Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is a legal battle concerning whether or not the company engaged willfully in gender-based discrimination. Underlying causes, organizational culture and ethical issues will be examined in determining how the largest private employer in the United States could have fallen prey to unfair labor practices. “In 1999, women constituted 72% of Wal-Mart’s hourly employees, but only 33% of its managerial employees” (Bhatnagar, 2004). This fact and many others are the reasons many people allege that Wal-Mart has unfair labor practices. The Dukes v. Wal-Mart case challenged the hiring, promotion and pay practices of Wal-Mart. The case was filed in June 2001. When the case reached class certification …show more content…
Employee Cleo Page actually experienced the effects of Wal-Mart’s unethical labor practices. Ms. Page began working for Wal-Mart as a cashier in one of their super centers in Tulsa, OK making $6.50/hr. Page resigned from her job three years later from a store in California where she was making $10/hr. Over the three years of employment, she received above standard evaluations, but despite her desire for advancement, she was passed over twice for promotions by less qualified male applicants. Page had also encountered other women who had similar experiences, some who were in the same position for eight years. Three years of earning low wages adversely affected Page’s financial situation. She had little savings and as a result, she lost her house in California in addition to the foster children she was caring for. Page declared that she would not have lost her home and children if she had been given the well deserved promotion. The promotion came with many great incentives and better bonuses. This alone would have improved her financial situation. Wal-Mart is the largest retail store in the United States. The root cause of the problem with Wal-Mart is that they try to increase their profits by minimizing their costs. Many internal policies are used to maintain this philosophy. First and foremost is the strong organizational culture that is dictated from the home offices. Store level managers receive discipline ranging from written
Clark's company currently demonstrates improper practices of discrimination, particularly toward women. Such as the lack of equal opportunity for promotions, in which two employees were denied as such. And the gender disparity in which most females are in low paid jobs. Furthermore, the
The employees were getting paid a low hourly wage and they were not receiving any benefits. Sam Walton was chasing after power, it might not have been the power of having money, but making sure whenever someone talked about him in a positive way. Employers such as Walton are not generous and they are more than harmful when they stifle activism; for example “[w]hen workers tried to join unions and Wal-Mart ruthlessly crushed them, firing anyone foolish enough to speak out”(Packer,354). This example shows how the employees were powerless while working at Wal-Mart. Consequently, Wal-Mart was not the only company. If the Wal-Mart’s corporate heard anything about any worker wanting to receive more benefits about what was actually happening they would quickly act upon that and fire the employee. In addition, the power that corporate would show when other workers saw this would prevent any further action. While the workforce might be powerless, at least they are protected from the streets. On the other hand, women living in the ghetto who do things for safety is a source of power for them. In both of these situations, they are doing more harm than justice. Joan Morgan explains the struggle that takes place in the black community and more so in the black women’s community. Both groups, the low paying employees and African-American women are born to fail, but sadly either one are doing anything to try changing this problem and allows it to continue. The employees at
The employees’ welfare in Walmart is poor. According to the two employees interviewed, Walmart has been forcing its employees to work through meals without extra pay. Employees are also forced to work long hours without extra pay. This has contributed to regular employees strikes due to their unpaid overtime dues and low wages (Mitchell, 2015). Another human behavior facing Walmart is lack of appropriate measures to ensure employees’ safety. The employees interviewed indicated they are locked in stores during evening hours, and any attempt to use emergency exits is punishable. This is a sign of poor management of employees and may lead to low motivation as they feel less valued by their employer. The leaders in the firm indicate that the lock-in policy is meant to prevent employees from stealing goods from the firm. This shows that the relationship between the administrators and the employees is poor. This may explain why customers complain of poor customer service in the stores.
The case of Calibuso et al. v. Bank of America Corp. et al. began in 2010, when female financial analysts (FAs) filed charges in in several states and with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) claiming that the Bank of America (BoA) used discriminatory pay practices against them in violation of state laws and the U.S. Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (DiMarco, 2014; Calibuso, 2012). These laws forbid inequalities in pay (Schrimsher & Fretwell, 2012) and discriminating employment practices based on gender and other protected classes (42 U.S.C.A in Webber, 2015). The case was settled in favor of the plaintiffs (DiMarco, 2014). However, legal and scholarly advice suggests that these kinds of cases can be avoided through organizational efforts in training in diversity (Bendick, Egan & Lofhjelm, 2001) and legal understanding along with professional validation of practices, and managerial accountability (Arthur & Doverspike in Malos, 2015). This writer agrees; the case of Calibuso et al. v. Bank of America Corp. et al, which involved discriminatory practices related to compensation and other employment-related acts may have been avoided by observing the advice aimed at organizational efforts in anti-discrimination in the workplace.
The women in this case felt discomfort when they felt mistreated from their male managers in the form of sexism along with unfair pay and lack of promotions. In this case, a woman was told to doll up and to wear makeup in order to advance which is a perfect example of one’s boundaries being pushed while making them feel uncomfortable. The next conflict event was annoyance. According to the Huffington Post article regarding the case, there was a significant difference between the level of experience between male and female workers along with their opportunity for promotions. The male workers with less experience got promotions compared to the female workers with years of experience and positive performance reviews. Male workers were also paid more compared to their female coworkers. Being passed over for jobs was evident to the women identified in this case which lead to the awareness of gender discrimination, the next conflict event, in a diverse workplace with men and women with their only similarity being that they are Wal-Mart employees. The awareness of gender discrimination faced by thousands of female employees led to conflict, the last conflict event where a class-action lawsuit was filed against Wal-Mart despite them saying that they were a diversity encouraging, fair treatment, and nondiscriminatory company (Shapiro,
The Walmart pre employment test that Ehrenreich encounters in Nickel and Dimed can be seen as both applying and undermining justice in the work-place, and during the application process. In the case of applying justice, it provides a quick and clean way to “interview” many applicants to reach a judge of character in a relatively short amount of time. However, the sense of justice it holds is flawed. The test shows just how “wishy-washy” the companies hiring low wage workers are. They want you to be able to work well with others, but not too well that you will hesitate to report a coworker for the slightest rule that is broken. You must be capable of independent decision making, but know better than to let that interfere with your ability to
Low employee wage is one of the unethical business practices that saves Wal-Mart’s sufficient amount of costs. “The dynamics that create lower prices at Wal-Mart and other places are also undercutting the ability of many, many workers to earn decent wages and benefits and have a stable life”(Is Wal-Mart Good For America?, 2004). This giant wage-cutting business practice practically makes Wal-Mart employees
Based on the employee surveys, workers feel overworked, undervalued, underpaid, unclear promotional pathway, especially females. The 2001 PeopleSoft employee data release by Walmart, shows that women are represented a disproportionately higher rate than males in positions that pay an hourly rate, while men are represented at the higher salaried management positions (Drogin, 2003).
District Court for the Northern District of California granted class certification, potentially making Wal-Mart liable for any acts of discrimination of 1.6 million of their current and former female employees. As this case continued to move forward, the plaintiffs alleged that these practices were consistent between every store of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and in return, they sought “class-wide injunctive and declaratory relief, lost wages, and punitive damages.” The defendant fought this class certification, stating that each member of the class should file individual litigation. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. claimed that, “the size of the class made it impossible to manage and increased the costs
In searching the web, I found a couple of cases that are similar to the claims in the letter from this week’s assignment. The first one is where the EEOC sued the fast food chain Checkers for paying women less than men, as well as scheduling them with fewer hours than their male co-workers (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2013). The next case that is similar is when a Tampa woman wins a lawsuit against Citicorp for being paid less than her male coworkers are. Ms. Wilson was promoted to manager for Citicorp back in 2009, but was not given a raise nor any bonuses, while her male co-workers made more than she did (Behrman, 2016) A few years later, she was still not given a raise nor any bonuses. When she ask to have a market assessment,
The equal employment commission charged Walmart with turning down female applicants to fill orders in its distribution center in London, Kentucky, even though they were as least as well qualified as the male applicants who were hired. The basic for the conclusion was that there was a statistically significant pattern of hiring males and turning down females. In a case Walmart interviewed a woman and said can she lift a 150 pound potato bag over her head and the applicant said she can’t. After that interview the women find the same kind of job in a deferent warehouse .But in this case Walmart have to pay $11.7 million to settle the case. After the enforcement of law Walmart have to change their culture and have to bringing more diversity to its management ranks. Walmart appointed more women in the management rank after all those controversies. So far Walmart have one fourth of the women manager .And after a statistics of female customer of Walmart shown that 80% of the customers are female.
Topic: US labor department sues JPMorgan Chase & Co. for discriminatory pay practices against female employees. Compliance review finds sex discrimination in banking institution’s pay practices.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes was perhaps the most closely watched cases when the largest discrimination lawsuit was taken to the Supreme Court by Wal-Mart in 2011. The divided opinion was highlighted in the case video with Justice Antonin Scalia claiming that “the women failed to show Wal-Mart has a policy of discrimination that worked to harm all female employees,” while Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg maintained that discrimination can be subtler.
Discrimination continues to run rampant throughout organizations in both the United States and worldwide. The Supreme Court case, Dukes vs. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., dealt with 1.5 million current and former female Wal-Mart employees that claim that they had been a victim of gender discrimination. The ensuing pages will discuss the specific issues that the plaintiffs encountered, followed by suggestions from a human resource manager’s stand point in rectifying adverse impact within the Wal-Mart organization.
Kyle Roberts, the Vice President of Westco Enterprises, was faced with a dilemma when two of his employees, Susan Thompson and Oscar Hernandez, had come forward with complaints about their manager, John Tucker. They both believed they were being discriminated against, restricting them from advancing within Westco Enterprises. This paper explores the factors that contribute to the issue at hand, ways in which the situation should be handled and future precautions that can be taken to avoid similar issues.