San Francisco, CA: Walmart has lost an employment lawsuit filed by California truck drivers who allege Walmart' pay policies were in violation of California labor law. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco found for the plaintiffs and the settlement could cost the world' largest retailer as much as $100 million.
The lawsuit was filed in 2008, and represents some 500 California-based drivers who worked for Walmart since 2003. The drivers claimed that Walmart pays them by the mile and for specific activities they perform, as described in the company manuals. The drivers claimed that other activities, such as inspections, vehicle washing and cleaning, layovers, rest breaks, paperwork, fueling, were not appropriately covered by the company.
By way of example, one of those explicitly listed activities was layovers, which, according to the Walmart manuals, requires drivers do not drive within 10 hours of a previous stint. Walmart compensates the drivers for the mandatory layovers at $42, or $4.20 an hour, considerably less than minimum wage.
The judge wrote "The Court finds that activities that are not separately compensated (and are explicitly listed and recognized as unpaid activities) may not properly be built in or subsumed into the activity pay component of Wal-Mart' pay policies, under California law."
