Wal-Mart Faces Largest Gender Bias Lawsuit in U.S. History

Yesterday, the happy news came that the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that Wal-Mart must face a gender-bias lawsuit filed by six of its female employees. The women claim that Wal-Mart, the world's largest private employer, pays its female employees less than their male counterparts for doing the same jobs and that promotions are few and far between for the women of the Wal-Mart workforce.

This comes as no surprise. Anyone who thinks Wal-Mart engages in fair labor practices isn't looking hard enough, in my opinion. Let's take a look at two key facts from 2001, the year the women filed the lawsuit: First, while two-thirds of Wal-Mart's hourly workforce was female, only one-third of managerial positions were held by women. Second, there's the pay gap. Female managers made $14,500 less and female hourly workers made $1,100 than men in the same positions. Keep in mind that women, on average, had more seniority and higher merit marks.

No wonder Wal-Mart has been fighting to keep this lawsuit from seeing the light of day. Prior to yesterday's ruling, Wal-Mart had previously lost two rulings in trial court and appeals court. "Since it doesn't have a companywide policy of discrimination, " the retail giant argued, "women alleging gender bias should file individual lawsuits against individual stores." Oh, and they said that the case was simply to big to defend. I guess they should have thought of that before they systematically screwed over such a large percentage of their workforce, huh?

You see, the case reaches far beyond the initial six women who brought the lawsuit. Since it is a certified class-action lawsuit, those six women represent all female Wal-Mart employees over the past decade. One estimate puts that number at around 1.5 million women, all of whom could potentially join the class-action. The exact number of women that can be included is still to be determined by a trial judge.

No matter how you look at it, yesterday was a victory for women in the workplace. Those women are taking on a corporate giant and telling it that they won't stand for pay inequity and and gender bias in the workplace. Join them by signing this petition to tell Wal-Mart that you won't tolerate gender discrimination.

Photo credit: Brave New Films