Portland jury tells Wal-Mart to pay for off-the-clock work

A Portland jury reached its verdict Feb. 17: Wal-Mart will have to pay damages to 83 Oregon workers who were made to work off- the-clock as far back as 1994. The suit was filed in 1998.

James Piotrowski, an attorney with the Nevin Herzfeld law firm in Boise, Idaho, started the case with 400 plaintiffs. But hundreds of plaintiffs were dismissed because of jurisdictional objections Wal-Mart raised, or because they failed to show up for testimony when company lawyers decided to depose all of them as witnesses. Piotrowski said it was hard for many low-wage workers to come down and testify, especially those who had moved out of the state. Meanwhile, Piotrowski said, Wal-Mart went to enormous expense to fight the case.

The charges themselves were decided in an earlier phase of the trial, in which a separate jury found in December 2002 that Wal-Mart had a pattern of breaking the law. Wal-Mart, which made $8 billion in profit last year, had been routinely pressuring employees who made as little as $7.50 an hour to clock off and work extra hours for free — during their breaks and before and after their shifts. Managers also altered time records to reduce workers’ overtime pay.

“These problems wouldn’t have happened in the first place, or would have been dealt with sooner, if Wal-Mart stores had been unionized,” Piotrowski said.

Last month the Oregon AFL-CIO asked the Wage and Hour Division of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) to investigate Wal-Mart’s employment practices in Oregon, following revelations by the New York Times that an internal company audit found widespread violations of child labor laws and meal and rest period requirements.

BOLI Commissioner Dan Gardner said the bureau sent a letter to Wal-Mart asking the company to provide any Oregon-specific information contained in the audit. The company agreed to do so. Gardner said BOLI will decide what further steps to take when it receives the information; if Wal-Mart fails to provide it, Gardner said BOLI may undertake its own investigation.

Piotrowski said if BOLI pursues a case against Wal-Mart, it could potentially fine the company in larger amounts than the law allows in the civil suit.

The dollar amount of the damages in the civil suit could take months more to determine, Piotrowski said, but the plaintiffs will be asking for the maximum penalty in each case. Piotrowski said the company is likely to appeal.

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