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Walmart is appealing to the Supreme Court the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling that the Dukes v. Walmart case can move forward as a class action lawsuit.
Dukes v. Walmart is the largest gender discrimination lawsuit in history, alleging that women who worked at Walmart were systematically given less pay and less chance at promotion due to gender. We’ve spoken a lot about it in the past on this website.
Plaintiffs contend that Wal-Mart’s strong, centralized structure fosters or facilitates gender stereotyping and discrimination, that the policies and practices underlying this discriminatory treatment are consistent throughout Wal-Mart stores, and that this discrimination is common to all women who work or have worked in Wal-Mart stores.
Walmart even knew they were wide open for such a lawsuit but did nothing to change their practices. Now Walmart is asking the Supreme Court to say that its one million plus female employees can’t make this claim as a class action.
So maybe if Walmart had only discriminated against half a million women it wouldn’t be appealing?
From what we can tell, the reason that Walmart is asking the Supreme Court to take on this case is that they do not want to be exposed to the damages might result from such a large class, up to and possible more than 1 million women. Walmart would like to have each woman bring suit individually, rather than trying to defend themselves against the allegation that there was an overall culture of discrimination.
Dukes v. Walmart is the perfect example of why we have class action lawsuits in this country: no lawyer would be able to take any one of these cases individually because the damages would be too small to devote the time needed to prove discrimination.
Walmart would like a legal system that only works for the big guys.
Posted by Will O'Neill | Permalink
Walmart’s second quarter earnings report this morning show that U.S. same store sales continue to slide. While profits were boosted by international sales, Walmart reported lower than expected sales growth. The company continues to have trouble expanding its customer base, while at the same time Walmart’s core customers are hurting. The effect of this slowing of sales has been poor returns for shareholders.
Meanwhile Walmart managers are increasingly using cost-cutting measures in an attempt to maintain profits, and Walmart Associates are paying the price. Walmart Associates have told us that they are short staffed and department inventories are a mess. Full-time associates have been seeing their hours cut to part-time levels and a rise in part-time staff in the company as a whole. Earlier this year executives at Walmart’s home office increased premiums for Associates’ health care plans, which already have very high deductibles. This results in the transfer of even more costs to Associates.
This rate of return is also a poor bargain for shareholders. Walmart’s goal is to be a perpetual growth stock, but this downward spiral will only lead to more sluggish sales and poorer share price performance. Over the last 12 months Walmart’s stock has underperformed the stocks of unionized grocers including Safeway and Kroger, demonstrating that unionization isn’t a problem for companies that have a healthy business model.
The Walmart model of low wages, poor benefits, and no job security continues to trip up the company and these missteps are seen in this quarter’s returns. Walmart Associates don’t have the resources needed to build positive financial growth in their own lives, and Walmart, as the nation’s largest employer, puts downward pressure on wages throughout the entire economy. These practices stand in the way of a meaningful recovery both for Walmart Associates and the economy as a whole.
Posted by Will O'Neill | Permalink
Join us in calling on Walmart to demand a stop to attacks on garment worker leaders in Bangladesh.
Recently we wrote about the conditions under which garment workers in Bangladesh struggled, often making as little as 11.5 cents per hour. Last week these workers began to protest when the wage increases they were seeking fell short of their demands.
The government of Bangladesh, under pressure from manufacturers, has begun systematically attacking worker rights groups, especially targeting the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity (BCWS). BCWS’s assets have been frozen by the government, and one of their leaders was detained and beaten by authorities.
BCWS leaders in Bangladesh are reporting persecution from manufacturers and the government. One manufacturer in particular, Nassa Global Wear, has filed suit against BCWS. The owners of Nassa, who are former high-ranking military officers, may have used their political power to pressure the government to arrest BCWS leaders. Walmart is Nassa’s largest customer, purchasing an estimated 80% of the production of the company. As the largest retailer in the world, Walmart has enormous bargaining power and influence over the way their suppliers do business.
Walmart has written a letter to the Ambassador of Bangladesh to the United States, asking him to investigate the worker crackdown, but they could use their influence much more powerfully than by just writing a letter. One phone call from Walmart--either to Nassa officials or to Bangladeshi government officials--could make these human rights abuses stop.
Please join us in calling on Walmart to use the full weight of their influence to push Nassa Global Wear to stop its assualt on workers’ rights.
Posted by Will O'Neill | Permalink
UPDATE: Take our Online Action in support of Bengali garment workers.:
Ever wonder how Walmart can sell jeans for $8 a pair? The National Labor Committee found out by going to the source: young women garment workers in Bangladesh.
The Faded Glory - Women’s Organic Cotton Relaxed-Fit Flared Jean is sewn in Anowara Apparels factory in Chittagong, which sells almost 100% of its production to Walmart. According to an action alert from NLC issued on July 28, 2010 and available at nlcnet.org.
These workers make the equivalent of 11½¢ an hour. They are expected to make 10 pairs of Faded Glories an hour, working out to about 1.2¢ a pair. Compare that to workers who engaged in the Bread and Roses Strike here in the US. They were making about 15¢ per hour. In 1912.
In June we encouraged Wake Up Walmart supporters to join the National Labor Committee and called on Walmart CEO Mike Duke to support a minimum wage for garment workers in Bangladesh. The letter to Duke is still available, and more than two thousand people have already signed on.
Walmart isn’t willing to pay a cent or two more per pair of jeans to lift these women and thousands like them out of abject poverty.
“The wage the workers are paid, I will say, is not only insufficient, but also inhumane. It is simply impossible for [the garment workers] to even live from hand to mouth in the capital with the peanuts they get in wages.” - Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
Please join us and NLC in telling Wal-Mart to support the modest 35-cent-an-hour minimum wage demand of Bangladesh’s garment workers, not one cent less.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
702 SW 8th Street
Bentonville, AK 72716
Phone: 479-273-4000
Fax: 479-273-4329
Email: Mr. Rajan Kamalanathan, Vice President of Ethical Sourcing - Rajan.Kamalanathan @wal-mart.com
Let Walmart know that under no known branch of moral philosophy is this considered to be ethical:
“A few years back, I told Wal-Mart, ‘Give me one cents more a piece, one cents. I will use that money for these poor people.’ He says, ‘No, give us two cents less.’” - Bangladeshi Factory Owner
Posted by Will O'Neill | Permalink
A story in today’s Chicago Reader1 reveals that at least one hundred pro-Walmart “supporters” in Chicago were paid $100 to come and protest on behalf of the retail giant building in their neighborhood in front of Chicago’s City Council on Thursday, June 24.
In the run up to the City Council vote in Chicago over the proposed zoning, Walmart was involved in a lot of footwork in the South Side community. For example, they did push polling2, they pushed a lot of money at charities3, and they created a fake community group4 (along with Walmart-paid comment spammers).
The Wall Street Journal5 said that even Obama could learn something from Walmart about community organizing.
But if Walmart or some other group was paying these South Side residents a C-note each to “protest,” it demonstrates that this visible and media-friendly support for Walmart was manufactured.
Community groups and labor were able to extract some concessions6 from Walmart in the run up to the City Council vote, though Walmart said it was be reneging7 on those agreements.
Walmart continually claims that people want the company in their communities. When the agreement was reached and the City Council was about to vote, how many of those folks with signs8 that read things like “Benefits from Walmart better than AFDC [Aid to Families with Dependent Children]” and “Walmart is better than welfare 4 me” came out because they supported Walmart and how many came because there was a crisp hundred dollar bill in it for them.
Notes:
Posted by Will O'Neill | Permalink
Why is Walmart spending millions to fight a $7,000 fine?
The fine comes from the 2008 trampling death Jdimytai Damour, who had been working at the Walmart in Long Island. On Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, of that year a crowd of 2,000 people had been lined up for hours near a hand-written sign that read “Blitz Line Starts Here.” Shoppers busted through the line shortly before the store was scheduled to open, crushing Damour as he tried to protect a pregnant woman from being trampled.
We have called on Walmart have higher safety standards, now it seems that the company doesn’t want to even recognize that it did anything wrong.
According to The New York Times, Walmart is fighting a $7,000 fine from OSHA. But it is difficult to understand why Walmart is doing so. They reached an agreement with the Nassau County NY district attorney to create a $400,000 fund for victims of the stampede, they’ve spread around $1.5 million to charities and community groups in the community around the Walmart store in question, and they have announced “crowd policy” changes, though how effective they are is open to interpretation, based upon five articles from this season.
From the Times:
In May 2009, OSHA accused Wal-Mart of failing to provide a place of employment that was “free from recognized hazards.” Specifically, the agency said the company violated its “general duty” to employees by failing to take adequate steps to protect them from a situation that was “likely to cause death or serious physical harm” because of “crowd surge or crowd trampling.”
Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, says that regulators are trying to enforce a vague standard of protection when there was no previous OSHA or retail industry guidance on how to prevent what it views as an “unforeseeable incident.”
Walmart is essentially trying to drown OSHA in paperwork and spend millions of dollars in order to avoid paying a $7,000 fine, taking up almost a fifth of the time of lawyers at OSHA’s New York office. This is like hiring Johnnie Cochran to get out of a speeding ticket.
Walmart admitted no liability when it settled with the Nassau D.A. But if it paid the OSHA fine, it would in a sense be admitting that it had committed some wrongdoing in not preventing the trampling death. If they admitted wrongdoing, they might be held accountable to government.
And Walmart refuses to be held accountable by anyone but themselves.
Posted by Will O'Neill | Permalink
Over at Wake Up Walmart, they are live-blogging the 2010 Walmart Shareholder Meeting. Head on over and check it out.
Posted by Will O'Neill | Permalink
It is clear as day that Walmart had every reason to know that it was practicing gender discrimination at the time the Dukes v. Wal-Mart class action lawsuit was filed, according to an article just released by The New York Times.
In 1995 Walmart hired the law firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld to do an audit and see if the company was at risk of just such a suit. No surprise to us, the firm found that
men were five and a half times as likely as women to be promoted into salaried, management positions.
In a press statement released this evening, Wake Up Walmart said
Today’s news is a smoking gun that Walmart leadership was aware of the financial risk facing the company for six years before women took legal action against its policies that systematically paid female workers less than their male counterparts and prevented women from winning promotions.
According to The New York Times article, Walmart had criticized the report that they themselves commissioned by saying that the analysis in it was modeled on the kind of analysis that lawyers filing a class action lawsuit would use.
And then the largest class action lawsuit in the history of the United States was filed against them.
That is why we are calling on you to join us in calling for an end to such discrimination. Send a letter to Walmart’s Board of Directors telling them that Walmart executives should not be getting massive bonuses until they prove that gender discrimination is no longer part of how Walmart does business!
Activists will be gathering across the country on Friday carrying just that message. See if there is an event near you and join us in calling for an end to these horrible business practices.
Posted by Will O'Neill | Permalink
Last November, Vanity Fair and 60 Minutes published a telephone poll which surveyed a random sample of 1,097 Americans. When given a choice of 5 companies, and asked to pick which company “best symbolizes America today,” 48% chose Wal-Mart---more than 3 times those who selected Google. (Microsoft, the N.F.L. and Goldman Sachs were the other also-rans.)
The results of that survey could be construed to mean that post-bailout America is truly ‘best symbolized’ by a power-sotted corporation that exploits its workers, drains our manufacturing base, hammers our trade deficit, and floods our markets with cheap sweatshop products from China. Yes, Wal-Mart ‘best symbolizes’ what corporate excess has done to America.
This week we have another survey—this one from Consumer Reports magazine---which surveyed 30,666 of its readers over a year’s time, asking them to rank experiences and products at 11 retailers, including Wal-Mart. Consumer Reports issued this brief disclaimer: “Results might not reflect experiences of the U.S. population.”
Wal-Mart will not be reprinting the Consumer Report survey on its website. The results are not very flattering—and they’re not very different from a similar survey the magazine published eight years ago.
For openers: “Last year shoppers spent $405 billion at Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer. But according to a new study by the Consumer Reports National Research Center, they might be better off if they switch stores.”
Consumers shop at Wal-Mart for one reason only: presumed low prices. But CR readers said prices at the 10 other retailers (which included JCPenney, Sears, and Target) were “at least as good.”
Almost 75% of Wal-Mart shoppers found at least one problem to complain about, and half had two or more complaints. In terms of overall store rating, Wal-Mart finished 10th out of 11 stores, barely nosing out Kmart at dead last.
“Wal-Mart was near the bottom of the Ratings,” CR concludes. “The number of complaints about Wal-Mart’s lines and narrow aisles was above average. About 44% of its shoppers had a problem with the staff if they sought help. Quality of apparel, jewelry, kitchenware, and electronics was rated below average.”
Ouch!
This is not the message Wal-Mart spent $2.4 billion in advertising this past year to cultivate. Wal-Mart boasts that it serves customers more than 200 million times per week The retailer has a bloated store base spread out over 603 billion square feet of selling space in America alone. The mantra at Wal-Mart is “fast, friendly and clean.” Or as Wal-Mart puts it: “Busy moms expect a clean and efficient store layout.”
But the Consumer Report survey suggests a company whose presentation is slow and unfriendly. According to CR readers, Wal-Mart and Kmart had the least knowledgeable staffers, and Wal-Mart’s cavernous supercenters were cited as “stores that were too big to navigate easily.” The 2010 CR survey notes that Wal-Mart shoppers were “particularly peeved” at the cumbersome merchandise return process at the giant retailer. 20% of the returns took more time than expected, readers said. Worst of all, checkout lines were worst at Wal-Mart, cited by 46% of readers who had shopped there.
Wal-Mart is stung by such criticism, because the company is obsessed with its sleek and tidy image. “As I walked through one of our stores,” writes company CEO Mike Duke in Wal-Mart’s current annual report, “the engineer in me loved seeing the efficiency and smoothness of how our operations executed and performed.”
On the one hand, Wal-Mart tells its shareholders that it “achieved record customer experience scores for the year, reflecting increased traffic, and higher ‘fast, friendly, clean,’ scores.” Apparently Wal-Mart didn’t cross tab any customer satisfaction surveys with Consumer Reports readers.
The “engineers” at Wal-Mart may seek comfort in the fact that Consumer Reports is only seen by an estimated 7.3 million readers---while Wal-Mart has 200 million customers every week. But Vanity Fair has only 1.2 million readers, so maybe Wal-Mart needs to do some more focus groups with those “Busy Moms” who drive their bottom line.
Wal-Mart’s self-serving hyperbole about efficiency and seamless shopping has become a mainstay of its culture, and is taken for granted by the media. But this week, Consumer Reports readers kicked some dirt on that shiny exterior.
Posted by Al Norman | Permalink
This is a video of Walmart flack Jane Coleman. Just take a minute and fast-forward to about 1:30.
She says “The Miley Cyrus and Max Azria line is not for children. It is sold in our lady’s apparel section and was designed for and marketed to older audiences. However it is possible that a few younger customers may seek it out in the store.”
This, ladies and gents, is a classic example peeing on your leg and telling you it is raining. Because Hannah Montana is marketed at “older audiences”? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Ms. Cyrus’s show is on the television lineup after Grey’s Anatomy.
Classic example of Walmart telling it like it isn’t.
Posted by Will O'Neill | Permalink
