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By Daniel Wiessner
(Reuters) – Walmart Inc. has agreed to pay $ 65 million to nearly 100,000 current and former cashiers in California who accused the retailer of breaking the law by refusing to provide seats while they were working.
Walmart denied any wrongdoing in the nine-year-old case, which was due to be brought to trial later this year, in a case filed in federal court in San Francisco on Wednesday. The settlement must be approved by a federal judge.
In addition to the payment, the company announced that it would start providing seats to its cashiers in California.
Walmart spokesman Randy Hargrove said, "Both parties are pleased to have reached a proposed resolution."
Counsel for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
When filing the lawsuit, Walmart and plaintiffs' lawyers said the settlement, if approved, would be the largest ever under the California Attorney General's single law. The law allows workers to sue their employers in the name of the state and to keep a quarter of the money that they earn.
The lawsuit was one of the first to be subject to California regulation that requires employees to sit "where the nature of the work reasonably permits".
The regulation was originally adopted in 1911 to apply only to women working in the retail trade. It was modified and expanded several times during the next century.
Walmart argued that putting stools near cash registers would pose a safety risk and make workers less productive. The company stated that the nature of the cashiers 'work did not reasonably allow for sitting because they had to scan large items, stretch out to see the bottom of the buyers' baskets, sack the products and sometimes do some work. outside the registers.
Walmart also stated that it was its policy to offer stools to cashiers with health problems or disabilities, and store managers have the discretion to provide cashiers with cash on a case-by-case basis.
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The case is as follows: Brown v. Walmart Inc, US District Court for the Northern District of California, No. 5: 09-cv-03339.
(Report by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York, edited by Alexia Garamfalvi and Bernadette Baum)
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