Enforcing responsibility

From the LA Times: as if there weren't enough problems with Wal-Mart, a class action suit which has just now made it to trial is pointing out one more way in which the company has mistreated workers:

Lawyers representing about 116,000 former and current Wal-Mart Stores Inc. employees in California told a jury today that the world's largest retailer systematically and illegally denied workers lunch breaks.

The suit in Alameda County Superior Court is among about 40 cases nationwide alleging workplace violations against Wal-Mart, and the first to go to trial. Wal-Mart, which earned $10 billion last year, settled a lawsuit in Colorado for $50 million that contains similar allegations to California's class action. The company also is accused of paying men more than women in a federal lawsuit pending in San Francisco federal court...

The lawsuit was brought in 2001 by a handful of San Francisco-area former Wal-Mart employees, and took four years of legal wrangling to get to trial. During that time, Wal-Mart produced internal audits that plaintiffs' lawyers maintain showed the company knew it was not granting meal breaks on thousands of occasions...

One company document called results of the audit "a chronic problem." A one-week review of company policies showed thousands of instances in which workers were not given a meal break in accordance with the law, according to the documents provided to the jury.

Given that this time Wal-Mart hasn't been able to wriggle its way out of handing over the pertinent documentation, it seems like a waste of money to even bother going to trial on any issue aside from damages. But the strategy appears less pointed toward winning this case than toward making sure that any other workers who would otherwise stand up for their rights know that they'll be fought tooth and nail.

Fortunately, as the article points out, there are multiple suits across the U.S. attempting to hold Wal-Mart to its legal obligations. The problem with a company built on systematically flouting the law is that eventually, enough people are affected to make it worth their while to challenge that habit. And it looks like Wal-Mart is beginning to get what's coming to it.

(Edit: Apparently it's Brain Fart Week here at the blog.)