WMT Walmart Inc

By Melanie Trottman 

WASHINGTON-- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. violated federal law for disciplining or firing several employees who participated in strikes against the retailer, a judge for the National Labor Relations Board said in a ruling issued Thursday.

The strikes in May and June of 2013 were protected under the National Labor Relations Act, Judge Geoffrey Carter said in his decision. The Bentonville, Ark., retailer has said it was within its rights to discipline the workers for actions that it has called illegal, intermittent work stoppages.

"We disagree with the administrative law judge's recommended findings, and we will pursue all of our options to defend the company because we believe our actions were legal and justified," said Wal-Mart spokesman Kory Lundberg. "We are focused on providing our hardworking associates more opportunity for success and career growth by raising wages, providing new training, education and expanded benefit options," Mr. Lundberg added.

The strikes at Wal-Mart--along with similar walkouts at other companies--were guided by advocacy groups that organize over the Internet and specialize in sporadic, short-term protests and social-media campaigns to make their points.

Labor lawyers have said it was unclear whether those actions are covered by the 1935 National Labor Relations Act. The outcome of the case has been viewed as having potentially broad implications for companies confronting the new wave of nonunion protesters employing the shorter strikes.

In his ruling, the judge said the Wal-Mart strikes in question weren't "brief." He referred to them as the "Ride for Respect" because most of the strikers rode buses to the company's headquarters to protest during the annual shareholders meeting.

Mr. Carter said that although those actions were part of a recurring set of strikes that the worker-advocacy group OUR Walmart coordinated to draw attention to company working conditions, "the similarities to unprotected intermittent work stoppages end there."

"Specifically, the Ride for Respect strike was not a brief strike that enabled associates to minimize the risks of being on strike, nor was it scheduled close in time with a group of other strikes, such that the strikes could be viewed as intermittent," Mr. Carter said.

In a filing Wal-Mart made in early 2014 to respond to the complaint the labor agency brought against the company, the retailer argued the job actions were hard to distinguish from absenteeism and that it was defending its legitimate business interests when it warned strikers it would enforce its policies about being away from work.

Mr. Carter said in his ruling Thursday that Wal-Mart had "failed" to prove the strikes were intermittent work stoppages unprotected by law.

The judge's decision may not be the final one at the NLRB. Wal-Mart could appeal to the agency's board. The NLRB resolves workplace disputes and oversees union-organizing elections in the private sector.

Sarah Nassauer contributed to this article.

Write to Melanie Trottman at melanie.trottman@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 21, 2016 21:35 ET (02:35 GMT)

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