Wal-Mart must pay extra damages

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The world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, has been ordered to pay an additional $62m in compensation to workers who were forced to work during breaks.

The class action was brought by about 187,000 staff who worked for Wal-Mart in Pennsylvania between 1997 and 2006.

The judge ruled on Wednesday that workers should share extra damages after the jury last year awarded them $78m in compensation.

The retail giant said that it strongly disagreed with the decision.

Wal-Mart faces a number of similar lawsuits that charge the retailer with breaking labour laws.

'Undisclosed secrets'

The former employee who headed the case, Dolores Hummel, who worked at a branch of Wal-Mart-owned wholesaler Sam's Club for 10 years, said she regularly had to work during breaks and after closing time because of work demands.

She estimated she worked between eight and 12 hours unpaid each month.

In the lawsuit, she said: "One of Wal-Mart's undisclosed secrets for its profitability is its creation and implementation of a system that encourages off-the-clock work for its hourly employees."

After the judgement she said she and other staff had acted because they wanted to show "how we were treated working at Wal-Mart - working off the clock and not getting paid".

The jury rejected Wal-Mart's claim that some people chose to work through breaks or that few minutes of extra work here and there were insignificant.

In December 2005, a California court ruled Wal-Mart must pay $172m in compensation to 116,000 employees who had been denied meal breaks.