The Nation -- Try as it might, no amount of spin from Wal-Mart's multimillion-dollar war room in Bentonville, Arkansas can undo the latest bit of bad news for the world's largest corporation. On December 22, a California jury ordered Wal-Mart to pay $172 million in damages to more than 100,000 current and former Wal-Mart workers, who had been unjustly and routinely denied meal breaks….
According to Fred Furth, the plaintiffs' lawyer, the retail behemoth violated California's strict mandatory meal break law 8 million times between January of 2001 and May of 2005. "Sam Walton established a mantra: the store manager must every year increase sales and reduce labor costs. But that is an oxymoron--they're lowering the prices on the backs of the people who work for them," said Furth. "That is why I spent four months of my life at 71 years old making the point to corporate America that we are not in industrial England anymore. We're in the 21st century and these are good workplace rules, and you've got to obey them."
At least somebody is standing up for the Wal-Mart employee. Who stands for the most oppressed group in America-- part-time faculty?
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