Wal-Mart was forced to deal with the penalties of exploiting its workers when a judge in Minnesota ruled in favor of the employees. According to theNew York Times, the judge found Wal-Mart guilty of over 2 million labor violations. According to the article, some of these violations include: failure to give workers promised rest breaks at least 1.5 million times, having employees take in-house training while off the clock, and failing to keep records for 325,188 shifts, or 13 percent of shifts.

According to the article,

Under the ruling, Wal-Mart faces the greatest liability for violating Minnesota law by deducting several minutes from workers’ pay when they took rest breaks for 16, 17 or 18 minutes, when Wal-Mart said they were entitled to 15-minute breaks. Under Minnesota law, employers are barred from deducting minutes from a worker’s pay so long as the break lasts less than 20 minutes.

Judge King found that Wal-Mart had committed that statutory violation 1.5 million times; the company is subject to a civil penalty of up to $1,000 for each of those violations.

That alone would cost Wal-Mart up to $1.5 billion dollars. This is a another example of how Wal-mart extorts its workers to make a profit.