The class action certification this week of nearly 1.6 million potential female plaintiffs against Wal-Mart in the largest gender discrimination lawsuit has brought emails and phone calls by Wal-Mart employees to Sprawl-Busters looking to join the lawsuit. Present and former women employees who believe they should be part of this lawsuit, should go to www.walmartclass.com/walmartclass94.pl for further details about how to become a plaintiff. A total of six lawfirms are handling the case, led by the Impact Fund, a non-profit group based in Berkeley, California. Call 1-877-966-2696 for further details. According to the expert testimony presented by plaintiffs in the Dukes v Wal-Mart case, in 2001, women at Wal-Mart outnumbered men by nearly two to one in the hourly ranks (65.2% female for Wal-Mart and Sam’s combined) and men outnumbered women by almost two to one in salaried management positions (33.2% female). Sales Associate is the largest job classification in the company, employing over 200,000 individuals. In 2001 women comprised over 90% of those employed as Sales Associates in men’s wear, infant/toddlers, health and beauty aids, domestic goods, and ladies sportswear, and less than 25% of those employed as Sales Associates in hardware and in Supercenter food departments such as dairy products, meat, frozen food, and produce. Few men work in the front-end position of Cashier, the second largest job category, with over 150,000 employees), which was 89.5% female in 2001. Although women outnumber men by nearly four to one among hourly supervisors, in 2001 they comprised only 45.1% of the Support Managers, the highest-level hourly supervisory position. Moving into salaried management, in 2001 they comprised only 37.6% of Assistant Managers, 21.9% of Co-Managers, and 15.5% of Store Managers. The hierarchy seems to be built on “the vanishing gender” theory, that the higher you climb, the fewer women you will find.
Present and former Wal-Mart workers, go to the website set up by The Impact Fund and register your interest in becoming a plaintiff. This special one-time deal is available only to people who worked at Wal-Mart stores, so hurry while quantities last.
