I never worked for Walmart and don't shop there so I relly don't know anything about the store except what I read. And a while back I did read about this lawsuite.
Lieff Cabraser and co-counsel represent separate classes of hourly wage earners at Wal-Mart in the States of Washington and New York who allegedly have been forced to work "off-the-clock" (without pay). The plaintiffs are current and former Wal-Mart employees who allege that Wal-Mart has violated state wage and hour laws.
Wal-Mart's Alleged Misconduct
The lawsuits in New York and Washington charge that Wal-Mart, the self-proclaimed fastest growing and largest private employer in the United States, has systematically avoided paying employees their full, earned wages. Wal-Mart provides perverse incentives for managers to lower overhead costs, the largest component of which is employee payroll, by offering financial compensation and bonuses.
Managers subsequently under-staff projects and Wal-Mart stores in general. These efforts force employees to work off-the-clock and through lunch and rest breaks. Managers pressure employees to complete assignments, while refusing to permit employees to stay on-the-clock for the full amount of time it takes to accomplish their duties.
The class action lawsuits include specific allegations that Wal-Mart:
understaffs its stores and pressures employees to complete assignments while refusing to permit employees to stay on-the-clock for the time it takes to accomplish them;
denies pay for time worked off-the-clock, through meal or rest breaks, and overtime; and
keeps employees locked in Wal-Mart stores after closing and requires that they remain there after clocking out until store managers have visited every department.
New York and Washington Investigation
We are actively investigating Wal-Mart's practices in New York and Washington in order to present further evidence to the courts in these cases. It is important for us to convince the courts to protect all Wal-Mart employees in these states by treating the cases as class action lawsuits. Therefore, we would like to hear from current or former Wal-Mart employees in New York or Washington about your experiences at Wal-Mart. Please click here to contact Lieff Cabraser.
Experiences of Name Plaintiff Maria Gamble
One of the class representatives in the New York lawsuit, Maria Gamble of Suffolk County, New York, claims that while she worked at Wal-Mart as a customer service manager, Wal-Mart supervisors locked her in the store with her co-employees after the store closed when all employees were "off-the-clock." Ms. Gamble described her experiences at Wal-Mart:
"When I worked at Wal-Mart, we were routinely expected to work at times when we were not paid. The worst part of this was we were locked-in to the store at night. Every week, I worked at least one shift that went from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. or 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. When the store closed at the end of my shift, the manager or the person closing the store would lock the exterior doors but the hourly employees like me would have to remain in the store and restock merchandise and count out the cash registers, even though we had already clocked off and were not getting paid. The tasks we had to do after the store closed always took at least an hour-and-a-half, and often two hours. The doors weren't unlocked until the work was completed. There were other ways in which I wasn't paid for time I was working, as well, such as mandatory attendance at unpaid meetings, and times I had to work through lunch and breaks."
