Do female employees of Walmart have the right to bring a class action lawsuit charging that the company discriminated against them in awarding pay increases and promotions? That’s a question the U.S. Supreme Court (Wal-Mart Stores, Inc v. Dukes) will be hearing on March 29.
As part of the lawsuit, lawyers have collected statements from more than one hundred women detailing what they were told by Walmart managers.
Here are a few samples that the National Women’s Law Center has noted:
Women’s family responsibilities interfere with work responsibilities; they “should be at home with a bun in the oven”[14] instead of working.
Women can’t handle certain jobs—and can’t work in certain “traditionally male” departments—because those positions are “a man’s job”[20-] or “need[]a man.[21]
One woman testified that she “overheard [the] Store Manager… telling another male assistant manager that all women should be ‘at home with a bun in the oven’ and ‘barefoot and pregnant.’”
Learn more about the lawsuit and the obstacles facing female employees of Walmart.
Publishers Note. We contacted the employee who represented herself as a member of Congressman Elijah E. Cummings staff, along with her boss Mr. Curtis Odom and Commander Glynn Smith, Press Secretary to the Commandant for comment on this post. None responded to our requests.
The employee’s name was to have been released in this post, but as of yesterday we were informed the employee will be named in a civil law suit sometime this summer seeking unspecified damages. We were asked to redact her name until that suit is filed.
Anyone who has ever tried to get information out of Coast Guard via the Freedom of Information or Privacy Act knows it can take years to get a response. We’ve alluded to the letter we release today, but for effect it’s important to point out that formal complainants against Coast Guard reached out to Representative Elijah E. Cummings office on February 23, 2011 at 2:52 pm concerning the actions of a Coast Guard employee who identified herself in correspondence as a member of his staff. Just 24 hours later the General Counsel to the United States House of Representative, Mr. Pittard responded in letter on the 24th at 4:37 pm. That’s beyond light speed for the federal government.
Cummings is an attorney and not likely to be played as fool by anyone. The speed at which congress moved to absolve Cummings of any responsibility or connection to the actions of this U.S. Coast Guard or its employee [REDACTED] was swift, exacting and final. Coast Guards reaction was striking in comparison to that of congress; they wrapped their arms around [REDACTED] and announced to the formal complainants that they didn’t see anything inappropriate about her actions. Time-out-for-training: [REDACTED] was an active duty officer at the time she drafted an e-mail for the complainants to send to the powerful chairman of the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard, Mr. Cummings.
Your meeting topic: inequities in the OCR PROCESS for complaints/ grievances and/or “near dictatorship-ness” in the management of the OCR.
Good luck. Remember — my non-association in every aspect is critical to the forward progress of this endeavor.
[REDACTED]
Proposing that type of statement by a commissioned officer of the military against her chain of command is insubordinate at best, and boarders on mutiny at worst.
Reading [REDACTED] proposed e-mail makes us wonder what endeavor. What was [REDACTED] objective, she had already identified herself in correspondence as a congressional liaison assigned to Cummings staff. Mr. Pittard makes it clear that she was not, so what exactly was the endeavor she was working towards. More importantly, who was she working for. We already know as a matter of fact she was working on the Commandant’s staff at the time, not Cummings. But who was pulling her strings, or was she acting alone.
To quote Cummings at the April 2009 hearing on Coast Guard Civil Rights and Diversity,
“There have apparently been no consequences for these failures – except perhaps the individual consequences that Coast Guard personnel may have borne, some of whom may have been denied the opportunity to effectively challenge what they may have felt was discriminatory treatment.”
Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD), Chairman, House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime transportation, 1 April 2009
Cummings made that statement in early 2009. In mid 2011 it appears the consequences remain the same and will be borne by the formal complainants who may have had their opportunity to effective challenge discriminatory treatment.