a human rights alert from care2

Wal-Mart finds itself back in court - this time it's been accused of denying thousands of workers' lunch breaks that are required by law. The case covers 116,000 former and current Wal-Mart employees in California, who are owed more than $66 million in back-pay plus interest for unpaid work during lunch.

"Time theft" labor abuses are a chronic problem for Wal-Mart. In fact, the company has paid millions to settle numerous cases of this sort already, in which its employees were denied breaks required by law, forced to work off the clock, or denied overtime pay for hours worked.

As the world’s largest retailer and America’s largest private employer, Wal-Mart clearly has some explaining to do. But rather than address the serious issues raised in the worker discrimination lawsuit, Wal-Mart has aggressively fought the charges and attempted to keep this suit out of court for the past four years.

When will Wal-Mart learn that treating workers fairly doesn’t come at the expense of corporate profits? After all, workers who are treated with respect are more loyal to their employers and work harder too.