Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The U.S. Supreme Court will study on Tuesday a petition by Wal-Mart to quash a class action lawsuit by female employees. The ruling by the court will be a landmark decision, based on the number of plaintiffs alone.
The women workers, estimated to reach 1.5 million employees, charged that they were unfairly treated by the retail giant on pay and promotion. Their number is estimated to exceed all female workers in the U.S. Navy, Army, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard combined.
The suit focuses on whether the female Wal-Mart employees have enough in common for a single suit. Court of Appeals 9th Circuit Chief Judge Alex Konzinski wrote in his decision that aside from gender and the lawsuit, the millions of women who have been employed by Wal-Mart don’t have much in common.
To prove there is a common policy that led to unlawful discrimination, the plaintiffs tapped the social framework analysis of University of Illinois expert William Bielby, whose research is being questioned by other academics.
The suit was filed by six female Wal-Mart employees in 2001. The suit reached the Supreme Court after a San Francisco federal judge ruled that the suit could go forward. But the suit stayed for five years at the 9th Circuit until a panel upheld the judge’s decision.
According to the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Brad Seligman, while women make up 80 percent of hourly Wal-Mart employees, only one-third of managerial posts are held by females. There are also allegations of pay gaps – with a more than $1,000 average difference – between male and female workers, non-posting of job openings that prevents female workers from advancing and stories of discrimination ranging from being called “Janey Qs” to being told to “doll up.”
Significantly, the Supreme Court is now made up of one-third female justices. The most senior member of the court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has advanced the rights of women and is joined in the crusade by fellow Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
According to the Wal-Mart brief to the court, the plaintiffs could not prove that the company has a policy of discrimination because the suit was based on statistics sociology and anecdotes. Wal-Mart maintained it has a specific policy of non-discrimination.
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