WalMart & civil suit

A gender descrimination claim has been filed against WalMart. This filing makes this case the single largest civil rights case on record.

NY-Times
UK-Guardian Observer

The filing cites that WalMart as consistantly and broadly preferred men over women in terms of promotions and wage increases. The Guardian points out that WalMart has stated that promotion and wage increases are largely at the discression of the store managers themselves and not Corporate HQ.

One interesting line from WalMart:

The company said it will appeal this latest decision, claiming the lawsuit ignores the fact that thousands of female employees make more than their male counterparts.

Thousands, eh? Then why is it that the class in this case is measured at 1500 thousand women? In case you missed your decimals, that's 1.5 million women. 'Thousands' in relation to this class is a small percentage. Which implies that a large percentage are being paid under what the men are.

Once this thing hits trial you can expect the WalMart spin machine to crank up sympathy for themselves. If this suit succeeds, prices at our stores will have to go up. And that will hurt these poor people who rely on us for cheap goods [picture of frowning poor people]. Higher prices are bad for the economy. Etc. etc.

I hope it does succeed, or at the very minimum a hellova settlement is extracted out of WalMart. The suit is claiming $8 billion in restitution, which oddly enough matches WalMart's entire profit for last year.

I will give them credit, though. The gal who started the suit is still working at WalMart and hasn't been fired for showing up to work one day with an untied shoe-lace. I guess if you bring a large enough suit, or otherwise garner enough media attention they can't get rid of you without a real reason.