------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the July 15, 2004 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
WOMEN WORKERS SUE WAL-MART: "PAY THE BILLION YOU OWE US" By Mary Owen The glass ceiling at Wal-Mart showed cracks last month when a sex discrimination lawsuit by six California women who work or have worked for the $256 billion retail giant received class action status. In a case that began last year, the workers charged Wal-Mart with systematically discriminating against women in pay and promotions. Two thirds of Wal-Mart's 1.2 million U.S. workers are women. On June 22, U.S. District Court Judge Martin Jenkins certified the gender-bias lawsuit, Dukes v. Wal-Mart, to cover more than 1.6 million current and former female employees of Wal-Mart's 3,586 U.S. retail stores back to Dec. 26, 1998. The ruling includes its discount stores, super centers, neighborhood stores and Sam's Clubs. "I'm in this for the long haul. I have no fear in my spirit at all of Wal-Mart," lead plaintiff Betty Dukes told the New York Times. (June 23) Dukes, a 54-year-old African-American woman and an ordained Missionary Baptist minister, decided to take action after seeing men promoted over her during 10 years at Wal-Mart in Pittsburgh, Calif. The workers' lawyers say this is the biggest class action ever certified against a private employer. The historic legal action by women workers could force Wal-Mart to award more than $1 billion in back pay alone-- the difference between what Wal-Mart underpaid the women and what they should have earned since 1998. SYSTEMATIC GENDER BIAS Statistics supporting the gender-bias lawsuit--available at www.walmartclass. com and www.walmartvswomen.com--show a systematic pattern of discrimination by Wal-Mart against women workers. Women were regularly paid less than men for the same work--from 5 to 15 percent less in similar positions. Although 65 percent of Wal-Mart's hourly workers are women, only one-third of its managers are female-- well below industry norms. Men hold 90 percent of Wal-Mart store manager positions. Wal-Mart tried to argue that it had no national policy against women. But expert testimony in the case showed gender-based wage disparities exist in every region in which Wal-Mart operates. Wal-Mart's practices are so anti-woman that the National Organization for Women dubbed Wal-Mart its "Merchant of Shame" in its Women Friendly Work place campaign in 2002. (www.now.org) LABOR, WOMEN AND COMMUNITIES UNITE The gender-bias class action lawsuit comes on the heels of a number of labor and community campaigns and legal actions against the anti-union behemoth. Wal-Mart pays workers a miserly $8 an hour on average--without benefits-- while topping the Fortune 500 as the biggest private employer in the United States. In February, a Portland, Ore., federal jury found that Wal-Mart owed 70 store managers overtime pay after forcing them to clock out and then work for free. Similar cases are pending in 31 states. Federal raids last year, which forced hundreds of undocumented workers from their jobs, revealed that Wal-Mart used cleaning subcontractors that exploited immigrant workers. The Food and Commercial Workers union is continuing efforts to organize Wal-Mart workers in the United States and Canada--where workers at a Wey burn, Saskatchewan, Wal-Mart recently signed up to join the union. "An organized voice for workers is the solution for the problems--from low pay to inadequate health care, from high turnover to discrimination-- at Wal-Mart. The Dukes case is an inspiration for all other Wal-Mart workers that, acting together, they, too, can bring change to the work place," said Food and Commercial Workers President Joe Hansen. The union also joined community groups in Chicago and in Inglewood, Calif., to prevent Wal-Mart from setting up low-wage, big-box stores in those cities. And it is publicizing the women's gender-bias case on its web site at www.ufcw.org. In June the Service Employees union joined the fight, pledging $1 million at its annual convention to "work with national and local groups to pressure Wal-Mart to improve wages and working conditions and to be a better neighbor." Meanwhile, the gender-bias case against Wal-Mart is making an impact on working-class shoppers like Debra Enah of Minneapolis-St. Paul. "I don't want to be part of a store that doesn't have a heart for women," she told the Star Tribune. "Women do most of the shopping here. They could lose a great deal of customers." - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
