Wal-Mart Sex Discrimination Case UPDATE

Doesn't look good for the 1.6 MILLION women's case against the behemoth Wal-Mart. Split hairs tangle the truth: Just because a company has a "policy" against sex discrimination doesn't mean they ACTUALLY FOLLOW IT or apply it to various state store managers!

New Articles

High court rejects $14 million for wrongly convicted man

WalMart case may be decided along high court's gender lines

ST PETERSBURG (FL) TIMES, March 30 2011

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Plaintiffs Betty Dukes, left, and Christine Kwapnoski outside the Supreme Court in Washington on Tuesday, as Sydney Odle, 14, center, rests against her mother, fellow plaintiff Stephanie Odle.
	[Associated Press]

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court justices, sharply divided along gender lines, appeared poised to reject a nationwide class-action lawsuit that accuses WalMart of sex discrimination after an argument over class actions became a debate over what constitutes sex discrimination in today's workplace.

The men and women in the black robes seemed to see the matter quite differently.

For the first time in its history, the high court has three women on the bench, and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan asserted that a corporate policy of letting store managers decide on promotions could result in discrimination against women. The statistics strongly suggest that is what occurred, they said.

But led by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Antonin Scalia, most of the six men on the court questioned how WalMart can be held liable for illegal sex bias, since its 3,400 store managers across the nation decide on who gets promoted and who receives pay raises.

"It's not clear to me: What's the unlawful policy that WalMart has adopted?" Kennedy asked, since the company's written policy calls for equal treatment without regard to race or sex.

A lawyer representing the female plaintiffs argued WalMart has a "corporate culture" that teaches mostly male supervisors that women are less aggressive than men and therefore are less suited to being managers.

Unpersuaded, Scalia called that "an assessment of why the percentage (of women in management) is different," but it is not evidence of an illegal policy. WalMart does not say "don't promote women," he said. "If you have an aggressive woman, promote her," he added.

Ginsburg, who made her legal reputation in sex-discrimination law, said WalMart's experience shows how "gender bias can creep" into the workplace. It isn't "at all complicated," she said. "Most people prefer themselves. And so a decisionmaker, all other things being equal, would prefer someone who looked like him."

The case heard Tuesday is the most important and far-reaching job-discrimination dispute to come before the high court in more than a decade. It could determine whether job-bias claims must proceed as individual lawsuits or instead can be pressed as broad, class-action claims that rely mostly on statistics.

The Berkeley, Calif., lawyers who brought the sex-bias suit against the nation's largest retailer say that while about two-thirds of its employees were women when the statistics were compiled five years ago, men were 86 percent of the store managers.

They also said women were paid less across the country, even though they had more seniority on average than men.

At issue before the court was whether these findings would allow this single suit to proceed as a class-action claim on behalf of 1.6 million women who have worked for WalMart since 1998. If so, it would be by far the largest job-bias case in American history.

But the tenor of Tuesday's argument suggested the massive, decade-old suit may run aground before it can move toward a trial.

While the more conservative-leaning justices on the high court seemed the most hostile to the case, nearly all of its members appeared troubled by aspects of the litigation, ranging from concerns over how back pay would be awarded to class members to whether the company would be afforded an ample opportunity to defend itself against the accusations of discrimination.

A key, at least for what appeared to be a majority of justices, is whether WalMart as a company had in place policies that encouraged supervisors to treat women employees differently from men. The company's attorney, Theodore J. Boutrous of Los Angeles, argued that the company instead took a strong stand against discrimination and that any case of disparate pay or treatment was the product of rogue managers.

Of the six men on the court, only Justice Stephen G. Breyer appeared inclined to vote in favor of the class action

A ruling in WalMart vs. Dukes is not likely until June.

WASHINGTON — A bitterly divided Supreme Court on Tuesday tossed out a $14 million jury verdict won by a New Orleans man who spent 14 years on death row and came within weeks of execution because prosecutors had hidden a blood test and other evidence that would have proved his innocence.

The 5-4 decision delivered by Justice Clarence Thomas shielded the New Orleans District Attorney's Office from being held liable for the mistakes of its prosecutors. The evidence of their misconduct did not prove "deliberate indifference" on the part of then-District Attorney Harry Connick Sr., Thomas said.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg emphasized her disapproval by reading her dissent in the courtroom, saying the court was shielding a city and its prosecutors from "flagrant" misconduct that nearly cost an innocent man his life.

"John Thompson spent 14 years isolated on death row before the truth came to light," she said. He was innocent of the crimes that sent him to prison and prosecutors had "dishonored" their obligation to present the true facts to the jury, she said.

Thompson spent 18 years in prison, 14 of them on death row.

"I was delivered an execution warrant in my cell seven times," he said in a statement Tuesday. "I was only weeks from being executed when my lawyers got the killing stopped."

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Commemoration Women's History Month 2011

From northern NJ newspaper to commemorate Women's History Month.

Yet women have come far since the stalled Equal Rights Amendment of 1972, and even further than in 1776, when Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, "In the new code of laws, remember the ladies and do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands."

We have so many brave women to thank, from the suffragettes who fought for women's right to vote, to the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, which fought for decent work hours and four paid holidays a year. From the feminists to the civil rights activists of the 1960s and 1970s. From the women who were the firsts – first female astronaut, carpenter, secretary of state — to the millions of women today who hold down one, two or three jobs, and still cook dinner, clean the house and attend their children's school performances.

One day, women's work will have the same economic value as men's. One day, girls will have so many role models they won't even notice. Until then, we have March, to remember and appreciate.

MARCH is Women's History Month. Some would say that half the world's population shouldn't need a designated month. That women's contributions to social justice, history, medicine, law, education, science, religion and the arts — not to mention to creating life — should be appreciated every day of the year. We agree.

But sadly, women and men are still not equally matched in important areas like salary, poverty rates and top-tier jobs. Or in recognition. Female basketball stars are not household names. Neither are female movie directors or entrepreneurs. While more women than men earn bachelor's and master's degrees, women still only make on average 75 cents for every dollar a man makes.

Yet women have come far since the stalled Equal Rights Amendment of 1972, and even further than in 1776, when Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, "In the new code of laws, remember the ladies and do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands."

We have so many brave women to thank, from the suffragettes who fought for women's right to vote, to the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, which fought for decent work hours and four paid holidays a year. From the feminists to the civil rights activists of the 1960s and 1970s. From the women who were the firsts – first female astronaut, carpenter, secretary of state — to the millions of women today who hold down one, two or three jobs, and still cook dinner, clean the house and attend their children's school performances.

One day, women's work will have the same economic value as men's. One day, girls will have so many role models they won't even notice. Until then, we have March, to remember and appreciate.

Anti-street-harassment Group Launches! ABOUT TIME!

[SandyO says--add Street Harassment to Bullying as topics we all need to strike DOWN! It's about time we wiped out these intimidating actions. SPEAK UP SPEAK OUT!]


I have had the honor to meet with the founder of the Hollaback! chapter here in Mexico City, called AtreveteDF. A fairly new addition to the national and now global work that Hollaback! started in 2005, AtreveteDF is a growing force in the anti-street harassment movement. To mark International Anti-Street Harassment Day today, I invited AtreveteDF to write a guest post sharing its work and vision, especially in relation to the need to address this issue with young people. Below, readers will find both English and Spanish versions of AtreveteDF's guest post. Please note that due to safety concerns, AtreveteDF contributed their post anonymously.

Education Against Street Harassment

One memory remains from a recent visit to a soccer stadium here in Mexico. Two kids, who were about 6 or 7, were shouting -- in an almost eloquent manner -- quite derogatory and objectifying comments to the cheerleaders and other women in the stadium. They also made comments directed at the players of the opposing team regarding homosexuality and their supposed "lack of manliness" as well as to members from their own team when players failed to score. People passed by and laughed; most men and women seemed to applaud this behavior, and nobody, including myself, asked them to be respectful or otherwise.

Today is International Anti-Street Harassment Day. When we speak of the daily realities many women and LGBTQ folks face when they walk down the street, let's not forget to mention the children and youth who learn how to repeat these behaviors from the widespread sexual violence in our communities, the media, their homes, streets and schools.

While verbal harassment disguised as a compliment is not considered by many as sexual abuse (though it is by law in Mexico

"No fue romantico en aquel entonces, no es romantico hoy"; "It wasn't romantic back then, and it's not romantic today."

City), it is the beginning of a chain of gender-based violence that leads tofemicide. Cases of violence against women have been treated with impunity here in Mexico; in other words, it is normalized and ignored. This is the message, subliminal or otherwise, that is portrayed to the children of our community. If you're a man the thinking might be: "It's ok, no big deal," and if you are a woman, the thinking might be, "Well, what can you do about it?"

We also know that in terms of machismo, "one is not born but made." During the years of childhood and adolescence, there is much that can be done to counteract the collective forms of reaffirming masculinity that is perpetuated by both men and women in our society.

Any educational effort to promote equity should consider the different cultural and educational environments we navigate so that messages of respect towards women and for diversity constitute are accounted for. At a UNESCO meeting on masculinity and culture of peace it was mentioned that coupled with teacher training on effective methods against sexism, homophobia, and racism, measures should be taken "to reduce hierarchies and gender antagonisms at all levels of social life [such as] the public arena, mass media, the private sphere, the workplace, and institutions." Moreover, within schools, talking about gender as only an isolated topic should be avoided, and instead incorporated into discussions about equity, peace, and respect within the curriculum since all subjects include themes that touch on both men and women.

Ileana Jiménez (Feminist Teacher) told me how her male students' perception of street harassment changed when they listened to the experiences of their female peers during a workshop with Emily May, founder of Hollaback; for these boys to realize that this was a daily reality for their peers caused a real impact, as many had never stopped to think about the issue.

For this very reason, I strongly believe that sharing personal stories about street harassment is essential to demonstrating how gender-based violence and discrimination are more common than they appear. They are proof that these compelling realities for women and LGBQT folks should not go unnoticed, especially since they are such an important element of the widespread violence in Mexico.

AtréveteDF (Atreverse means "to dare")

At the end of last year, I discovered the Hollaback! blog and decided to reach out to the New York Hollaback! team to open a

"No Soy Tu Mami," (I'm not your 'mami') from AtreveteDF's Latin American sister counterpart in Buenos Aires.

Mexico City chapter. We've always known that founding it would be controversial, particularly because of the fact that since Mexico has one of the highest rates of violence against women in the world, some think there are more important issues to deal than street harassment. Many people consider the "compliments" that call attention to women subject to interpretation rather than degrading; others believe that they part of a culture of courtship and "picardía."

Clearly, this is not so, since now there is a Mexico City law specifying that forms of sexual abuse in public places range from leering, comments, suggestive gestures, and touching. Even with this law, AtreveteDF believes that there are cultural limitations to this legislation since women are often questioned and made to feel guilty when they share a story or complaint about harassment and/or sexual abuse.

We would like to reiterate that the AtréveteDF/Hollaback! movement around the world is not anti-man, but instead, anti-harassment. We recognize that not all men harass women and many are aware of its impact and work against it. We firmly believe that sharing stories and ways to deal with street harassment en masse is an effective way to raise awareness about social problems that are frequently made invisible.

When voices come together, it leads to creating and modifying public policies as well as to creating supportive communities for those who are made to think that their experience of street harassment has no value or that they are responsible for what has happened to them.

Dare to tell your story and let's walk our streets without fear.

Follow AtreveteDF on Twitter and on Facebook.

ELIZABETH WARREN, America's Denied Fiscal Hero !

SandyO : ELIZABETH WARREN IS AMERICA'S HIDDEN FISCAL HERO! LET'S STAND UP AND SPEAK OUT FOR THIS MAGNIFICENT WOMAN ! GET HER NOMINATION TURNED INTO HER HEADING UP THE CRUCIAL FEDERAL AGENCY SHE CREATED! WHAT ACTION DO YOU SUGGEST?

The War on Warren

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: March 20, 2011

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Last week, at a House hearing on financial institutions and consumer credit, Republicans lined up to grill and attack Elizabeth Warren, the law professor and bankruptcy expert who is in charge of setting up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Ostensibly, they believed that Ms. Warren had overstepped her legal authority by helping state attorneys general put together a proposed settlement with mortgage servicers, which are charged with a number of abuses.

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Paul Krugman

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But the accusations made no sense. Since when is it illegal for a federal official to talk with state officials, giving them the benefit of her expertise? Anyway, everyone knew that the real purpose of the attack on Ms. Warren was to ensure that neither she nor anyone with similar views ends up actually protecting consumers.

And Republicans were clearly also hoping that if they threw enough mud, some of it would stick. For people like Ms. Warren — people who warned that we were heading for a debt crisis before it happened — threaten, by their very existence, attempts by conservatives to sustain their antiregulation dogma. Such people must therefore be demonized, using whatever tools are at hand.

Let me expand on that for a moment. When the 2008 financial crisis struck, many observers — myself included — thought that it would force opponents of financial regulation to rethink their position. After all, conservatives hailed the debt boom of the Bush years as a triumph of free-market finance right up to the moment it turned into a disastrous bust.

But we underestimated the speed and determination with which opponents of regulation would rewrite history. Almost instantly, that free-market boom was retroactively reinterpreted; it became a disaster brought on by, you guessed it, excessive government intervention.

There remained, however, the inconvenient fact that some of those calling for stronger regulation have a track record that gives them a lot of credibility. And few have as much credibility as Ms. Warren.

Household debt doubled as a share of personal income over the 30 years preceding the crisis, and these days high levels of debt are widely seen as a major barrier to recovery. But only a handful of people appreciated the dangers posed by rising debt as the rise was happening. And Ms. Warren was among the foresighted few. More than a decade ago, when politicians of both parties were celebrating the wonders of modern banking and widening access to consumer credit, she was already warning that high debt levels could bring widespread financial disaster in the face of an economic downturn.

Later, she took the lead in pushing for consumer protection as an integral part of financial reform, arguing that many debt problems were created when lenders pushed borrowers into taking on obligations they didn’t understand. And she was right. As the late Edward Gramlich of the Federal Reserve — another unheeded expert, who tried in vain to get Alan Greenspan to rein in predatory lending — asked in 2007, “Why are the most risky loan products sold to the least sophisticated borrowers?” And he continued, “The question answers itself — the least sophisticated borrowers are probably duped into taking these products.”

Given Ms. Warren’s prescience and her role in shaping financial reform legislation — not to mention her effective performance running the Congressional panel exercising oversight over federal financial bailouts — it was only natural that she be appointed to get the new consumer protection agency up and running. And it’s hard to think of anyone better qualified to head the agency once it goes into action.

The fact that she’s so well qualified is, of course, the reason she’s being attacked so fiercely. Nothing could be worse, from the point of view of bankers and the politicians who serve them, than to have consumers protected by someone who knows what she’s doing and has the personal credibility to stand up to pressure.

The interesting question now is whether the Obama administration will see the war on Elizabeth Warren for what it is: a second chance to change public perceptions.

In retrospect, the financial crisis of 2008 was a missed opportunity. Yes, the White House succeeded in passing significant new financial regulation. But for whatever reason, it failed to change the terms of debate: bankers and the disaster they wrought have faded from view, and Republicans are back to denouncing the evils of regulation as if the crisis never happened.

By the sheer craziness of their attacks on Ms. Warren, however, Republicans are offering the administration a perfect opportunity to revive the debate over financial reform, not to mention highlighting exactly who’s really in Wall Street’s pocket these days. And that’s an opportunity the White House should welcome. 

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on March 21, 2011, on page A25 of the New York edition.

LET'S MOBILIZE FOR ELIZABETH'S APPOINTMENT AS CHAIR!~!!

Proposed Purported Republican Cuts in HR1

[Ed. ERA Inc has not validated the following. Would anyone want to take that on, out of need for accuracy?]

Here are just a few of the cuts that the Republicans make in HR 1:

· While 50 million Americans are now lacking health insurance they slash $1.3 billion in funding for Community Health Centers, denying primary health care to 11 million patients.

· While college education is already unaffordable for much of the middle class, they Slash Pell Grants by $5.7 billion, reducing or eliminating Pell Grants for 9.4 million low-income college students.

· While working families are unable to find decent quality, affordable childcare, they slash Head Start by 20 percent, eliminating the program for 218,000 children and forcing 55,000 layoffs.

· While many seniors and people with disabilities are today waiting far too long to get their claims processed, they slash $1.7 billion from the Social Security Administration, meaning long delays for seniors and disabled Americans.

· While poverty is increasing in our country, they slash the Community Services Block Grant program by $405 million, reducing the ability to get emergency food, housing and heating assistance out to 20 million seniors, families with children and the disabled.

· While the price of oil is soaring, they slash $400 million in funding for the home heating assistance program (LIHEAP), making it harder for seniors, the disabled, and families with children to heat their homes in the winter.

· While millions of Americans are suffering from environmentally caused illnesses, they slash funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by 30 percent, including a $1.4 billion cut from provisions that keep our air and water clean.

· While we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, they slash the WIC program by 10 percent. This program provides special supplemental nutrition for pregnant women, infants and children.

And, on and on it goes. These are just a few of the proposed cuts that the Republicans want.

As Vermont’s senator, I intend to do everything I can to defeat the grotesquely unfair Republican budget, which moves toward deficit reduction almost entirely through cuts borne on the backs of the weak and vulnerable, and asks nothing from the wealthy and powerful. On March 10th I introduced legislation which would impose a 5.4% surtax on all household income above one million dollars. The legislation also eliminates tax loopholes which enable oil companies to, in some cases, avoid having to pay any federal corporate income taxes.

Workers UNITE!

POLITICO.COM

Opinion Contributor

Women bear brunt of union-busting

The author writes that the assault on the public sector disproportionately hurts women. | AP Photo Close

By REP. ROSA DELAURO & HEIDI HARTMANN | 3/17/11 4:44 AM EDT

Across America, hardworking teachers, police officers, firefighters, nurses and other public employees are being squeezed from two directions.

On one hand, cutting deficits has become the main budgetary priority in Washington and state capitals, which means pay freezes or layoffs for hundreds of thousands of these middle-class workers. Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and other states, governors are using the real problem of budget deficits as a justification to pursue a long-term goal: union busting.

POLITICO 44

Whether by design or default, this two-pronged assault on the public sector disproportionately hurts women.

Women are the majority of public-sector employees at the state and local levels and have already lost 320,000 public-sector jobs in the past two years. As budget crises intensify this year, and as states still face a $125 billion budget shortfall, state governments are likely to shed more jobs. These layoffs are likely to fall squarely on women.

Worse, job losses will come as female workers are trying to do more with less because they have already begun in the hole. College-educated public servants, for example, make 32 percent less than their private-sector counterparts. Because of pay discrimination, women make 77 cents on the dollar compared with men. Over the course of a career, women lose out on anywhere from $400,000 to $2 million in earnings — simply for being female. As a result, 28 percent of unmarried working women with children live below the poverty line, compared with 6 percent of working men.

Similarly, women not only are the majority of public-sector workers, they more often need government services. Women are 60 percent of those receiving the earned income and child tax credits, which serve mainly working parents. And women are more than two-thirds of those receiving food stamps.

Just as government is rolling back its commitment to these programs, the number of families that need this help is greater than ever.

To complicate matters, the new House Republican majority is trying to drastically cut education, job training and health care services. For example, the Head Start early-education program faces a $1 billion cut — meaning 55,000 teachers and aides would be laid off. K-12 education is predicted to see a cut of almost $600 million. That means approximately 17,000 teacher layoffs. Job training programs would be eliminated with a cut of more than $4 billion to the work force investment system.

In addition, the GOP majority is attempting to defund Title X services, which have connected millions of American women to health care since 1970. Republicans want to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act, which ended the pernicious practice of gender rating — charging women more for the same coverage — and at long last put women’s health care on an equal footing.

The danger to American women in these rollbacks is clear. The question is: What do we do about it? How do we turn back these assaults on women at all levels of government?

First, we can call out the anti-union tactics for what they are. Some governors are attempting to use the state budget crises as a pretense to fulfill a long-term ideological agenda and scale back the provision of public services. By eliminating collective-bargaining rights for public-sector workers, the U.S. loses its strongest champions of critical government services.

If residents can no longer count on government for education, public safety or even roads, they will have to fend for themselves. Under a privatized scenario, those with higher incomes will be the only ones who can afford these services. Average working women and men will be left out and the middle-class standard of living will decline.

Second, we should support strong investments in education, job training and health care. The future of America depends on not turning back the clock on these critical work force investments.

Businesses are looking for the employees who can make them successful. Because the federal government is the only institution that can backstop revenue losses at other levels of government, it falls to Congress to make these critical investments when states and localities are feeling the pinch.

Third, we should pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, which will give teeth to the Equal Pay Act, bringing sex discrimination law into parity with all other types of discriminatory law — giving female workers the tools to ensure they are fairly compensated. Equal pay for equal work will reduce the burden on the safety net — and thus reduce deficits.

What is at stake in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and other states is more than a budget crisis. It is whether we as a nation will stand up for the rights of working middle-class women and men to improve their lives or make it harder for them and their families to seize opportunities — at home or at work, in college or in our hospitals.

If this assault on public-sector unions succeeds, Americans may lose not only their bargaining rights in the workplace but the critical services they rely on.

We can and must do better.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) is the ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies. Heidi Hartmann, an economist, is president of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51434_Page2.html#ixzz1H6sqxsKK

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51434.html#ixzz1H6sFaye6

WORKING WOMEN at Wal-Mart:

Sex discrimination at WalMart: Anecdotes and Evidence

Wal-Mart v. Dukes - Why the Supreme Court Should Stand with Working Women

March 01, 2011

On March 29, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Wal-Mart v. Dukes,[1] to determine whether the women employed at Wal-Mart stores across the country can join together in a class action to challenge pay and promotion practices alleged to discriminate against women. To establish that they should be allowed to bring their case together, as a class, the women employees presented statistics in the courts below showing that female workers at Wal-Mart earned less than comparable male workers and were less likely to be promoted.[2] Those disparities were bolstered by evidence that Wal-Mart’s corporate policies and practices allowed for sex-stereotyping to operate as the driving principle in the pay and promotion decisions for its women employees. Experts concluded that Wal-Mart's policies and corporate culture perpetuated these sorts of gender stereotypes across the entire company. The plaintiffs’ evidence speaks for itself—and squarely establishes that a class should proceed.

The harmful gender stereotype that women workers are fundamentally inferior to male workers was widely held at Wal-Mart and deeply ingrained in the corporate culture, according to the plaintiffs’ evidence.[3] The plaintiffs presented statements from over one hundred women describing their experiences at Wal-Mart with different expressions of this stereotype, including:

Men alone are breadwinners, “working as the heads of their households, while women are just working for the sake of working.”[10]

• A manager told one employee, “Men are here to make a career and women aren’t. Retail is for housewives who just need to earn extra money.”[11+]
• Another female worker was told that “men need to be paid more because they have families to support.[12]
• A male employee was selected for a position over an (unmarried) female employee because he “deserved the position” as “the head of household”—but she “did not ‘need’ the position.”[13]

Women’s family responsibilities interfere with work responsibilities; they “should be at home with a bun in the oven”[14] instead of working.

• One male manager opined that “women should be home barefoot and pregnant.”[15]
• A manager told one woman she could not take an overnight supervisor position because she had children.[16]
• One female employee was told to resign and “find a husband to settle down with and have children” [17] —and another female employee was told, “you should raise a family and stay in the kitchen.”[18]
• A supervisor asked the only female store manager in her district to resign because she “needed to be home raising [her] daughter” instead of running a store.[19]

Women can’t handle certain jobs—and can’t work in certain “traditionally male” departments—because those positions are “a man’s job”[20-] or “need[]a man.[21]

• One woman employee was told, “You’re a girl, why do you want to work in Hardware?”[22]
• Women were “required to clean and stock,” while men who worked with them were not.[23]
• One woman who applied to work in the Sporting Goods department was told, “You don’t want to work with guns.”[24]

As the plaintiffs’ evidence showed, these harmful stereotypes influenced personnel decisionmaking at Wal-Mart—for example women reported that promotions were awarded based on a “whom you knew, not what you knew” basis,[25] a practice which can exacerbate existing sex disparities by leading managers to select candidates who share their own characteristics[26]

• At Wal-Mart, promotion opportunities were not posted.[27] Employees described a “tap on the shoulder” process for making promotions decisions[28] and explained that workers had to be part of the “informal network versus the formal network” to succeed.[29]
• A senior vice president told a woman employee that she would not advance because she did not “hunt, fish, or do other typically-male activities” and was not “a part of the boys club.[30]

In addition to these stereotypes, the employees presented evidence that, in Wal-Mart’s culture, women were devalued and demeaned: A male manager said “women weren't qualified to be managers because men had an extra rib.”[4] Women were referred to by demeaning names—such as “girls,”[5] “Janie Qs,”[6] and “housewives”[7] —and with degrading language—such as “squatter” or “someone who squats to pee.[8] One manager commented that the role of female assistant managers was to give women associates someone to discuss their periods with.[9]

Across the country, women lagged behind men in pay and promotions at Wal-Mart, according to the plaintiffs’ evidence.

Women at Wal-Mart earned less than men, even after accounting for seniority, turnover, and performance[31]

• Women employees made 5% to 15% less (an average of $5,000 less) than comparable men.[32]
• But women on average had higher performance ratings and more years of employment.[33]
• The employees’ expert witness concluded that this pay gap could be reasonably attributed to discrimination.[34]

Women were less likely to be promoted to in-store management positions at Wal-Mart and had to wait longer for promotions.

• Women received only 77 percent of expected promotions to Support Manager, only 70 percent to Management Trainee, only 67 percent to Co-Manager and only 80 percent to Store Manager based on their representation in the relevant feeder pools.[38]
• Women waited 4.38 years from date of hire for promotion to Assistant Manager compared with 2.86 years for men, and 10.12 years before being promoted to Store Manager compared with 8.64 years for men.[39]

The class action mechanism is essential to addressing the pay disparities at Wal-Mart and more broadly. In all industries (including the retail sector) a pay gap between women and men persists—and it cannot be fully explained by legitimate factors like experience or education. In 2009, women working full time earned 77 cents for each dollar paid to men.[35] Female workers in sales and related occupations—many of whom work in the retail sector—earned only 64 percent of their male counterparts’ wages in 2010.[36] The pay gap between men and women persists even after controlling for factors such as experience, education, and industry.[37]

Barriers prevented Wal-Mart employees from learning of discriminatory pay practices or from reporting discrimination when it was discovered, according to the plantiffs’ evidence.

Women employees faced challenges in identifying pay disparities due to Wal-Mart’s policy prohibiting discussions of pay,[40] but sometimes learned of disparities by chance.

• One female assistant manager learned a newly hired male assistant manager made $6,000 more than she was paid, but “had always been told [she] would be fired for discussing salary issues so [she] never discussed this pay difference with anyone.[41]
• Another female employee realized that she received a lower rate of pay because “many male associates [at her store] brag[ged] about their pay.”[42]
• A female assistant manager discovered that a less-experienced male assistant manager earned $10,000 more than her when someone found his misplaced W2 and turned it into her.[43]

And, women employees who learned of discrimination feared retaliation if they complained.

• Although Wal-Mart’s “Open Door” policy purportedly allowed employees to air complaints, in reality “the Open Door policy . . . was a façade and resulted only in retaliation.”[44]
• For example, a representative from Wal-Mart’s Home Office told female employees who made complaints of sex and race discrimination, “I can fire you, without taking any steps, for using the [O]pen [D]oor [policy].”[45]

Based on this evidence, the courts below concluded that the women employees could come together to challenge Wal-Mart’s pay and promotion practices.[46] The Supreme Court should affirm the lower court's decision to certify the class of women workers.

Wal-Mart is challenging the employees’ right to proceed as a class, but the evidence presented of statistical pay and promotions disparities, pervasive gender stereotypes, and policies that allowed those stereotypes to influence pay and promotions decisions is more than sufficient to satisfy the federal rules class certification. Indeed, the federal rules for class actions were intended to make it possible for broad-scale civil rights challenges like this one to go forward in a single case.

A lawsuit such as this one—alleging company-wide discrimination against numerous employees—is particularly well-suited to class resolution. In fact, the Supreme Court has long recognized that employer policies that give managers the flexibility to discriminate may be challenged on a class-wide basis.[47] By proceeding as a class, the plaintiffs in this case have the ability to fully enforce their rights under Title VII—and only by permitting employees to proceed collectively and overcome the barriers to bringing thousands of individual lawsuits can Title VII’s goal of ending discrimination be achieved. Finally, class actions are well suited to addressing obstacles to individual litigation such as those faced by the employees in this case; the class action mechanism, for example, allows for collection of pay information and protection against retaliation.[48]

The Court’s decision in this case will have significant implications for women workers and their ability to challenge company-wide gender discrimination. A decision for Wal-Mart would make it far more difficult to challenge and remedy gender-based pay disparities and other forms of discrimination, eviscerating Title VII’s goal of ending workplace discrimination.

Download the PDF: Wal-Mart v. Dukes Amicus Brief Fact Sheet