In June 2010, a federal judge declined to grant final class certification to a suit brought against Wal-Mart by former janitorial staff, charging the retail giant over their labor practices. “On June 25th, Chief US District Judge Garrett Brown…found that because the plaintiffs worked for a variety of Wal-Mart contractors around the county, not for the company directly, they could not show they were “similarly situated” for class action purposes.”, The New Jersey Law Journal reports (6/20/2010, Gallagher).
Now a second attempt has been filed on October 14th, 2010 and bears a striking resemblance to the first. This new suit seeks class action certification, alleging that janitors routinely worked seven days a week, but were denied overtime pay in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The first suit listed 17 janitors as named plaintiffs, the new suit is on behalf of 42 other janitors.
Both suits are captioned Zavala v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., both cases are assigned to Judge Brown, and the trial is slated for November 29th.
