Walmart Hit with Class Action Over Alleged Delivery Driver Wage and Hour Violations

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Walmart and subsidiary Delivery Drivers, Inc. (DDI) face a proposed class action wherein a former employee claims he was misclassified as an independent contractor and denied proper wages and benefits.

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The 20-page lawsuit says that the companies—along with the plaintiff’s former supervisor, named as a co-defendant in the case—have run afoul of Washington law by misclassifying delivery drivers as independent contractors rather than bona fide employees. As a result of the misclassification, the defendants have failed to pay the drivers at least the hourly minimum wage and provide them with tips, paid sick leave and overtime premiums for hours worked in excess of 40 per workweek, the suit alleges.

In addition, the case contends that Walmart and DDI have failed to maintain procedures to ensure that workers took rest periods and meal breaks, as required by law. Per the complaint, the companies likewise failed to pay employees for every hour worked, as delivery drivers were not compensated for the time they spent driving between locations, waiting for orders to be ready, making returns or troubleshooting Walmart’s Spark Driver mobile app, which manages order deliveries.

Upon logging into the Spark app, drivers are presented with a list of orders from which they can choose, the filing shares. Given that workers are paid per delivery, rather than per hour, the orders state the distance of each delivery location and the rate of pay, calculated by an algorithm designed by Walmart, the lawsuit says.

After selecting a delivery, employees are directed to a Walmart location to pick up the order, where deliveries are loaded into their personal vehicles under strict supervision and procedures, the suit describes. As the case tells it, drivers face suspension from the Spark app if they fail to meet the defendants’ stringent regulations, which include restrictions on workers’ order acceptance rates, rules about vehicle conditions and use and requirements for timely order pick-ups.

According to the complaint, employees were paid weekly through an app operated by defendant DDI, which tracked the total pay each driver made in a day but failed to record hours worked, rates of compensation and other wage details.

The filing charges that delivery drivers at times worked over 40 hours per week without proper time-and-a-half compensation, in violation of Washington law. The lawsuit further claims that Walmart and DDI maintained shift schedules and a working environment that “discouraged” employees from taking meal breaks and rest periods in compliance with state law, and failed to compensate workers when they skipped these breaks.

Walmart and DDI’s apparent failure to provide proper pay to delivery drivers like the plaintiff “was not the result of administrative or clerical errors,” the case points out.

The lawsuit looks to represent anyone in Washington currently or formerly contracted directly by the defendants to provide delivery services to Walmart at any time since October 23, 2020, who is or was paid in whole or in part on a piecework, commission or other productivity basis.

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