Wal-Mart Class Action Moves Forward | Local plaintiff rejects criticism of the retailing giant
For the year she worked at Wal-Mart in Lunenburg, Leominster resident Lisa Wideman says, she got used to not being able to finish a meal if the store got busy.
“If you were on your lunch break, they called you to the floor,” she said. “I thought they would at least let us finish our break, but they never did.”
Wideman said she and her coworkers didn’t get paid for the extra time on the job either. And although she was laid off from the job seven years ago, she’s still hoping to get some payback.
Wideman is one of 67,500 Massachusetts Wal-Mart employees and former employees included in a class action law suit filed against the company in 2001 for allegedly withholding their wages and cutting their breaks short.
The case was delayed in 2006 after a Middlesex Superior Court judge decertified the class-action suit and threw out some evidence. But last month, the state’s Supreme Judicial Court overturned that ruling, and the case is now inching forward again.
Dissenting Opinions
Not all of the employees say a victory in the suit would be a victory for them. In fact, one of the plaintiffs, Aline Desjardin, who still works for Wal-Mart in Whitinsville, told the Worcester Business Journal she doesn’t think she was made to work hours she wasn’t paid for. And she said she has waived any right to get a pay-out if the suit succeeds.
“I refused,” she said. “They didn’t do anything wrong to me.”
Attorney Robert Bonsignore of the Medford firm Bonsignore & Brewer is representing the Massachusetts workers, as well as some of their counterparts who filed similar suits in other states. He said the suit includes anyone who worked at Wal-Mart for an hourly wage, and he hasn’t heard of anyone beside Desjardin asking to have their names removed. In any case, he said, there’s no provision in Massachusetts law to opt out of a class-action suit.
“She doesn’t have to cash the check,” he said.
Bonsignore said the SJC decision means the case could go to trial within nine months. And he said the ruling demonstrates that the courts are willing to take the types of allegations made against Wal-Mart seriously.
“It makes it clear that at least in Massachusetts the unfair competitive advantage that Wal-Mart has had over other business is not going to be tolerated,” he said. “This is not only a victory for the employees, it’s a victory for small and large competitors.”
Wal-Mart, meanwhile, says its policy is to pay workers for all their hours and notes that the verdict was not a decision on the merits of the case. Spokeswoman Daphne Moore said the majority of courts have said these types of cases don’t warrant class action status, even if the Massachusetts SJC disagrees.
Bonsignore said it would make little sense not to treat the case as a class action. He said if the case succeeds most plaintiffs will probably get awards of just $500 to $1,500, hardly enough to warrant filing individual lawsuits.
Locked Up
To Wideman, Wal-Mart’s bad behavior goes beyond the specific issues involved in the suit. She said she had to do the several-person job of running the electronics department by herself, and ended up with an injury that has left her disabled after lifting a heavy television. She also said that when she helped close the store at night she and her coworkers were locked inside until they got the job done.
And, she said, the day she was laid off was the day before her one-year anniversary, when she was supposed to get a raise. Moore said Wal-Mart stores lock their doors after hours for safety reasons, but the company’s policy requires someone to be on hand with a key in case of emergencies. Many retailers have similar policies.
If the suit does succeed, Wideman said she’d be happy to get a little much-needed cash, but she also hopes it will help improve the work environment for her former coworkers who still have jobs with the company.
“I think they should fix the problems so it doesn’t go on,” she said.
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