CWS 3.0: December 18, 2013

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Contractor Settles Warehouse Worker Case for $4.7 Million

An operator of a warehouse in Mira Loma, Calif., that serves as a Wal-Mart contractor agreed to settle a class action lawsuit by workers for $4.7 million, according to court records.

The lawsuit, Quezada v. Schneider, did not include Wal-Mart. However, a second lawsuit involving the same warehouse site includes both staffing firms and Wal-Mart; that case has not yet been settled.

In the Quezada case, warehouse operator Schneider Logistics Transloading & Distribution Inc. had been accused of unpaid overtime, breach of contract, failure to keep proper records, failure to provide breaks as required by law, wrongfully deducting time for meal breaks and failing to pay proper reporting time pay to workers who showed up for work but were sent home.

The class action lawsuit includes around 568 workers in the settlement class.

“We are pleased that hundreds of workers who move merchandise in Wal-Mart’s largest warehouse complex in the western United States have won back $4.7 million in stolen wages owed to them for year of honest work,” said Guadalupe Palma, director of Warehouse Workers United, a workers’ group.

A spokeswoman for Schneider said the company could only confirm that the matter had been settled on terms acceptable to the parties.

The settlement is scheduled to be finalized in May.

Warehouse Workers United reported this was the second of two lawsuits filed by at the Schneider warehouses in Mira Loma. A separate lawsuit, Carrillo v. Schneider includes workers who were employed by staffing agencies contracted by Schneider. In addition, that lawsuit also includes Wal-Mart as a defendant.