The retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has agreed to pay up to $35 Million to settle a class action lawsuit over its’ employees lunch and rest breaks.

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of 88,000 workers in Washington state stores who were forced to skip lunch and rest breaks and forced to work off the clock.

“The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer and lawyers for the workers jointly announced Wednesday that a King County Superior Court judge has given final approval to the deal.”

“This lawsuit was filed years ago and the allegations are not representative of the company we are today,” Wal-Mart spokeswoman Daphne Moore said in a news release. “Our policy is to pay associates for every hour worked and to make rest and meal breaks available.”

In December, Wal-Mart announced that it would pay up to $640 million to settle 63 lawsuits across the country over violating employees’ wage and hour violation. Only 2 of the lawsuits went to trial, and those ones are currently

“In Washington, the plaintiffs’ lawyers will receive $10.5 million to cover eight years of legal fees. Three workers who brought the lawsuit will receive $10,000 each, and other workers will get between $50 and $950, depending on how long they worked for Wal-Mart and how much detail they can provide about the violations they suffered.”

Check out the original article: Wal-Mart to Pay up to $35 Million Over Work Breaks

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Laying off an enormous amount of people is Citigroup Inc. Shutting its doors on 53,000 more employees in the coming quarters, the bank is struggling to stay afloat after losing huge amounts of money due to debt. Having already reduced its assets by roughly 20 percent in the beginning of the year, the New York-based bank plans to cut corners by 19 percent come 2009.

Eliminating 22,000 jobs is no laughing matter. Citigroup also plans to sell Citi Global Services and its German retail banking business. That alone ensures the loss of 18,000 jobs. And what’s worse…they are cutting other businesses but haven’t announced which ones, yet. So, if you are a Citigroup employee, your days may be numbered.

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While it is safe to say that no one sets out to be a horrible boss, it seems that corporate America is overrun with them. Is it the fact that they are simply incompetent or are they just mean people? The answer is likely that they are simply as insecure as we all are, and they are terrified of losing their position in the corporate hierarchy. Let’s take a look at just a few of the most common mistakes that bosses make each and every day.

Disrespect your employees

The American work place is made up of adults, and as much as we may all crave it, no one honestly expects to get a pat on the head and a genuine thank you from their boss at the end of every work day. However, the feeling of being disrespected at work is probably the worst thing any boss can do to any employee. It is clear that some employees are better than others, but going to a job every day where your contributions are ignored is akin to working in hell. You don’t have to constantly reassure employees, but an occasional, and honest, thank you can do more for moral than any other single thing.

Belittle employees

Being a boss means getting the most out of your people as often as you can. Moral is inexorably tied to performance. A happy employee is not only going to get more work done, they are going to do higher quality work, too. However, there are times when employees need to be corrected and reprimanded. The key to not being a bad boss is how you handle those situations. Treat your people like adults, even if what they have done is simply beyond the pale. It is better for your company to fire an incompetent employee and then hire and train a new one than for you to keep on a genuinely unhappy employee who is constantly making mistakes. Never belittle an employee, even if you’re about to fire them. Word gets around a workplace fast and that can be disastrous for moral.

Make and then break promises

Speaking of moral, other than being berated in front of your coworkers, nothing can sabotage moral faster than making and then breaking promises. Most promises made by management usually have to do with things like raises and promotions. Don’t ever tell someone they are in line of a raise until you can announce it as a certainty. Most bosses don’t go around and intentionally lie to employees, but sometimes, upper management changes their mind and when you have to go back to that employee and tell them their raise fell through, you might as well start looking for a replacement that day. The same goes for promises about assignments, projects or even promises about a new kind of coffee in the break room. Make sure you phrase things honestly. If you want to let your people know that something might happen, make sure you use the word might. A boss that people can’t believe is a boss that people don’t want to work for.

Click on one of these links to check out sample legal documents drafted by Amlaw 200 Law Firms for Fortune 500 Companies.

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An employment agreement is a legal contract between an employer, usually a company in the form of a corporation, general or limited liability partnership, or other business entity, and an individual. The agreement calls for the individual to become an employee of the company and provides certain terms and conditions of employment. The terms of employment, including the rights and obligations of both employer and employee are laid out in each employment contract.

The most important provisions of an employment agreement will likely be different for the employer and the employee. For the employee, the most important provisions of the employment may include compensation such as salary, benefits, potential bonus (signing or performance), commission, draw, or other methods of compensation. The benefit package may be of equal concern: This can involve health benefits, paid vacation, 401K, sick days, and other perks.

The employer will likely be more concerned with other aspects of the agreement. For instance, the employer will likely want to ensure promises of loyalty and confidentiality from the new employee, and may thus include loyalty, covenant-not-to-compete, or non-disclosure provisions into the contract. An employment agreement usually will absolve the employer of liability of harm caused to the employee on the job that was not caused by the wrongdoing of the employer.

Both parties may be equally interested in provisions relating to scope of duties and grounds for termination. The agreement should lay out the responsibilities of the employee and may even set goals such as sales benchmarks, which the employee will be required to meet in order to keep her job or earn a raise or bonus. The agreement will almost always discuss appropriate grounds for termination and under what circumstances the employee can be terminated for good cause. In the United States, 80% of employees, even those with employment agreements, are “at-will” employees, meaning they can be fired by their employer for good reason, bad reason, or any reason at all. An employment agreement can change this at-will status and state that the employee can only be fired for just cause as defined in the agreement.

Employment contracts are not the norm, but are generally beneficial to employees and are usually reserved for more skilled positions and employees with more professional leverage such as special skill or experience. Some legal experts argue formal employment contracts “facilitate the granting of discretion to workers by superseding many of the legal defaults that define the relationship between the worker and firm owner.” See Harvey James Jr., A Legal Basis for Workers as Agents: Employment Contracts, Common Law, and the Theory of the Firm, University of Missouri, CORI Working Paper 01-05.

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