 million.

Wal-Mart policy in Pennsylvania gives hourly employees one paid 15-minute break during a shift of at least three hours and two such breaks, plus an unpaid 30-minute meal break, on a shift of at least six hours.

I think Wal-Mart employees should spend all their free time hanging out in a back storeroom just in case they're needed when the stores get busy.

BTW, anyone who shops at these exploitation joints is telling them that you implicitly approve of their practices.

whow .... if the unions can't get in now they are worthless

They should give the employees a choice. What about those with children to arrange care for? That would be an extreme hardship for them.

if I was hiring people I would sure try to get WalMart employees now .... most of them seem really nice and they are getting treated like crap

How much more money do they need to save ? I guess 4 billion a year in profit just isn't enough. Douchbags !

My daughter works at Wal-Mart. She works 2 nights and 3 days. It's really messing up her sleep, and she's already grouchy as heck. I doubt THIS will put her on the sunny side of the street.

has she looked elsewhere ????

Ohhhh

But they did over here in quebec.

Jonquiere store went syndicated and guess what happened, they closed down. The only McD so far over here that has a union is in a small town, Rawdon if i'm not mistaken, the rest who unionized lost their jobs due to unforseen closures of buisness.

Unions are POWERLESS toward those big monsters that are called corporations.

There is the correct answer, thank you and have a nice day.
You should be shopping with your principles not with your wallet.
You wanted everything cheap and now look what happened.
You got a cheap world to go with it.

People need to change if they want their country to change with it.
It is the people that make a nation. Not the trees, Bushes or hedges.

they had MUCH more to fight 100 years ago .... the companies killed people then

I think the tide is turning ... if people are willing to peresevere

bingo !!!!!

Another thing I love about Wal-Mart stores is seeing the Sam Walton quote at the front of the stores about "buying American." There's not a single American-made item in those stores.

I do pray they will persevere. So true, I recall a lot of men who were killed because they were head of their union some 100 years ago.

Since that Wallmart store was closed, never set foot in one ever since. They Wallmart went against our laws, they should have paied off those employees for atleast half a year wage for their early closure, even if they were brought into court which they were, they have such high priced lawers, it was futile to even go after them in the first place ~SIGH~ We lost.

I worked for Wal-Mart for 18 months. 2 weeks one summer, I was scheduled to work 8 out of 10 days. I ended up only working 2. One kid was sick one week & the other was sick the following week.

I was called into the managers office for a "talking" to. They asked if my husband could stay home with the sick kids rather than me. Lets see, he got paid over $12/hour & I was only making $6.75/hour. What makes the better sense to stay home?

I was given a choice, to work or to stay home with my sick kids.

The following May I quit. After filing worksmans comp on them twice in 2 months, they literally made the work environment NOT worker friendly. I walked out on my daughters 7th birthday.

Wal-Mart doesn't need part time workers...children need full time mothers! I think a healthy society would have full time mothers?!

heh, the funny thing is, the majority of the ammunition they sell is made in the USA....

There are a few other American goods there, every time the wife and I run into one, we have to stop and stare in wonder...

Perhaps it is time that the employee's of Wal-Mart stage a single day walk out, in protest of how they are treated, a one day walk out would cost Wal-Mart alot of money but not so much for them to fire everyone, and for those who say they cannot afford to take a day off, think about how much time they will loose being on an on-call basis....

Unregulated Capitalism in its final throes.

Go back into business all of you. Sell something and get tax right offs - forget working for someone else. Grow some balls

Nothing but 21stC slaves. "Yes, Massa, I will be there right away." too bad that no one who works for Walmart will have the balls to tell them to go fuck themselves.