It's hard not to get right to the bottom line in reading a judge's order and Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Mark I. Bernstein's bottom line was impressive: $62.3 million more for Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) workers that a jury found had not been properly paid for rest breaks.
On the way to the bottom line, Bernstein had a great phrase about how "the law in its majesty applies equally to highly-paid executives and minimum wage clerks."
What he was talking about was the issue of fringe benefits -- benefits that are spelled out in contracts between employees (remember even CEOs are employees!) and their companies. In the case of CEOs, Bernstein writes about how, through litigation, they manage to get their "equity interests" or "put options" even though they had received their substantial base pay properly.
The same, he said, should apply to clerks and cashiers at Wal-Mart. They don't have equity interests or put options, but when their manual includes, under the heading of "my money," a promise of paid breaks -- that has to be considered legitimate or supplemental fringe pay, just as equity interests and put options are for CEOs. Everyone's protected under Pennsylvania's Wage Payment and Collection Law.
Wal-Mart says it should not be penalized because workers chose to work through their breaks, as some employees testified in last year's trial in Philadelphia. But other workers told the jury that they had no choice but to work through their breaks. The workload was so intense that there was no time for a breather. The jury agreed with those workers, awarding 187,000 current and former Pennsylvania Wal-Mart employees $78.5 million. The judge's order yesterday added an additional $62.3 million in penalties. Read more about the case in today's Inquirer.
