A Million Women vs. Wal-Mart: Battle May Go to the Supreme Court
Luisita Lopez Torregrosa
Correspondent
Posted:
09/3/10
NEW YORK -- An epic nine-year battle between a million women and the giant retail chain Wal-Mart is likely to play out soon in the august chambers of the U.S. Supreme Court. In what is shaping up as a David vs. Goliath legal showdown, the world's largest private employer will try to shoot down the largest employment discrimination class-action lawsuit in American history.
So far the legal arguments have not focused on the issue of discrimination against women at Wal-Mart. First, the question to be resolved is whether the million or so women involved in the case actually constitute a class. Wal-Mart lawyers dispute that notion, but a federal district judge in San Francisco ruled against the company in 2004, and in April this year the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the federal judge, ruling to let the case proceed.
Last week, on Aug. 25, Wal-Mart asked the Supreme Court to take the case. If the court tosses it out, the women would have to file lawsuits individually. But if the court takes the case and rules against Wal-Mart, the company could face more than $1 billion in damages and the court's decision would surely set new guidelines for other such lawsuits.
There's some irony in this saga. Wal-Mart is the mother of all big-box stores. It sucks in female shoppers on tight budgets looking for the best deals for their families. It depends for its riches on low- and middle-income women, who make up the bulk of its customers. It employs a mammoth female workforce, about two-thirds of all its employees. In other words, Wal-Mart is a female-driven enterprise.
Yet, according to the lawsuit, female employees have racked up few benefits, were consistently bypassed for promotion and paid far less than men doing the same jobs. One woman, Stephanie Odle, an assistant manager at a store in California, discovered that a male assistant manager had been earning $23,000 more a year than she was. When Ms. Odle complained to the store's district manager, he reportedly told her, "Stephanie, that assistant manager has a family and two children to support." Ms. Odle herself was a single mother with a 6-month-old to support, she told The New York Times. (Coincidentally, a report this week based on 2008 Census Bureau data shows that single, childless women between ages 22 and 30 were earning more than their male counterparts in most U.S. cities. But those young women living in big cities hardly fit the profile of many of the women in the Wal-Mart case.)
The lawsuit, known as Dukes v. Wal-Mart, tells many accounts like Ms. Odle's about Wal-Mart's promotion and pay practices. The plaintiffs' attorneys showed that a third of Wal-Mart's managers were women, though two-thirds of its employees overall were women, with many of them overlooked for management training that instead was provided to men. The attorneys also pointed out that men trained by women were often promoted over them. The company has said the women who initiated the lawsuit were not typical of the million women who have worked at Wal-Mart in the last decade. In a statement on Aug. 25, Wal-Mart said that it "has been recognized as a leader in fostering the advancement and success of women in the workplace." In 2000, Wal-Mart was ranked fifth by Fortune magazine on its Global Most Admired All-Stars list, and in 2003 and 2004 as the most admired company in America.
Wal-Mart is unquestionably a shopping monolith. From its lowly origins in 1950 in Bentonville, Ark., in a rural county abutting southern Missouri and eastern Oklahoma, Walton's Five and Dime was the brainchild of Sam Walton, who came up with the idea of achieving higher sales volumes by keeping prices lower than his competitors. Within 10 years it had become Wal-Mart and by the 1970s it was operating in several mid-South states and invading the Southeast. In the 1990s it went wide -- north and west -- and opened its first foreign store, in Mexico City.
Today Wal-Mart is just about everywhere. In fact, its U.S. presence is so huge that there are few parts of the country that remain farther than 60 miles from the nearest Wal-Mart. Approximately 138 million customers visit Wal-Mart stores each week all over the world. Five years ago, Wal-Mart had $312.4 billion in sales, more than 3,800 stores in the United States and employed more than 1.6 million people worldwide.
In the face of such an overpowering force, what's a million women?
The case has a long, winding history. It began in 2001 when seven female employees banded together to protest in court what they saw as the company's systematic discrimination against them in pay and promotions. The seven grew to include hundreds of women and then hundreds of thousands. At the first trial, in 2004, statistics showed that Wal-Mart paid female employees less than men in every region and in most jobs. After the favorable 2004 ruling, the women had to wait six years for the next ruling, at the Ninth Circuit. Finally, in April they heard what they had hoped for, and the case will go on.
Some of the women named in the original lawsuit have left Wal-Mart, but others still work there and have been promoted or received raises, according to The New York Times. Ms. Odle, the first to raise her voice, was fired from Wal-Mart's Sam Club for speaking out. She moved on to other retailers but had a hard time because of her criticism of Wal-Mart. She left and went into business for herself. She has been making a living at Dishing It Up, her take-out shop in Norman, Okla.
The lawsuit is named for Betty Dukes, who began working for Wal-Mart in Pittsburg, Calif., in 1994 and is still there. After 16 years at Wal-Mart, she makes about $31,000 a year. She told The Times it was hard to find another job when you're in the spotlight.
So far the lawsuit has moved slowly, mostly under the radar. It is now becoming national news, and the spotlight will only grow brighter if the women can make their case before the Supreme Court.
So far the legal arguments have not focused on the issue of discrimination against women at Wal-Mart. First, the question to be resolved is whether the million or so women involved in the case actually constitute a class. Wal-Mart lawyers dispute that notion, but a federal district judge in San Francisco ruled against the company in 2004, and in April this year the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the federal judge, ruling to let the case proceed.
Last week, on Aug. 25, Wal-Mart asked the Supreme Court to take the case. If the court tosses it out, the women would have to file lawsuits individually. But if the court takes the case and rules against Wal-Mart, the company could face more than $1 billion in damages and the court's decision would surely set new guidelines for other such lawsuits.
There's some irony in this saga. Wal-Mart is the mother of all big-box stores. It sucks in female shoppers on tight budgets looking for the best deals for their families. It depends for its riches on low- and middle-income women, who make up the bulk of its customers. It employs a mammoth female workforce, about two-thirds of all its employees. In other words, Wal-Mart is a female-driven enterprise.Yet, according to the lawsuit, female employees have racked up few benefits, were consistently bypassed for promotion and paid far less than men doing the same jobs. One woman, Stephanie Odle, an assistant manager at a store in California, discovered that a male assistant manager had been earning $23,000 more a year than she was. When Ms. Odle complained to the store's district manager, he reportedly told her, "Stephanie, that assistant manager has a family and two children to support." Ms. Odle herself was a single mother with a 6-month-old to support, she told The New York Times. (Coincidentally, a report this week based on 2008 Census Bureau data shows that single, childless women between ages 22 and 30 were earning more than their male counterparts in most U.S. cities. But those young women living in big cities hardly fit the profile of many of the women in the Wal-Mart case.)
The lawsuit, known as Dukes v. Wal-Mart, tells many accounts like Ms. Odle's about Wal-Mart's promotion and pay practices. The plaintiffs' attorneys showed that a third of Wal-Mart's managers were women, though two-thirds of its employees overall were women, with many of them overlooked for management training that instead was provided to men. The attorneys also pointed out that men trained by women were often promoted over them. The company has said the women who initiated the lawsuit were not typical of the million women who have worked at Wal-Mart in the last decade. In a statement on Aug. 25, Wal-Mart said that it "has been recognized as a leader in fostering the advancement and success of women in the workplace." In 2000, Wal-Mart was ranked fifth by Fortune magazine on its Global Most Admired All-Stars list, and in 2003 and 2004 as the most admired company in America.
Wal-Mart is unquestionably a shopping monolith. From its lowly origins in 1950 in Bentonville, Ark., in a rural county abutting southern Missouri and eastern Oklahoma, Walton's Five and Dime was the brainchild of Sam Walton, who came up with the idea of achieving higher sales volumes by keeping prices lower than his competitors. Within 10 years it had become Wal-Mart and by the 1970s it was operating in several mid-South states and invading the Southeast. In the 1990s it went wide -- north and west -- and opened its first foreign store, in Mexico City.
Today Wal-Mart is just about everywhere. In fact, its U.S. presence is so huge that there are few parts of the country that remain farther than 60 miles from the nearest Wal-Mart. Approximately 138 million customers visit Wal-Mart stores each week all over the world. Five years ago, Wal-Mart had $312.4 billion in sales, more than 3,800 stores in the United States and employed more than 1.6 million people worldwide.
In the face of such an overpowering force, what's a million women?
The case has a long, winding history. It began in 2001 when seven female employees banded together to protest in court what they saw as the company's systematic discrimination against them in pay and promotions. The seven grew to include hundreds of women and then hundreds of thousands. At the first trial, in 2004, statistics showed that Wal-Mart paid female employees less than men in every region and in most jobs. After the favorable 2004 ruling, the women had to wait six years for the next ruling, at the Ninth Circuit. Finally, in April they heard what they had hoped for, and the case will go on.
Some of the women named in the original lawsuit have left Wal-Mart, but others still work there and have been promoted or received raises, according to The New York Times. Ms. Odle, the first to raise her voice, was fired from Wal-Mart's Sam Club for speaking out. She moved on to other retailers but had a hard time because of her criticism of Wal-Mart. She left and went into business for herself. She has been making a living at Dishing It Up, her take-out shop in Norman, Okla.
The lawsuit is named for Betty Dukes, who began working for Wal-Mart in Pittsburg, Calif., in 1994 and is still there. After 16 years at Wal-Mart, she makes about $31,000 a year. She told The Times it was hard to find another job when you're in the spotlight.
So far the lawsuit has moved slowly, mostly under the radar. It is now becoming national news, and the spotlight will only grow brighter if the women can make their case before the Supreme Court.