Lawsuits Are Changing Wal-Mart – and Wal-Mart Can Change the World

Wal-Mart is one of the country’s largest – and most ubiquitous – stores. Ninety percent of the U.S. population now lives within 15 minutes of a branch, with more than one million Americans employed to stock, price, clean, and manage one of the 4,540 Wal-Mart stores currently open across the country. The company’s economic clout can’t be denied – but the way it operates, and especially the way it treats its staff, has come in for regular criticism. In February, following years of campaigning by workers’ rights advocates, Wal-Mart announced it was raising the minimum wage of its full time and part-time employees to at least $9 an hour. That’s a good step – but there’s still a lot of improvements to be made. Let’s have a look at some of the most recent lawsuits filed against Wal-Mart, and what they say about America’s largest employer.

Last month, a class action lawsuit was filed in Alameda County Superior Court, California alleging that Wal-Mart routinely engages in wage theft by assigning low-level tasks to “assistant store managers.” This isn’t the first time major retailers have been accused of misclassifying employees to avoid paying overtime wages, and the suit, filed by Bonnie Cardoza, accuses Wal-Mart of “willingly” cutting costs by asking assistant managers to work more than eight hours per day without receiving additional pay. For details of how employee misclassification works, you can read our guide. In this case, Cardoza has filed the suit on behalf of assistant store managers working between January 2011 and January 2015, seeking owed wages and compensation for missed rest breaks.

What does this say about Wal-Mart? Well, if it’s true, they certainly don’t learn. In 2008, the company paid millions of dollars to settle 63 state and federal overtime wage class action lawsuits, with another $86 million paid out in 2013 to end a California lawsuit covering more than 230,000 employees. Wal-Mart’s also facing a similar lawsuit filed in 2014 by a Wal-Mart pharmacist. It’s all very well raising your employees’ wages, but companies still need to follow federal law and pay correct overtime pay – something Wal-Mart still needs to learn.

It’s not just how employees are classified and paid that Wal-Mart needs to improve. Per this piece published by Salon last month, many Wal-Mart employees have had problems with the company after becoming pregnant and finding their hours cut and their jobs on the line. To quote Latavia Johnson, a former Wal-Mart employee:

“I was making only $8.85 an hour and living at home with my mother. When I started, I was happy the store would give me 40 hours each week. But soon they started cutting back my hours until I was only getting around 25 hours per week. With an infant at home and another baby on the way, I was already struggling to help my mom pay rent, keep up with car payments and put food on the table. Needless to say, when Wal-Mart told me to stop coming to work because of my pregnancy complications, I didn’t have any money saved. “

Discriminating against a pregnant employee is illegal, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping some companies. We’ve written about UPS’ alleged violation of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act when a pregnant worker was put on unpaid leave after requesting lighter duties, while a fruit tree grower in Washington recently agreed to pay more than $17,000 to a former employee who was fired after revealing she was pregnant. This is an ongoing issue affecting millions of workers every year – and Wal-Mart, as the largest employer in the country, needs to take a proactive role in ensuring the law is followed and workers can feel safe in their jobs while raising their families.

Wal-Mart occupies a privileged position in the marketplace. It’s one that’s been earned through hard work and acumen, but it’s a privileged one nonetheless. The company is a market leader through sheer size, and as it acts, so others may follow. There are many areas of American working life that could be improved – vacation pay, maternity/paternity leave, minimum wage, job security – and decisive leadership that genuinely puts people before profits could change the lives of millions of workers. For now, lawsuits are one of the most effective ways of bringing about change at Wal-Mart – and change, in this case, is always good.