Wal-Mart to pay more than $33 million in overtime case

Wal-Mart Stores will shell out more than $33 million in back wages to thousands of employees after turning itself in to the Labor Department for paying too little in overtime over the past five years, according to an agreement announced by the Labor Department. Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley said "if pharmacists were hourly associates in the last five years" they were affected by the settlement. Wal-Mart said the department's review of its overtime calculations also found it had overpaid about 215,000 hourly workers during the same five-year period. The company said it will not seek to recover any overpayments, which are at least $20 per worker. Separately, California's labor commissioner filed suit against Wal-Mart for the share of overtime shortfalls in that state. The commissioner's office said in a statement that Wal-Mart had also voluntarily notified it of the problem and was working with the commissioner. Wal-Mart said the settlement includes no fines or penalties and that it has adopted measures to prevent the errors from occurring again.

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