Walmart delivery drivers class action lawsuit overview:
- Who: Joshua Walz filed a class action lawsuit against Walmart Inc., Delivery Drivers Inc. and his Walmart supervisor, Ashley Hatfield.
- Why: Walz claims Walmart misclassified as independent contractors individuals who provided delivery services for the company through its Spark Driver program.
- Where: The class action lawsuit has been removed to Washington federal court.
Walmart misclassified delivery drivers who provide a delivery service for the company through its Spark Driver program as independent contractors, when, in reality, they should be classified as employees, a new class action lawsuit alleges.
Plaintiff Joshua Walz claims Walmart, by way of allegedly misclassifying its delivery app drivers, fails to pay them minimum wage, tips and overtime wages; fails to ensure rest periods and provide meal periods; and fails to allow the accrual and use of paid sick leave.
Walz argues delivery drivers who provided a delivery service for Walmart were too controlled by the company to count as independent contractors, rather than employees.
“Defendant Walmart substantially restricted how Plaintiff and members of the putative class performed the duties of their job,” the Walmart class action states.
Walz wants to represent a class of individuals who are or have been contracted by Walmart to provide delivery services to Walmart locations in Washington at any time since Oct. 23, 2020, and who were paid in whole or in part on a piecework, commission or other productivity basis.
Walmart delivery app drivers treated like employees, class action says
Walz argues delivery drivers who provide services for Walmart through its Spark Driver program are tightly controlled by the company, which he claims directs how goods can be loaded in their vehicles and unilaterally sets their compensation and method of pay, among other things.
“Defendants had the ability to set terms and conditions of employment of Plaintiff and members of the putative class to a substantial degree and all had the ability to hire and fire,” the Walmart class action states.
Walz claims Walmart is guilty of violating the Washington Minimum Wage Act, Washington Wage Rebate Act and the Washington Wage Payment Act.
The plaintiff is demanding a jury trial and requesting an award of exemplary damages for himself and all class members.
A separate class action lawsuit was filed against Walmart in August by a consumer arguing the company failed to make its website fully accessible to and independently usable by individuals who are blind or visually impaired.
Have you provided delivery services to Walmart through its Spark Driver program? Let us know in the comments.
The plaintiff is represented by James B. Pizl, Justin Abbasi and Ari Robbins Greene of Entente Law PLLC.
The Walmart delivery drivers class action lawsuit is Walz, et al. v. Walmart Inc., et al., Case No. 3:23-cv-06083, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.
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201 thoughts onWalmart class action alleges company misclassifies delivery app drivers as independent contractors
So far, it’s been over 3-weeks since the adjustment shown in my earnings; however, Walmart/SPARK has not released the monies to my account. I’ve spoken to several people in driver support multiple times and everyone promises a new date that my payment will be made. Has anyone else experienced this? And, is there a website regarding the suite? That info would be helpful for me and some others, I presume.
I have made several complaints about the Walmart here an how they would find any reason to cancel my order an then they deactivated my account for a order the support line pushed threw for delivery an said I didn’t do a id verification when the app wasn’t working and the spark support is the one that put it down for delivery 😮💨 an never got paid for my wait time and they always loaded everyone Before doin mine smh
What about the bot grabbers stealing orders from drivers. Spark and Walmart have done nothing but kick the can down the road. New drivers like me who have only been on the app fir 6 months. I have documentation proof of bot grabbers taking orders from me. Spark policy is first come first serve. I have time stamps on my incidents showing I was the first driver at the store to started the day. I did not get the first order or second order.
Spark keeps saying they are update the app. Nothing.
This is still going on at my location. Can I join this lawsuit and can bot grabbers be added.
i need to join this. i have been a spark driver for 2 years. i have hundreds of screenshots of spark not paying proper wait time compensation or no compensation at all. i have multiple reports with valuable information stating that “the system” doesn’t care about our wait time. i am currently not being allowed by the app to change my banking information for over 2 months and every support tech tells me i have to use one pay. we are independent contractors being treated like crap, not getting the proper pay, and not being allowed to edit our banking information.
So I had run into a problem with the app and the driver portal. This was some sort of internal coding problem on Sparks side of things. So I was using One financial and then one day there was an error and I could no longer get paid daily. This and a few other domino’s lead me to becoming homeless. I set up the Branch but it had a waiting time on top of only paying once a week so I was unable to get back to doing spark.
So why I’m telling you this is that I stayed in contact with Driver Support and the lower levels of IT and one or two other departments that I cannot remember the name of. I was given the run around for an entire year and I was actively asking for updates every couple of days, then weeks then months. But I kept checking. They just kept saying they have put in a ticket with the IT engineers and to wait for them to contact me. Then they stopped allowing Branch and so at this point I actually had got into the position to be able to afford to cover gas for a week and I was going to go into the nearest city and spark. So then I couldn’t do that because I’m still waiting for them to fix the problem with my being able to use One financial, almost a whole year at this point. So then I tried adding my bank and as you mentioned, that doesn’t work either lol. So I contacted them again for the One financial issue I was having still and that I’ve been waiting almost a year. As well as that I couldn’t just add a regular bank either. Told me they created a ticket for the engineering IT team and to wait for them to contact me. Then I got the text alert a bit down the road saying that my account was closed because I failed to maintain a payment method. So I sent an appeal and included all the information because I saved all the emails and screen shots of my contact tickets with them that are on a part of the driver portal. I did this hoping they would approve my appeal and also finally fix the issues on the app and portal so I could spark again. NOPE lol they just replied with a denial. Also they over loaded my Camaro one time about 300 lbs past the carrying capacity of the vehicle and it screwed my car up and I could barely control the vehicle for the short distance to the delivery. Also where I lived is one of the hottest cities in the US and you literally cannot sit in your car without the AC on and you are foolish to idle your car in that heat for very long. So I would wait by my car and walk around and have a smoke or two and normally i would go home because i was only a mile from the store but because of bot grabbers i decided to just wait at the store to see if that helped me get more deliveries and at some point that day I realized my feet were hurting and it took me about 20 minutes after i started to feel the pain to realize what it was. I had burnt my feet!!! and so I got on my car and went home and my feet proceeded to hurt quite a bit more then it leveled off and just stayed hurting that much for about two days. Now I cannot tolerate standing on anything hot with my bare feet for more than like 1 second or its excruciatingly painful. I reported this to them as well right when it happened and they never followed up even though they said they would and I contacted them several times to no avail. I also reported the overloaded incident to no avail. I also reported and never got paid for three orders on a day which was like 150 bucks and I got the run around for the year on that too.
So I would expect the same thing with your issues. They WILL NOT FIX IT. Then they are going to close your account.
I’m sorry if your doing this for work because spark is the only one that pays enough of the gig apps to even consider it a job that you can actually pay your bills with because Uber Eats and doordash are literally not even giving people enough money to pay for the gas. And now Uber rides If you have a new enough car to be able to do the taxi service for Uber is Scamming the drivers To the point of Not being them enough For the Trips to make it sustainable. So spark really is the only one that people can rely on in order to make it a decent amount of money but I guarantee you that they will ignore your issues and they will string you along no matter how many times you contact them and then they will close your account.
Do not wait for them to fix the problem if it’s going to land you homeless like it did me. I really didn’t think that it was going to take more than a few days for them to fix it and because they didn’t do that I ended up becoming homeless of course they strung me along for a year and I had a feeling that they would never fix it but I wanted to continue to contact them to see if they actually would and they didn’t but I documented everything I have all of the emails and screenshots and everything.
And obviously I don’t know 100% sure that they won’t fix the issue but I would be willing to bet money on it and I telling you this information because spark not fixing problems like this cost me to be homeless and if you are relying on spark for your work you need to Pivot immediately
good luck
-‘David’-
i need to join this. i have been a spark driver for 2 years. i have hundreds of screenshots of spark not paying proper wait time compensation or no compensation at all. i have multiple reports with valuable information stating that “the system” doesn’t care about our wait time. i am currently not being allowed by the app to change my banking information for over 2 months and every support tech tells me i have to use one pay. we are independent contractors being treated like crap, not getting the proper pay, and not being allowed to edit our banking information. please help!