Both current and former female employees of Walmart are up in arms against the gigantic box store, with more than 500 of them joining together to file sex-discrimination claims with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against the company. The move came after they were told last year they couldn’t bring their cases together as part of a nationwide class-action lawsuit.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that the women failed to show a common and corporate policy that led to discrimination at Walmart, the largest retailer in the country, as well as Sam’s Club stores, says Bloomberg News. The claims filed with the EEOC are the next attempt to preserve their fight over pay and promotions.
“The fight continues to seek justice for the women employees of Wal-Mart,” two of their lawyers, Joseph M. Sellers and Brad Seligman, said in a statement.
Walmart spokesman Greg Rossiter responded in an interview, saying: “Anyone with a legitimate claim should have their day in court. These claims have never been heard on their merits.”
According to lawyers for the women, there are still “thousands of claims to be filed.” The women who have already joined the case are from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi and North Carolina, and were under a Jan. 27 deadline in those states to be a part of the filing. Women in other states have until May 25 to add their names to the list.
Group of 500 Female Wal-Mart Workers File U.S. Bias Claims [Bloomberg News]
Good for them. After that, we can take care of the men being mistreated by walmart too.
As this proceeding is closed door, unfortunately, it’s invalid to have an opinion at this point. Which sucks, because I’d really like to know!
Am I the only one that has a hard time believing WalMart would systematically and specifically target women for discrimination?
Frankly, for such a huge corporation, money is what they care about. I’d think they probably treat everyone fairly equally. That is, everyone gets treated like crap – equal crap.
I am open to hearing fact about the cases though – it’s just that we haven’t seen any facts, only accusations and opinions.
Walmart the corporation is always focused on the bottom dollar and however that can be maximized. But in each individual store the management selected, the teams formed, and the culture within the store is left to whoever is in charge and the culture that develops.
In the south we all know there’s a good ol’ boys network of buddies just helping out buddies. Those buddies are probably white, Christian males with little regard for non-white, Christian males. The company still has its profits,though the employees at the individual stores may have horrible problems unreported and a culture that’s horrible to be around, but nothing internally takes place to ruin the good thing they’ve got going.
example: I worked for one restaurant group that’s pretty large. A cook slipped and grabbed around to stabilize, but his arm went into the deep fryer. He got dropped off at the ER with instructions to NOT claim an on the job injury.
This. Having worked for them here in Phoenix, and known people in other parts of the country who did, i was amazed at the stories some of them had. Worsening this problem is that since they hire from within, these kind of bad policies can be supported by the highest levels of management you can complain too.
I’m of mixed feelings about the judge’s decision, WalMart the corporation is quite fair, its simply that they have far less control of their individual stores than most people realize. Yes, many women get treated badly, but its a local or regional problem.
Sure, because there’s no history of being able to pay marginalized minorities less money just because you can….
I agree, we should wait and see what comes out as the case is presented, but I also think your premise, that Wally World would treat everyone equally because they’re a huge corporation and only care about the bottom line, to be more out there than the suggestion that they’d reach that bottom line in a way that was legally questionable but someone thought it was in some way legally defensible, and so worth the possible fines/lawsuits.
I frankly find it much, much easier to believe that WM hired at least 500 women, 500 of which may not understand the actual functions of promotions, raises, salary, etc. Five hundred doesn’t seem systematic — given the supposed 1.4million they employ.
I suppose it could be possible that 500 women were discriminated against. But, I think it will be really difficult to prove that they were discriminated against properly — because of their own behavior — rather than on the basis of being women, regardless of whether those behaviors were traits “women” exhibit. Some people (men and women both) simply do not deserve raises, regardless of seniority, and lack essential promotion-deserving skills, and I would not be at all surprised if 500 out of 1.4million employees were of that calibre AND who could not comprehend in their minds how that could be possible.
alo of the discrimination against female employees as far as pay and promotion are concerned are caused by the management in the individual store…. i worked for a walmart in college and 80% on the employees that stayed employed there for longer than 1 yr were all women…. typically the men did not stay long because they were able to find a better paying job elsewhere that usually invovled much more physical labor – some of the store management at that store did not like the concentration of female employee and habitually hired males in right out of highschool for their 1st job at a higher rate of pay than their female counter parts just to get them in and then promote them up faster than their female counterparts to keep them – they hid behind a vague company policy that stated you couldn’t tell your co – workers what your hourly wage was and the state we worked in was also an “at will” state so when someone did complain they fired them stating that they violated company policy – because hey in order for themto complain they would have to know that a co -worker makes more than them which means they shared their hourly rate information- a few years into it they had a complete management turn over and the practice disappeared with the management- fault falls on to Walmart reguardless for not managing their management
there are two things I’ve heard about… promotion and pay.
pay, most women get paid less than their male counter-part… it has nothing to do with discrimination… but it is base on sex.
two person with no experience starts an entry level position with the starting rate of $7.50/hr. One is a female, the other is a male. If the female accept that pay and the male asked for 7.75/hr and got the higher rate, is that discrimination??
My brother asked for a raise last year. One of his condition was that his female co-worker get something also. They approved his request. If he didn’t asked for his female co-worker, she would have NOT gotten a raise. Is that discrimination?
“pay, most women get paid less than their male counter-part… it has nothing to do with discrimination… but it is base on sex.”
How is that not discrimination? It’s discrimination based on sex. I really think you need to go read a dictionary.
THANK YOU.
i read somewhere the majority of female don’t think to be aggressive when negotiating the pay. And the majority of male does.
SamiJ brings up some good point of why, but in the end, if all the majority of female even start negotiating the pay, things will change.
Nobody is stopping the female population from doing it, that’s why I don’t think it’s discrimination.
“Nobody is stopping the female population from doing it,
Do you not understand institutionalized sexism and discrimination? You might want to do some research. The reason many women (females? really?) generally aren’t as agressive is because they are socialized not to be. Things are changing, but it’s a slow change, and people saying things like, “basing pay on sex is not discrimination!” is not helpful (and it’s wrong).
What you’ve just said … is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
+1 Billy Madison to you
That’s equal to like 1,000,000 internetz, thanks!
“Nobody is stopping the female population from doing it, that’s why I don’t think it’s discrimination.”
Well it’s a good thing you aren’t a judge because you clearly have no idea what the hell you’re talking about. Please familiarize yourself with things like “definitions” and “facts” before spouting off your poorly-thought out and barely-comprehensible opinion.
Actually there was a recent study that found exactly the opposite – that women do push as hard as men but they do not get the same results – on a common basis everywhere.
So, no, that’s apparently a popular myth.
Your examples are pretty good, but I wonder how often either situation ever applied to the Walmart cases.
How often do low-wage workers ever negotiate their wages? Many of them probably don’t think they even can, and there are enough workers out there to make negotiating a $7-8/hr job impossible. They are not highly-skilled, so the labor pool is large.
Further, there’s a good chance that wages are company-controlled to some degree, and not completely discretionary for the manager to choose.
That is NOT what happens. It’s not because men ask for and get more money in some totally fair way. “Oh, well, if the women were just proactive enough to ASK then they would get the same deal!” No, no, no. Trust me, I work in an industry that is notorious for being a boys club and after 5 years, despite my record being as good as anyone else, they refuse to promote me to even low level supervisor. Instead, we get older white men transferred in whenever a management spot is open. Some of my bosses had far less experience than I have so I trained the guys who were granted higher salaries for no real reason.
Sometimes, people just feel funny about a GIRL being their boss. Don’t think I’m kidding- the company has nearly lost contracts because employees would find that the managers were women and would comment about “working for a woman”. It still happens- some people are assholes and make decent men look bad.
Two people are given a job offer. They are both told the starting wage, but the male is given the impression that this is negotiable, because the hiring manager’s experience is that men will ask for more. The female is not given that impression but asks for more. She is strongly discouraged, because in the hiring manager’s experience, women are more likely to take the low-ball offer.
In a company that hires more women than men at the lower level, should it be considered suspicious that management has a reverse employment? Or should we conclude that men who apply/are considered for promotion are across the board in every state almost always better qualified that the women who apply/are considered for promotion?
But no matter what you suppose, it is a moot point – only what has happened in this case matters, not what you think might have happened, or creating simulations that are not in evidence in the WalMart cases.
Um. You have no idea what discrimination actually means, do you?
“pay, most women get paid less than their male counter-part… it has nothing to do with discrimination… but it is base on sex.”
That is discrimination. Full-stop.
Wow…um…excuse me…I don’t know how to tell you this, but your ignorance is showing!
Why do people think that discrimination can only occur overtly, with written policies adopted company-wide? The issue with a lot of discrimination now is it’s almost unknown to even the people perpetuating it. NO ONE would openly say they discriminate based on gender or race, and yet study after study shows that a lot of people do it anyway without realizing it. Companies need to be proactive about preventing a disproportionate number of any certain group from being blocked from being hired or promoted.
It only takes a few assholes to set the tone for a store or region. Ignoring it shouldn’t be an option for the higher-ups.
(And I’m not saying these women do or don’t have a case- just objecting to the idea that it has to be spelled out for it to count)
“NO ONE would openly say they discriminate based on gender or race, and yet study after study shows that a lot of people do it anyway without realizing it.”
This is an excellent point. A lot of people have internalized discrimination from things they’ve read or people they’ve interacted with or stories they’ve heard, so they may not actually hate women or Black people or whoever, but unconsciously they’ll discriminate against them in hiring or pay or personal interactions with them. They’ll put it down to a “feeling” or “instinct” or something, but it’s latent discrimination, which is one of the hardest to fight.
I love how the Supreme Court says these women need to show that Walmart had a “common and corporate policy that led to discrimination”, like it would be written down somewhere. By their logic murderers would have to be caught in the act on camera or confess to be convicted. Discrimination is usually very hard to prove for a single person, but they’ve got thousands of individuals all saying the same thing. What the hell else do they need to give this class action status??
Thousands of people making the claim is not evidence.
Not evidence, no, but it seems unlikely that thousands of people would make a claim without some sort of proof. And this is WalMart. I’m not a court of law so I’m allowed to judge before the jury is out and I wouldn’t be at all surprised that WalMart is guilty as charged.
I’m not saying discrimation doesn’t exist, but lets face it, not everyone is equal. Guys in general might make more money, but they have no say when it comes to children. I will support any women that wants equal rights, just as long as long as it goes both ways.
Don’t get out much do you?
“but they have no say when it comes to children”
No say? Really? Are you sure about that? Because I could come up with half a dozen examples right now that would blow your claim out of the water. You’re basing your informatino off a lot of anecdotes, aren’t you?
So if you wanted to get an abortion and I don’t, who gets there way? If i want to get an abortion and you don’t, who gets stuck paying child support for 18 years?
All things equal, if we are not married, who would the child live with? Can you say the courts don’t discrimate when it comes to who the child would live with?
Again, I always see fights for equal rights at work, but they want to keep the advantages at home.
Whoa, wait what the hell? You think that women should be OK with being paid less because they have autonomy over their own body? That is truly amazing.
i think what he is saying that when it comes to equal rights, it should be equal rights for everything and everyone not just one or two things.
No one is arguing against that, but to bring up abortion of all things in a conversation about pay discrimination is completely and utterly asinine. It has nothing to do with the subject and is just a retarded strawman argument.
Men cannot get pregnant. That right there makes things a bit different when pregnancy is inovlved.
Until you are able to carry the risks — and every single pregnancy carries the risk of death — you do not have the final say in what happens.
And, as I said, once the child is born, that child should not be punished just because the parents were unable to agree.
Thank you, that was my basic point. But what I really meant was that biologically, we’re all different. I make more than a female that started the same time as me, but in the 3 years, she’s missed 6 months for manturnity leave, plus a sick day every few weeks for the kids, does this person deserves equal pay as me?
Again I’ll say, descrimiation does exist, but it isn’t always as cut and dry as “I don’t make the same amount because of descrimation” Biologially, guys have a bigger advantage in the work place and females have a bigger advantage in homelife. If you want to even out the advantage in one area, you have to equal it out in the other.
Wow, really? So, women get paid less because of biological factors? Really?
Do you have any actual facts to back up these claims? I’ll wait.
“Biologially, guys have a bigger advantage in the work place and females have a bigger advantage in homelife”
Please explain how biology makes women better at staying at home and men better at working at Wal-Mart. I would love to see this.
Yeah that got me, too.
I don’t think he understands what institutionalized sexism is. I don’t think he knows what a lot of things are, really.
I smell a sexist jackass!
I can’t tell whether you’re enraged right now or having the time of your life…I sense it’s a bit of both.
Hahaha. This made me laugh. It’s more of a case of avoiding work.
tall people also get more money. First they get the girls then the money, dang.
Some company offer paternity leaves for father also. You don’t hear it often, but people are leaning toward equal rights for everyone. It’s just a matter of time. I probably won’t see it in my generation. Sucks that my insurance is higher than a female…but I can’t help it that I can distracted when I see a hot girl walking down the street.
There was this study that said after a child a born, the first few weeks, the child is better off with the mother, but the following years, they are better off with the father…forgot why. I thought that was interesting. Most people think female are better cooks, but there was a study that show male are better at it, and there are more male top chef than female.
I think society changed what the sex is designed to do. I don’t know if that is a good or bad thing. But I think each sex can do the same thing but do it differently.
Like female has a higher pain tolerance. Male are better at bottling up their emotions. So if the same pain is apply to both sex, they probably react the same but for different reason.
I”m surprise that there aren’t more female CEO..it’s a cut throat game and I always figure female are better at it the way they talk behind each others back. I read that the CEO that control the highest amount of money in the nation is a female.
“.it’s a cut throat game and I always figure female are better at it the way they talk behind each others back.”
Holy shit, you are not only ignorant, incredibly misinformed and barely comprehensible, you’re a sexist, stereotyping jerk too. Please stop posting as though you know what you’re talking about. Please.
WTF? Now you’re just being asinine, even more so than in your other post. And Alan, you are just idiotic.
That’s nice that you think it was perfectly ok in the first place that you were given a higher salary than an equally qualified woman just because you’ve got something swinging between your legs. It really shows the type of entitled douchebag you are.
When dudes can start getting pregnant we’ll talk about equal rights “in the home.” Until then STFU and learn how to spell.
You can’t get pregnant and pregnancy always carries a risk, therefore the woman should always have the final say. In a perfect world, the man would have some say, but it’s not a perfect world, and in the end, it is up to the woman. I would hope that they would be able to discuss things as adults, but sometimes that can’t happen. What about situations where abuse or coercion is involved? It’s a very complicated issue. But, because the woman is the one that is pregnant and is carrying all the risks that come with pregnancy, she is the one that has the final say.
That said, once a child is BORN, that child is now important and shouldn’t be brushed aside. Unless you’re for punishing a living child because the parents were unable to agree, and I’m sure you’re not for that.
I read somewhere that some guy didn’t want the kid but the girl did, so he took her to court to make sure that he doesn’t have to pay for child support. I can’t find the link…I don’t know what happen though.
It is kind of messed up if the guy want to keep the baby but the girl didn’t.
I always believe that no matter what, it is the girl decision. Since I’m a guy, I make sure I”m not in that kind of situation.
I wonder what happen if a groupie drugged someone famous, rape him, and got his baby….
What the hell. Please stop making shit up and talking about things that you’ve “heard”. You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about and now you’re bringing up the hypothetical situation of someone drugging a celebrity and raping them. Come on.
So the child should be punished because the parents were unable to agree? Is that what you’re saying?
And why should the woman be FORCED to have an abortion if she doesn’t want one? That’s called abuse and it’s pretty gross that you’re insinuating that she should have been forced to have an abortion, when she didn’t want one, because the father, WHO WILLINGLY FUCKED HER, didn’t want to be an adult and take responsibility for the child that he helped to create.
I”m not sure if you are replying to me…. but
I didn’t say a woman should be forced, I think it would be a messed up situation.
Child is always getting screwed when parents can’t decide.
Okay, so why do you think women should continue to be discriminated against in the workplace (regarding pay) just because they have the final say when it comes to their own bodies? The connection makes no sense.
You also seem to be contradicting yourself. “It’s messed up that the woman didn’t want an abortion when the man didn’t want to have a child! MESSED UP!” yet here you’re saying that she shouldn’t be forced. Which is it?
umm. I have no comment about women’s pay because of biology. That was Alan original comment. I just agree with him that women has more rights than men in certain situation.
What’s so contradictiing? I don’t think women should be force to have an abortion or not have an abortion but at the same time, if a guy don’t agree with the women’s decisions it creates a messed up situation.
even you agree that a child shouldn’t get screwed because parents cant’ decide.
You need to get fixed. Now. Don’t have kids.
For someone who does so much reading you sure are a fucking idiot.
If you don’t want to be in that situation, don’t have sex. Or get a vasectomy. We have unpleasant choices to make and so do you. Quit fucking whining.
You’re missing the point. Once she’s pregnant, the guys opinion is irrelevant. You can’t dispute that because everyone knows it’s true. That’s an advantage, yeah, it’s picky, but it’s a fact. I agree if you don’t want kids you shouldn’t have sex or at least use protection, but that’s not the point.
You having a vasectomy is your choice too. You wife has no legal say. If you want say in your wife’s pregnancy status, you also have to give up ownership over your balls.
it’s that easy Skippy.
How about you keep your dick in your pants and you won’t have these “rights” taken away from you, plus the world would be a much better place.
THIS…seriously…I think anyone over the age of about 10 knows that a potential consequence of sex is procreation. If you choose to sleep with someone, you are potentially setting yourself up to be a dad. Get over yourself, and realize that pregnancy isn’t, 99.9% of the time, a victimization of the male species.
A half a dozen examples, little stripes? I can come up with about 7 billion examples of where a male actively decided to participate in the process of getting a woman pregnant, and in 6.9 billion of those, the male knew that that was how babies were made.
(Yes, those numbers are made up. But at least I’m not using anecdotes as evidence.)
Did you read my full comment, bright one?
“You’re basing your information off a lot of anecdotes, aren’t you?”
That was my point.
You know, I was supporting your point, saying that actually almost every pregnancy is the result of two people both doing something they know can cause humans to reproduce.
Not everything is an argument, you know.
You’re the one that made it into an argument.
Umm, whu?
No I didn’t.
Um, what???
“Guys in general might make more money, but they have no say when it comes to children”
So it’s OK that women get paid less because women are given more rights with regard to children by the legal system? Good lord you’re a moron.
Shush, don’t refute his logic. I’m using the same wildly unconnected argument style elsewhere to prove that it’s okay to kill endangered animals based on the anecdote that I once saw a squirrel eat a whole bagel.
This is the most asinine thing I’ve read today, and I read hi_hello’s comment further up. What does having children have to do with compensation? Hell, shouldn’t women get more money because they actually have to fuck up their bodies to have children, whereas all you have to do is try not to think of your mother during sex and make sure you hit the right hole?
This is the best thing I’ve read today.
o/
Didn’t they just hire a black woman to be CEO of the Sam’s Club division?
Barack Obama was elected President but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any racism in America anymore.
You’re so good
Thanks dearie!
Just ask Ron Racist Paul!
I make my own sexual discrimination at home. And I don’t shop at Wally World.
I love the arguments where women make less and get promoted less = discrimination. Where’s the comparison of skills or ANY other factor?
It’s crap like this that brings Affirmative Action BS. In my years as retail management, I have honestly never seen a woman discriminated against for a promotion if she was the best for the job. I have however, seen how disgruntled workers make wild claims. I’ve also dealt with one too many females who got a job they absolutely did not deserve, but got it to meet “AA quotas”.
Proper headline should have read, “More Than 500 Women File Sexual Discrimination Claims Against Walmart.”
The use of “Over” in this case is grammatically incorrect.
Jus’ sayin’
Proper headline should have read, “More Than 500 Women File Sexual Discrimination Claims Against Walmart.”
The use of “Over” in this case is grammatically incorrect.
Jus’ sayin’