Lilly Ledbetter, who faced gender pay discrimination while working for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, thought pay inequity was a problem unique to the South. She soon learned, however, that the gender pay gap exists across the nation. For anyone who doubts this, the current Wal-Mart pay discrimination case illustrates just how big and widespread the problem is.
Wal-Mart is the single largest employer in the nation. In 2001, six women, who had worked in 13 stores, filed charges of pay and promotion inequity. Last month a federal appeals court in San Francisco voted to allow the sex discrimination lawsuit to move forward as a class action case. This allows the inclusion of 1.6 million women and makes it the largest sex discrimination case in U.S. history.
The suit claims systematic discrimination. The plaintiffs argue that women were paid less than men in every region. In most job categories, the salary gap widened over time even for staff hired into the same jobs. They also claim that women took longer to reach management positions and that the higher you look in the organizational chain, the lower the percentage of women. Women now hold only 14 percent of Wal-Mart store manager positions and only about one-third of management positions — even though two-thirds of Wal-Mart employees are women.
In stating his decision, Judge Martin M. Jenkins noted that many plaintiffs’ testimonies were very similar to one another, even though the plaintiffs had worked in different stores and in different states. So Judge Jenkins deemed it safe to assume that discriminatory policies were part of a broad culture throughout the corporation.
Wal-Mart has argued that women were uninterested in and unqualified for the higher-paid jobs. The plaintiffs are submitting documentation to support their claim that prejudice and discrimination were the basis for the pay inequity. They intend to show that the decision-making processes fostered and permitted the use of hunches, intuitions, and feelings. This led, they allege, to the use of categorical opinions that influenced the decision making. The plaintiffs’ documentation also aims to show that gender-associated stereotypes were used in evaluations.
One of the six original plaintiffs says she was told to “doll up” and to “blow the cobwebs off her makeup.” Another said that when she asked about the pay inequities, she was told that male employees had families to support. Wal-Mart managers allegedly told female employees that “men are here to make a career; retail is for housewives who just need to earn extra money.” Other female employees reported that they were assigned to train male employees so that the men could be promoted, that Wal-Mart managers told them to “behave like my wife,” and that they were required to get coffee for male employees. Wal-Mart has argued that these decisions are made on a local level.
I think this case underscores the need for the Paycheck Fairness Act. Ask your senators to support it today!
MaryAlice Brown is a member of the 2009–10 AAUW Student Advisory Council.
