Wal-Mart's Women
Brenda Harkins
Ethics & Organizations, ORGL 4113
Wal-Mart’s Women
4/28/2013
Wal-Mart’s discrimination lawsuit against women could definitely be costly and could cost them billions of dollars. Since this case has been ongoing since June of 2001, the cost of the litigation to date I am sure has already been costly. It surprises me that there has been no offer to settle this case. Except I assume Wal-Marts attitude is if they offer settlement to this case they would be expected to offer settlement to all of the discrimination cases they are involved in. Possibly they would deem this as a partial admission to guilt to discriminating acts Wal-Mart’s culture seems to practice not only to women but to minorities as well. I can see where in business cultures such as Wal-Mart’s; affirmative action would seem to be an answer to a more fair treatment of women and minorities. Affirmative action imposed on to Wal-Mart would indeed restore opportunities to women and minority employees; however I am not sure how equal affirmative action really is. If Wal-Mart is forced to give promotions to women and minorities to just “balance” the amount of visual presence of equal opportunities to these groups. They really have not changed the discrimination culture of Wal-Marts business activity. They have only masked this and touted it as being a changed venue. In order for real change to occur Wal-Mart must change its current male dominated cultural attitude.
Given the information gained and all of the lawsuits that have been filed naming Wal-Mart for its unfair treatment of their employees I believe the women deserve to win the lawsuit brought against Wal-Mart. If companies such as Wal-Mart are allowed to continue discriminating against any individual or groups; discrimination will never end in this country. Also should these large corporations like Wal-Mart have to pay for their unethical and unfair treatment of their employees then this will force them to change this behavior. Sometimes the only way to make change happen with corporations is by hitting their “pocket books”.
Should Wal-Mart lose this lawsuit and it cost other employees their jobs because of store closure. I still say yes to the women’s win of the lawsuit. Unfair and discriminating practices should not be allowed to continue. Sometimes doing the right and just thing is a costly one, but usually the cost in the long run will benefit a larger number of individuals and will not likely be repeated. In my opinion Wal-Mart would better serve everyone including themselves if they would just offer a settlement to this lawsuit and incorporate real change in their practices of the treatment of their employees no matter what gender or race they may be. In the long run I believe this would save them money. At some point you just have to say “I was wrong and I will do a better job” and move on.
The bases of this Wal-Mart lawsuit is the women are not being paid comparable wages of their male counterparts nor are they being promoted at the same rate as their male counterparts are. Wal-Mart promotes a Which, yes, women can participate in these activities they are not generally something women will actively seek out to do.. The example of this dominance is very evident in the annual manager’s retreat which includes fishing and quail hunting. In addition to the annual manager’s retreat the managers schedule district meetings at Hooter’s restaurants and strip clubs which are not women-oriented places.
Which, yes, women can participate in these activities they are not generally something women will actively seek out to do. The selection of the places for their retreats and scheduled meetings are a great example of the male-oriented culture that Wal-Mart displays.
I do feel the Wal-Mart women who are seeking compensation for Wal-Mart’s wrongful treatment of them is very justified. I think the Wal-Mart Corporation has failed to adhere to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972. The proof that Wal-Mart is guilty of these alleged practices came in 1995 by a law firm Wal-Mart themselves hired to assess their compensation practices the law firm found; department managers and salaried managers who were male earned more than the women who held the same identical positions. The law firm reported and concluded the disparities “are statistically significant and sufficient to warrant a finding of discrimination unless the company can demonstrate at trial that the statistical disparities are caused by legitimate, nondiscriminatory factors.” In addition to the law firms findings the women themselves hired in 2001 a statistical expert Richard Drogin to analyze Wal-Mart’s employee records and he found some support to the women’s allegations. The statistical findings in part were men earned more than women doing the same jobs. Drogin also found there were more men employed or promoted to managerial positions, even though women were in the workforce over a longer period of time than the men were.
Wal-Mart wants each of the women’s cases heard individually and not as a class-action suit. I do think each woman’s case of discrimination is probably different, but the suit is about the act of discrimination Wal-Mart displays to women in general. So, with that being the case I believe this case should be heard as one class-action case and not individually so I disagree with Wal-Mart’s opinion on the women’s cases being heard individually.
Drogin’s report sought to find discrepancies in the allegations of discrimination to the women who have filed the lawsuit against Wal-Mart. Drogin analyzed Wal-Mart’s employee records which accounted for 3,945,151 employees from 1996-2002. From Drogin’s analyzes I see only one area that women actually failed to perform as good or better than men and that was the cashier ratings, yet there are more women cashiers than any other position listed in his analyzes. I found that interesting to say the least. The women cashiers are paid less than men cashiers as well as they are in all other Wal-Mart positions Drogin’s report lists. Drogin also deemed the discrepancies could be because women were not as willing to relocate geographically as the men were, however Wal-Mart does not require this to be a stipulation for advancement to a management position. A geographic change only accounted for a small part of management promotion opportunities is what Drogin report is found. Wal-Mart also has a policy of posting available management positions, but this posting policy is at the discretion of the individual managers. Whereas this could account for a discrepancy because it is an unknown factor as to how many managers decide on their own to post management position openings or not. The discrepancies in Drogin’s report are small to say the least but when analyzing information you have to account for discrepancies because human error of the numbers is always a factor in analyzed data. Overall the discrepancies I feel were minor ones. I think Drogin’s report is an arguable validation of Wal-Marts discrimination practices towards women.
The simplest fix to these discrepancies is for Wal-Mart to pay women employees who do the identical job as the men the same amount of wage. Wal-Mart could save their corporation a lot of money if they would simply comply with the equal treatment laws we have here in the United States. Wal-Mart empowering their managers with the discretion as to post a management position opening is an area that could be easily corrected. Wal-Mart would simply have to require all jobs posting to be a mandatory task. This could be easily monitored to insure the policy is being followed. Monitoring could be by upper management level visits to store locations; they could also require the listing to be posted on the Wal-Mart website which is available to all who visit the website.
With Wal-Mart and their repeated neglect to instill a fair treatment environment to their employees they should be required to institute an “affirmative action” promotion program for the female employees. The “affirmative action” program should ensure that women are placed in management roles at the same rate as men not only by numbers but by salary as well. The program needs to have a training specifically geared to women for the purpose of balancing the scales of the number of qualified women promoted in the Wal-Mart organization. Not only does this affirmative action plan need to address the promotion programs but the wage discrepancies the women have endured would have to be included in this program. The Wal-Mart culture of male domination will have to change in the Wal-Mart Corporation. Truly change not; as I stated early on in this paper, just mask the appearance of equal treatment of their female employees.
Reference
Velasquez, Manuel G. /Business Ethics: Concepts & Cases, 7th edition/ Pgs. 393-396
Ethics & Organizations, ORGL 4113
Wal-Mart’s Women
4/28/2013
Wal-Mart’s discrimination lawsuit against women could definitely be costly and could cost them billions of dollars. Since this case has been ongoing since June of 2001, the cost of the litigation to date I am sure has already been costly. It surprises me that there has been no offer to settle this case. Except I assume Wal-Marts attitude is if they offer settlement to this case they would be expected to offer settlement to all of the discrimination cases they are involved in. Possibly they would deem this as a partial admission to guilt to discriminating acts Wal-Mart’s culture seems to practice not only to women but to minorities as well. I can see where in business cultures such as Wal-Mart’s; affirmative action would seem to be an answer to a more fair treatment of women and minorities. Affirmative action imposed on to Wal-Mart would indeed restore opportunities to women and minority employees; however I am not sure how equal affirmative action really is. If Wal-Mart is forced to give promotions to women and minorities to just “balance” the amount of visual presence of equal opportunities to these groups. They really have not changed the discrimination culture of Wal-Marts business activity. They have only masked this and touted it as being a changed venue. In order for real change to occur Wal-Mart must change its current male dominated cultural attitude.
Given the information gained and all of the lawsuits that have been filed naming Wal-Mart for its unfair treatment of their employees I believe the women deserve to win the lawsuit brought against Wal-Mart. If companies such as Wal-Mart are allowed to continue discriminating against any individual or groups; discrimination will never end in this country. Also should these large corporations like Wal-Mart have to pay for their unethical and unfair treatment of their employees then this will force them to change this behavior. Sometimes the only way to make change happen with corporations is by hitting their “pocket books”.
Should Wal-Mart lose this lawsuit and it cost other employees their jobs because of store closure. I still say yes to the women’s win of the lawsuit. Unfair and discriminating practices should not be allowed to continue. Sometimes doing the right and just thing is a costly one, but usually the cost in the long run will benefit a larger number of individuals and will not likely be repeated. In my opinion Wal-Mart would better serve everyone including themselves if they would just offer a settlement to this lawsuit and incorporate real change in their practices of the treatment of their employees no matter what gender or race they may be. In the long run I believe this would save them money. At some point you just have to say “I was wrong and I will do a better job” and move on.
The bases of this Wal-Mart lawsuit is the women are not being paid comparable wages of their male counterparts nor are they being promoted at the same rate as their male counterparts are. Wal-Mart promotes a Which, yes, women can participate in these activities they are not generally something women will actively seek out to do.. The example of this dominance is very evident in the annual manager’s retreat which includes fishing and quail hunting. In addition to the annual manager’s retreat the managers schedule district meetings at Hooter’s restaurants and strip clubs which are not women-oriented places.
Which, yes, women can participate in these activities they are not generally something women will actively seek out to do. The selection of the places for their retreats and scheduled meetings are a great example of the male-oriented culture that Wal-Mart displays.
I do feel the Wal-Mart women who are seeking compensation for Wal-Mart’s wrongful treatment of them is very justified. I think the Wal-Mart Corporation has failed to adhere to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972. The proof that Wal-Mart is guilty of these alleged practices came in 1995 by a law firm Wal-Mart themselves hired to assess their compensation practices the law firm found; department managers and salaried managers who were male earned more than the women who held the same identical positions. The law firm reported and concluded the disparities “are statistically significant and sufficient to warrant a finding of discrimination unless the company can demonstrate at trial that the statistical disparities are caused by legitimate, nondiscriminatory factors.” In addition to the law firms findings the women themselves hired in 2001 a statistical expert Richard Drogin to analyze Wal-Mart’s employee records and he found some support to the women’s allegations. The statistical findings in part were men earned more than women doing the same jobs. Drogin also found there were more men employed or promoted to managerial positions, even though women were in the workforce over a longer period of time than the men were.
Wal-Mart wants each of the women’s cases heard individually and not as a class-action suit. I do think each woman’s case of discrimination is probably different, but the suit is about the act of discrimination Wal-Mart displays to women in general. So, with that being the case I believe this case should be heard as one class-action case and not individually so I disagree with Wal-Mart’s opinion on the women’s cases being heard individually.
Drogin’s report sought to find discrepancies in the allegations of discrimination to the women who have filed the lawsuit against Wal-Mart. Drogin analyzed Wal-Mart’s employee records which accounted for 3,945,151 employees from 1996-2002. From Drogin’s analyzes I see only one area that women actually failed to perform as good or better than men and that was the cashier ratings, yet there are more women cashiers than any other position listed in his analyzes. I found that interesting to say the least. The women cashiers are paid less than men cashiers as well as they are in all other Wal-Mart positions Drogin’s report lists. Drogin also deemed the discrepancies could be because women were not as willing to relocate geographically as the men were, however Wal-Mart does not require this to be a stipulation for advancement to a management position. A geographic change only accounted for a small part of management promotion opportunities is what Drogin report is found. Wal-Mart also has a policy of posting available management positions, but this posting policy is at the discretion of the individual managers. Whereas this could account for a discrepancy because it is an unknown factor as to how many managers decide on their own to post management position openings or not. The discrepancies in Drogin’s report are small to say the least but when analyzing information you have to account for discrepancies because human error of the numbers is always a factor in analyzed data. Overall the discrepancies I feel were minor ones. I think Drogin’s report is an arguable validation of Wal-Marts discrimination practices towards women.
The simplest fix to these discrepancies is for Wal-Mart to pay women employees who do the identical job as the men the same amount of wage. Wal-Mart could save their corporation a lot of money if they would simply comply with the equal treatment laws we have here in the United States. Wal-Mart empowering their managers with the discretion as to post a management position opening is an area that could be easily corrected. Wal-Mart would simply have to require all jobs posting to be a mandatory task. This could be easily monitored to insure the policy is being followed. Monitoring could be by upper management level visits to store locations; they could also require the listing to be posted on the Wal-Mart website which is available to all who visit the website.
With Wal-Mart and their repeated neglect to instill a fair treatment environment to their employees they should be required to institute an “affirmative action” promotion program for the female employees. The “affirmative action” program should ensure that women are placed in management roles at the same rate as men not only by numbers but by salary as well. The program needs to have a training specifically geared to women for the purpose of balancing the scales of the number of qualified women promoted in the Wal-Mart organization. Not only does this affirmative action plan need to address the promotion programs but the wage discrepancies the women have endured would have to be included in this program. The Wal-Mart culture of male domination will have to change in the Wal-Mart Corporation. Truly change not; as I stated early on in this paper, just mask the appearance of equal treatment of their female employees.
Reference
Velasquez, Manuel G. /Business Ethics: Concepts & Cases, 7th edition/ Pgs. 393-396