Walmart Gives 500,000 Workers a Raise

Since many of my workers' compensation clients were injured on the job while working at Walmart, I was glad to see this article detailing how Walmart will raise their wages.  I usually have represent several injured Walmart employees per year.  Obviously, these raises should have happened years ago, but hopefully the company is coming around to paying its workers closer to a living wage.

Walmart Strikes Seem to Be Spreading

It seems that the initial Walmart strike that was reported on this blog last week is spreading to other stores.  From TheRawStory.com:

The strikes on Tuesday were just the second time in more than a half century that Walmart workers walked off the job at multiple stores, and comes on the heels of strikes at nine Walmart stores in Los Angeles. Those followed a 21-day action put on by Chicago-area Walmart warehouse workers, whose strike recently ended after their employer agreed to a major settlement over allegations of wage theft. 

In the wake of these two strikes and the ripple-effect being felt across the company, it suddenly looks like a whole new ballgame for organized labor. 

One of the problems striking workers cite is the lack of access to full-time working hours, which prevents them from obtaining even the meager health benefits the company offers. The National Consumer’s League (NCL) told Raw Story that Walmart’s refusal to provide those benefits by exploiting part-time labor leads to a number of spillover costs that taxpayers ultimately pick up. 

“Many Walmart workers are dependent on public assistance programs due to their low wages and not having access to full time jobs and being denied benefits because they’re not working the number of hours required to get access to those benefits, or the benefits are just so expensive that on their low wages they just can’t afford them,” NCL Executive Director Sally Greenberg said in an exclusive interview. “Walmart has a record of even working with employees to sign them up for public assistance programs, which we think is really atrocious.”

At Long Last...An Honest to God Walmart STRIKE!

From HuffingtonPost.com:

For the first time in Walmart's 50-year history, workers at multiple stores have gone on strike, even though their jobs are not protected by a labor union. 

More than 70 Los Angeles Walmart workers from nine stores walked off the job Thursday, Allison Mannos, of labor advocacy organization the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, told The Huffington Post. 

Workers and supporters protested outside the Pico Rivera Walmart store, carrying signs that read, "On Strike for the Freedom to Speak Out" and "Walmart Strike Against Retaliation." The workers said their complaints about working conditions and low pay have been met with threats, suspensions and terminations. 

The strikers said they plan to return to work Friday. Some of the workers will speak at LA City Hall Friday to relay Walmart's response to the strike. The strike was coordinated by OUR Walmart, a labor group backed by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) that defends Walmart workers' rights.

Overtime Wage Complaints Hit Record Level

If you think you've been short-changed on your overtime pay, you need to call me immediately.  I and a few of my colleagues who specialize in overtime pay disputes handle these types of cases often.  And....as this article describes....the practice of employers not paying proper overtime is occurring more and more.  Sometimes the practice can be wide-spread throughout an organization-- such as the massive class action against Walmart that resulted in Walmart paying to workers millions of past due overtime pay.

From the article:

The number of workers filing complaints against their employers under the Fair Labor Standard Act has skyrocketed, a report published by the law firm Seyfarth Shaw shows. Since 1993, the number of federal case loads relating to misclassification of workers, failure to pay overtime and miscalculated overtime for non-exempt workers has risen to a new all-time record of 7,006 in 2011 from 1,457 cases in 1993. 

And this year is on track to beat that, with 7,064 cases already filed. Lack of clarity in overtime laws and lucrative settlements for plaintiffs are just some of the reasons why the number of reported wage abuse cases is going up. In addition, a weak economy has pushed corporations operating with a slimmed-down staff to squeeze more out of their employees. 

Findings from other studies echo the data. In a report cataloging wage violations in New York City, the National Employment Law Project found that 77 percent of the study's surveyed low-wage workers who had worked more than 40 hours in one week did not receive their required overtime pay; the number rises to 93 percent for workers who worked more than 10 hours in one day. 

The study also found that 21 percent of workers reported that they were being paid less than the required minimum wage. Only non-white U.S. born workers did not report a minimum wage violation. The average low wage worker loses out on $58 per week and $3,000 per year due to wage violations by employers, according to the study.