Wal-Mart settles another lawsuit

Last December, Wal-Mart announced that it would pay at least $352 million to settle 63 lawsuits across the nation. In March, Wal-Mart was facing the largest sexual discrimination lawsuit in U.S. history.

Now Wal-Mart is settling yet another lawsuit about labor claims.

Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) has agreed to pay $40 million to settle a lawsuit filed in Massachusetts that alleged the big-box retailer cheated 87,500 current and former employees in the state out of pay and failed to obey work rules. The class-action suit, filed in 2001, accused Wal-Mart of altering time cards, refusing to pay overtime, and denying workers rest and meal breaks...

...The settlement is believed to be the largest of its kind in the state of Massachusetts and comes less than three months after Wal-Mart reached a deal with state officials to pay $3 million to settle complaints that the retailer failed to provide proper meal breaks, The Associated Press reported...

The plaintiffs have won a settlement that affect people who were employed at Wal-Mart between August 1995 and this year. Each person stands to receive payments between $400 and $2,500, depending upon years of service for each individual. The settlement further guarantees that all $40 million will be paid out to workers and no leftover funds will revert back to Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart has settled numerous lawsuits like this one. While customers enjoy Wal-Mart's low prices, those low prices come at a cost. And that cost is usually paid by the employees being screwed by the company.

There are other options if one wants low prices. In the midwest, for instance, there is Meijer. Unlike Wal-Mart which shut down their entire in-store butcher department, company wide, because ten workers in Texas joined the United Food and Commercial Workers, Meijer is unionized.

There are many other regional chains which compete with Wal-Mart that may be a better place for you to spend you holiday cash.