| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 8, 2000 |
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Albertson's Workers Win Settlement of Class Action Suit Albertson's will have to compensate up to 150,000 current and former employees for back pay according to a settlement of eight class action lawsuits approved today by federal Judge B. Lynn Winmill. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), through its Worker Advocacy Project, mobilized and organized Albertson's employees to fight back against the company for not paying workers for all their work time and for discouraging workers from filing worker's compensation claims. Eight suits were filed in 1997 and joined together into one class action suit in federal court. Today's ruling insures that the eligible employees will receive the monies owed them for past work. Workers joined together in the collective legal action to fight back against what seemed to be company policy of enticing managers to increase the number of unpaid work hours they could squeeze out of employees. The workers claimed that Albertson's "did not record and compensate employees for all time it permitted, encouraged, or required them to work, failed to permit employees to take rest breaks on the employer's time, an threatened discipline for employees who reported violations." Employees regularly worked through lunch and break time, worked before and after their shifts, all at the encouragement of managers yet were not paid for their work time. The company practices ended, ultimately, when workers joined together for legal remedy to these problems. Albertson's insisted on excluding several classifications of employees from this settlement. The UFCW has authorized a new lawsuit for those employees who are excluded from this settlement. The UFCW is the largest organization of retail workers in the U.S. and Canada, with 1.4 million member working in leading supermarkets, retail stores, meat and poultry packing plants, health care and other industries. The UFCW Worker Advocacy Project helps workers, union and non-union, fight back against illegal employer actions on the job and build a better future. |
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