• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Supreme Court throws out huge discrimination suit against Wal-Mart

toddwv said:
Wow... what a disgusting opinion by a right leaning court...

So the Constitution doesn't prohibit discrimination? Seriously? Wow... the opinion is disturbing on multiple levels and just goes along with the "women as property" meme that seems to be pervading the right-wing these days.

I noticed that all the women justices cast dissenting opinions.
Click to expand...

If I Scalia had not publicly voiced that opinion, I might be less concerned, but since he has, I have to wonder what it means in the long run. Was he sending a signal of some sort?

winston53660 said:
Maybe it is time to look at the ERA again?
Click to expand...

I've had that conversation with several women in the last couple months. Seems it might be time for that fight again.
 
It's ironic that all three female justices are having issues with this gender case and only one male.

I do *not* feel that wrongdoing on such a wide scope can be proven - period. Such things are on an individual case by case basis or in RE to a small group of females who can argue their individual case.

But 1.5 million women? Whose to say that 1/2 of them weren't just crappy employees who put in for a promotion and didn't remotely qualify or deserve one? I think it would be MORE unjust to give judgemen against Walmart on behalf of all those females when perhaps only a portion were actually *really* wronged.
 
Gina said:
If I Scalia had not publicly voiced that opinion, I might be less concerned, but since he has, I have to wonder what it means in the long run. Was he sending a signal of some sort?



I've had that conversation with several women in the last couple months. Seems it might be time for that fight again.
Click to expand...

Of course it was a signal. Almost everything the far right does these days is a signal. And what it signals is the continued right wing attack on political reforms of the 20th century.
 
VanceMack said:
I thought the claims of this case were weak from the get-go. WalMart's hourly employee staff make-up would and should have nothing to do with their senior management make-up. WalMart offers hourly jobs...unskilled labor, able to be filled by pretty much anyone. Management positions are filled not from hourly employee ranks but from qualified candidates, most likely with a graduate level business management background. Truly an apples/oranges comparison. National averages rank anywhere from 11-16% of women senior management positions. If WalMart is bangin in at 33% they are breaking the trends.

UC Davis: Spotlight: Where are the women?
Click to expand...

To the bolded comment: Not according to Walmart's website:


Opportunities for Everyone

We have a long history of promoting from within and advancing the careers of our dedicated associates. Nationally, nearly 70 percent of our store management started as hourly associates.
Click to expand...
Walmartstores.com: Associates

Field Leadership and Training Development

Training programs for field associates provide the technical, functional, management and leadership skills needed for success in all operating divisions. For instance, in the Walmart Stores division, their learning university works to develop trainings such as Assistant management training (AMT), focused on the leadership skills that drive future success.
Click to expand...

Walmartstores.com: Opportunity to Lead

70% of their store management started as associates.
 
Gina said:
To the bolded comment: Not according to Walmart's website:



Walmartstores.com: Associates
Walmartstores.com: Opportunity to Lead

70% of their store management started as associates.
Click to expand...

According to the link you just cited, 56.6% of their employees are women. According the comments by justice Ginsberg, 33% of their management are women. Thats just not that shocking of a disparity. Like I said originally...looks like a weak case from the get-go...
"In the past four years, Walmart was named among the Top Companies for Executive Women by the National Association for Female Executives (NAFE),
Best Companies for Multicultural Women by Working Mother Media, and as one of the Top 50 Companies for Latinas by Latina Style magazine."
 
This is a good thing. As much as have bad mouthed Walmart for doing so much Business with China and for the way they treat Americans vendors this might have caused irreparable.
 
Let's call this ruling what it truly is: protectionism on behalf of Wal-Mart.

Now, before anyone starts in on me, let me say I happen to agree somewhat with Aunt Spiker but only from the standpoint that it would be very difficult to prove that every female listed in the class action lawsuit were, in fact, discriminated against just because they are female. It's very possible that a great majority of them simply were not qualified for the higher position/pay raise they sought. Therefore, just as in the now famous PG&E case the catipaluted Erin Brockovich to fame, without that one smoking gun that spells out that Wal-Mart purposely under-paid and under-employed their female employees, it would be very difficult to lump every client under the same case. However, I also believe money was the primary reason the ascenting SC justices ruled in Wal-Mart's favor. Imagine what a class action lawsuite would have done to Wal-Mart if the court ruled against them? Is it fair? No; not if the ruling was based on protecting a major U.S. retailor from having to pay out the nose vice making proper ruling based on the evidence presented.

My hope is that those SC justices who ruled in Wal-Mart's favor did so based on the evidence and not on their personal beliefs of preserving corporate prosperity.
 
Last edited:
VanceMack said:
According to the link you just cited, 56.6% of their employees are women. According the comments by justice Ginsberg, 33% of their management are women. Thats just not that shocking of a disparity. Like I said originally...looks like a weak case from the get-go...
"In the past four years, Walmart was named among the Top Companies for Executive Women by the National Association for Female Executives (NAFE),
Best Companies for Multicultural Women by Working Mother Media, and as one of the Top 50 Companies for Latinas by Latina Style magazine."
Click to expand...

Justice Ginsberg cited a different stat in her dissent:
"Women fill 70% of the hourly jobs in the retailer's stores, but make up only 33% of the management employees," she wrote. "The higher one looks in the organization, the lower the percentage of women."
Click to expand...

In citing those statistics, Justice Ginsberg was addressing the class of women bringing the suit. Executives do not appear to be part of the discussion.
 
Gina said:
Justice Ginsberg cited a different stat in her dissent:


In citing those statistics, Justice Ginsberg was addressing the class of women bringing the suit. Executives do not appear to be part of the discussion.
Click to expand...

THAT is something I am REALLY interested in hearing about.

For the female sin the higher-end of the Walmart workforce: what is their input into this entire situation? What is their higher/promotion process?

I would love to hear their views.

But you know what - no one should ever look to another female and expect there to be some sort of 'gender bond' to help boost them up - women in the workforce usually don't function that way.
 
Aunt Spiker said:
But you know what - no one should ever look to another female and expect there to be some sort of 'gender bond' to help boost them up - women in the workforce usually don't function that way.
Click to expand...

I never functioned that way, whether I was interviewing to get a job or promotion or interviewing to hire/promote. I don't know why you would even bring that up as I've seen nothing in the reporting to suggest it.
 
Gina said:
I never functioned that way, whether I was interviewing to get a job or promotion or interviewing to hire/promote. I don't know why you would even bring that up as I've seen nothing in the reporting to suggest it.
Click to expand...

Nor I. It's a rather strange suggestion, actually. Almost like it's back to the 1950's in here.
 
I'm like, meh, on the entire issue of WalMart. There's no WalMart nearby, so I don't really have a dog in the race. I do know that unions have been trying to unionize WalMart for over a decade, leading to all kinds of harassment and an organized demonization campaign. I also know that WalMart is one of the few national employers who actually hire people over the age of 50 and according to my sister-in-law, who is nearing 80 and has worked for them for a couple of decades, they are a good place to work. She had health insurance that covered several surgeries she required over the past years. I'm a fervent supporter of female equality, but the evidence was thin, suspect, and the result of a union-pushing agenda.

There are three kinds of statistics, y'all know the old saying: "Lies, damned lies, and statistics!" I'm not surprised SCOTUS declined to hear this case. It's a conservative court. That alone chagrins me, but there you have it.
 
Last edited:
Gina said:
I never functioned that way, whether I was interviewing to get a job or promotion or interviewing to hire/promote. I don't know why you would even bring that up as I've seen nothing in the reporting to suggest it.
Click to expand...

Not referencing an article - sorry if you went looking for a quote :)

I never thought like that, either.
 
Aunt Spiker said:
Not referencing an article - sorry if you went looking for a quote :)

I never thought like that, either.
Click to expand...

Ok. I couldn't see how it applied to this situation. I didn't know if you were implying it did.
 
the sheer volume of 5-4 rulings should indicate to the honest amongst us that our system has become a farce.
 
Gina said:
Ok. I couldn't see how it applied to this situation. I didn't know if you were implying it did.
Click to expand...

I was trying to say that I'm interested in the views on this of the female managers - but don't think they are 'responsible' to ensure that more females get hired/promoted.
 
Aunt Spiker said:
I was trying to say that I'm interested in the views on this of the female managers - but don't think they are 'responsible' to ensure that more females get hired/promoted.
Click to expand...

Of course they aren't responsible to do that. Having been employed over twenty years in offices that were dominated by women (rank and file or executives) I've never encountered that attitude. Even when a woman executive was hiring or promoting. It was sink or swim on merit alone. So I'm having trouble with the concept.
 
Gina said:
Of course they aren't responsible to do that. Having been employed over twenty years in offices that were dominated by women (rank and file or executives) I've never encountered that attitude. Even when a woman executive was hiring or promoting. It was sink or swim on merit alone. So I'm having trouble with the concept.
Click to expand...

Niether have I - I didn't want my post to come across as if I was suggesting it. . . just being cautionary.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
This is BS...
This should of been heard.
One of the my many reasons i dont shop at walmart.
Click to expand...

Why? what is your understanding as to what constitutes a proper class action suit?
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/business/21walmart.html

Joseph M. Sellers, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said he would pursue three routes: filing individual claims with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; slicing the giant class-action lawsuit into smaller ones that would have a better chance of advancement; and pursuing individual discrimination cases. “Instead of one case, this case will be splintered into many pieces,” he said in a call with reporters.

Wal-Mart’s lawyers disputed Mr. Sellers’s interpretation of the Supreme Court’s ruling, but the plaintiffs’ counsel had already been studying how to pursue smaller cases.

“One of the things we started a while ago doing is preparing and evaluating for a number of women filing charges with the E.E.O.C., probably individual charges, though some of them may be framed a little bit more broadly,” Mr. Sellers said in an interview. He plans to begin filing claims within one to two months, and might file up to several thousand of them, he added.
Click to expand...
 
lpast said:
Wow...Im surprised I thought for sure they would hear this case...I dont know the facts about it...I dont have enough info to even have an opinion, except Im surprised they didnt take this case
Click to expand...

That's my opinion... It has the makings of a class action lawsuit, how could they say otherwise?
 
Gina said:
I'm disappointed, because this (quote below) points to the very real possibility of systematic discrimination.



I'm also not surprised Scalia wrote the deciding opinion.



Scalia: Women Don't Have Constitutional Protection Against Discrimination

His opinion in this case, ignores the statistics I quoted in Ginsberg's dissent. The numbers are very compelling.

It was disappointing that even if the suit had gone forward, the court agreed unanimously that they couldn't seek monetary damages, but it still would have been worth it to end inequities in Walmart's employment policies.
Click to expand...

Scalia says there probably is discrimination, but that isn't his problem... WTF. Saying the supreme court should stay out of discrimination, is an insane argument... What about segregation and Title 7.
 
BDBoop said:
I agree, Gina. I don't shop there now, and now I will shop there never.
Click to expand...

I am mad too, but I am more pissed off at the ****ing supreme court than anybody else.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom