Walmart is facing a class action lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The suit accuses Walmart and Sam’s Club of gender discrimination practices concerning its female employees’ compensation and promotion.
The plaintiffs are Kathleen Forbes, Lisa O’Brien, Lou Ann Hawes, Linda Ray, Judith Danneman, Bridgette Bramley and Edna Remington. The allegations are the violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Thus, the plaintiffs are asking the court to make the defendant company stop its unlawful gender-biased actions against female employees and provide them with the appropriate compensation.
Joseph Sellers, Christine Webber, Leslie Kroeger and Diana Martin of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC and Cathleen Scott and Lindsey Wagner of Scott Wagner and Associates PA are representing the plaintiffs.
In this case, it’s essential to mention the ‘’Dukes v. Wal-Mart’’ national class action lawsuit. It was filed about ten years ago in the U.S District Court for the Northern District of California. The outcome of the lawsuit was the certification of a national class of female Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club employees. Thus, the court concluded that WalMart and Sam’s Club employment policies are discriminating female workers.
However, it was on June 20, 2011, when the U.S. Supreme Court annulled that class certification order. As a result, new guidelines are available regarding Title VII employment discrimination class actions.
The plaintiffs made a decision of filing a new lawsuit concerning employment gender discrimination, but this time not on behalf of a nationwide Class. So, they filed the lawsuit on behalf of 3 regional classes, which include women who currently work and used to work for Walmart and Sam’s Club. Here are these regions: Walmart Region 46, Walmart Region 10 and Sam’s Club Region 6.
According to the gender discrimination class action lawsuit, the company was implementing discriminatory policies against female employees in each of the above-mentioned regions in terms of pay and promotion. Furthermore, the plaintiffs state that these policies cannot be justified by business necessity.
The complaint claims that the defendant failed to provide Class Members with equal employment opportunities related to compensation and promotion. They didn’t receive equal pay for work done on an hourly basis. The plaintiffs note that the number of female employees from each region is about 10,000.
The plaintiffs also referred to certain comments made by male assistants who have a discriminatory nature. For instance, these assistants told female employees that they cannot complete certain management tasks and have such job positions because of having children. Another example is that female employees were recommended to take care of their kids instead of thinking about promotion opportunities.
Moreover, the suit mentions concrete cases, when women having the same job responsibilities received less money than men. Even when the Walmart management team became aware of the situation, they failed to solve this problem.