Wal-Mart & Stockholm Syndrome

Wal-Mart is being sued in PA for 'encouraging' hourly employees to skip breaks and keep on working. A court is considering whether to elevate said ingrate employees to the status of an agrieved group for purposes of "Class Action." Ooops, that's a big noisy battleship with lots of deck chairs. Wal-Mart's attorneys are arguing, unsuccesfully, that because a few employees have been deposed on videotape saying "no problem here, we voluntarily work for free" there is no consistent claim to "Class" status. Judge Mark Bernstein’s decision noted that WMT's own internal management analysis of labor costs show a weird drop in breaks taken and no indication of compensation for break-time lost.

So, are they throwing their shoulder to the wheel, breaks be damned, for the greater good of old WMT? Or, is Raymond Shaw the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life?

The judge thinks he knows... law.com:

"Although this court was offered a few carefully selected snippets of videotaped deposition testimony, it is certainly improper to decide credibility on this basis...

"One need only recall the symbolic placement of the middle finger of the captured crew members of the USS Pueblo in photographs displayed by their North Korean captors along with their 'confessions' to recognize the need to observe all the testimony of current employees testifying under their employer's watchful eye that they voluntarily worked off-the-clock without pay because of their devotion to the ideal of corporate profitability through customer satisfaction."

Hah! Welcome to the Glorious Period of the Ninth Five-Year Plan, comrades of Sam. Now get back to work.