One of the biggest issues Wal-Mart has been facing the last several years is the myriad of lawsuits across the country over wages, overtime, and breaks. Wal-Mart had been systematically forcing employees to work through breaks, altering time cards, denying overtime pay, and generally cheating workers. It faced more than seventy class action lawsuits from employees. Now Wal-Mart has recently settled 63 of these cases and will pay at least $352 million to the workers they stole from. Of course Wal-Mart being Wal-Mart, they announced this two days before Christmas in hopes that the media wouldn't pay much attention. It seemed to work. In the past, when Wal-Mart has settled a single case, there are typically 6 or 7 stories, wire pieces, and considerable blog buzz. This time around, when they settled not one, but 63 cases? SO far we've seen a New York Times story and that's about it.

We're not letting it slip by, however. This is a big deal. And we think it's suspicious that Wal-Mart has settled for so little. $352 million for 63 cases? That's about $5.6 million per case. When Wal-Mart settled a single case in Minnesota in December, they paid out more than $54 million. A court in Pennsylvania upheld a jury's verdict that Wal-Mart owed up to $186 million.

Here's the article from the New York Times:

Wal-Mart Settles 63 Lawsuits Over Wages

Wal-Mart said on Tuesday that it would pay at least $352 million, and possibly far more, to settle lawsuits across the country claiming that it forced employees to work off the clock. Several lawyers described it as the largest settlement ever for lawsuits over wage violations.

After years of being embarrassed by lawsuits over its wage practices, the company agreed to settle 63 cases pending in federal and state courts in 42 states.

The workers and their lawyers will receive at least $352 million, and the payments could reach $640 million, depending on how many claims affected workers submit.

Union critics of Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, saw the settlement as proof of their view that the company achieves its low prices in part by cheating workers. But the company rejected that characterization, saying it had already corrected wage practices that it has long attributed to local managers acting without authority.

The tragic story of Jdimytai Damour, a Wal-Mart worker originally from Jamaica, will stay with you forever.

It has been all over the news. Damour was trampled to death while shielding a pregnant shopper from a Black Friday stampede at a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, NY. When we heard the news about Jdimytai, we were utterly shocked. Even today, we can't believe Wal-Mart let this happen.

At Jdimytai's Wal-Mart, lack of preparation and aggressive marketing turned Black Friday into a crowd-control nightmare. Early that morning, a throng of 2,000 shoppers swarmed at the store's front entrance. They grew agitated. Though Jdimytai Damour was given no crowd control training, though he had no security experience whatsoever, management put him in front of the surging crowd of shoppers just before the doors opened. Not long after, he was pronounced dead.

The Damour family lost a son. We could never hope to fill that void in their lives, but we can help them fight for justice in the courts and for change at Wal-Mart. We are dedicating this year's Holiday Worker Fund to the Damour family's legal expenses, but it's still not enough. YOU can change that.

The Damour family deserves justice: help us reach our goal of 150 new donations before the New Year

Several people were injured in that early morning crush, but none fared worse than Jdimytai. Now, the only support for the Damours will come from family and activists like you. They are relying on us.

Donating helps, but it isn't everything. The Damour family also needs your moral support. You can use our website to send the Damours some words of encouragement and consolation. It will take only a few seconds (longer if you like) to help Jdimytai's family take heart in the coming New Year.

Please show your support for the Damour family by writing a few words of encouragement.

The tragedy in Valley Stream demands change. Show your support for the Damour family and let Wal-Mart know America won't stand for irresponsible retailing.

It's time for Wal-Mart to put safety before sales.

Thank you for all that you do, and happy holidays and a safe New Year to you and your loved ones.

The Team,
WakeUpWalMart.com

Wal-Mart has once again demonstrated its true talent of earning really really bad PR. They just seem to thrive at it. And when a family called to get a Birthday cake made with their son's name on it, they once again stepped up. What is so bad about making a Birthday cake? Well if the child's name happens to be Adolf Hitler and his family happens to be holocaust deniers, it is, at the very least, bad PR, and we think pretty offensive to boot. What makes it worse is that other stores in the area had the good sense to say no to the family and that Wal-Mart has made this particular cake three years running.

And we can't forget that this isn't Wal-Mart's first run in with the Nazi issue. There was the tee shirt that Wal-Mart sold with a Nazi logo on it, which they subsequently failed to pull from shelves. There was an ad they bankrolled which went after a community group who did not want Wal-Mart to build in their town by using Nazi imagery. There was the book they sold, called The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion which "recounts" as fact a plot by Jewish citizens to take over the world. It has been widely discredited as a fraud but was nonetheless used by Nazi propagandists. Wal-Mart's description of the book apparently did not indicate that it was, unambiguously a made up, antisemitic book.

The story is, deservedly, getting a lot of play. Most are simply bemused all around. Here's what Keith Olberman had to say last night: