Labor & Employment Law

Join March 29 Rally to Support Wal-Mart Women

By James Parks

Hundreds of people will show their support outside the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday, when the High Court hears oral arguments in what could become the largest class-action civil rights suit in U.S. history.

The Stand with the Women of Wal-Mart rally will take place as the nation?s highest court hears arguments on Wal-Mart v. Dukes to decide whether the case can move forward as a class action.

Ten years ago, a group of women who worked at Wal-Mart stores, led by Betty Dukes, filed a lawsuit alleging the corporation engaged in company-wide gender discrimination by paying women less than men, promoting fewer women to management positions and promoting male employees more quickly. The case, now a class action, has made its way to the Supreme Court.

Wal-Mart is challenging the decision by a lower court to allow the women employed at Wal-Mart stores across the country to join together in a class action lawsuit to challenge pay and promotion practices that discriminate against women.

If Wal-Mart succeeds in keeping these women from joining together, the already uphill battle for women to fight pay discrimination will get even worse. But If the women prevail, their case will become the largest class-action civil rights suit in the nation’s history, with some 1.6 million female Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club employees.

A coalition of women?s, workers? and religious groups are sponsoring the rally, including the AFL-CIO constituency group, the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW).  

In a statement, the American Association of University Women (AAUW), another rally sponsor, says class action can send a strong message to employers to follow the law in the first place. Lisa Maatz, AAUW?s director of public policy and government relations, says:

This case illuminates the dirty little secret that women know all too well ? that pay discrimination is alive and well and undermining the economic security of American families.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on March 28, 2011 (boomark / email).