Labour Law Violations Nets Wal-Mart $78 Million Fine

Company convicted of forcing employees to work "off the clock".

A jury has ruled that Wal-Mart must pay $78.5 million (US) in damages to current and former Pennsylvania employees for forcing them to work through breaks or after their shift was completed. On October 12, the jury found in favor of Michelle Braun and Dolores Hummel, former Wal-Mart employees. They said the company violated Pennsylvania labor laws by failing to pay employees for all of the work they.

It took the jury only about two hours to reach their decision that Wal-Mart denied workers meal breaks. It awarded about $2.5 million for off-the-clock working and about $76 million for lost rest breaks between March 1998 and May 2006. Hummel, who worked for the company for 10 years, said tearfully that she was very happy with the jury's award.

"It took a lot of courage for me to go against Wal-Mart," she said.

Mike Donovan, an attorney for the former Wal-Mart workers, said the jury's verdict was "a home run. They awarded everything we asked for," he said.

This not the first time that Wal-Mart has been found guilty of similar violations of labour laws. Last December, a California jury ruled that Wal-Mart should pay $172 million in damages and compensation to about 116,000 current and former employees for denying meal breaks. The Wal-Mart employees involved in the 2001 California lawsuit claimed that Wal-Mart had failed to pay hourly employees for missed or interrupted meal breaks.