Wal-Mart accused of forcing staff to work unpaid overtime

Wal-Mart, the American retail giant that owns the British supermarket Asda, is facing legal actions over claims that it routinely demands staff perform unpaid work "off-the-clock".

Hundreds of thousands of workers in 28 American states are involved in lawsuits that allege Wal-Mart managers forced staff to work unpaid overtime as part of a de facto policy created by the company's intense focus on cost-cutting.

In one recent class-action in Texas, lawyers say 200,000 present and former employees were underpaid by $150m (£100m) over four years by making them work during their daily 15-minute breaks.

Wal-Mart – which took over Asda in 1999 – contests the claims, though it admits that two years ago it settled a class-action in Colorado that alleged 69,000 workers had worked "off-the-clock". It denied the settlement totalled $50m.

A company spokesman, Bill Wertz, said: "Off-the-clock work is an infrequent and isolated problem which we correct when we become aware of it. It is Wal-Mart's policy to pay its employees properly for the hours they work.

"These are isolated incidents. Fortune magazine recently listed us as one of the top 100 companies to work for as voted by the employees. They would not have done that if these allegations were true."

Many Wal-Mart workers dispute this. In interviews with The New York Times, workers from stores in about 20 states say unpaid work has become part of the company's culture.

Liberty Morales, 28, who used to work at an in-store restaurant in Houston, Texas, said she was regularly made to work one or two unpaid hours because no other staff was available.

"They would call me and say, 'You need to clock out'," she said. "I knew I had to go back and work after clocking out. There was no way the grill could continue operating with no one there to run it."

Other plaintiffs have said staff were routinely forced to stay behind, having already "clocked-off", and tidy up the stores. Often the doors would be locked until the work was completed, they say.