Walmart Believes Women Are Worth Less

This is part 1 of the “Why Walmart is Bad for America” series.

During this series, we will examine a variety of issues related to Walmart and its business practices.  Today’s article focuses on Walmart’s discrimination against women.

Rolling Back Rights For Women

Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination against employees on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, but that has not prevented Walmart from offering women lower wages and less opportunities for advancement as the men the company employees.

In 2003, Dr. Richard Drogin, professor emeritus at California State University-Hayward, conducted a study on wages for female employees at Wal-Mart and found that:

• female hourly workers earn up to 37 cents less per hour than their male counterparts;

• female full-time employees working at least 45 weeks earn on average nearly $5,000 less than male employees in yearly salary;

• women make up 72 percent of Wal-Mart’s total workforce, but only 33 percent of its managers;

• and women make up 92 percent of Wal-Mart’s cashiers, but only 14 percent of Wal-Mart store managers.

- Walmart Watch, Discrimination Against Women

My wife is a hard working woman.  She works harder than most men I know, including myself.  I think she might be a little crazy for working as hard as she does, but that’s part of who she is.  Her mother is the same way.  Should they be offered lower wages for working harder than most of the men they work with?  Of course not!  Walmart disagrees, however.

Why is it that Walmart pays its female employees less than its male employees?  Why are males offered more opportunities for advancement within the company than women?  The only reason I can come up with, is that Walmart believes women are worth less.  I have worked retail in the past, both as an employee and as a manager.  There isn’t a single job in retail which can be done any better by one gender or the other.  Stocking shelves, managing employees, assisting customers, even loss prevention can be handled just as well by women as by men.

Put up your Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

In 2000, a 54 year old woman named Betty Dukes filed a discrimination claim against her employer… Walmart.  She claimed that Walmart refused to provide her with the training she needed to advance to a salaried position, regardless of excellent performance reviews over a six year period.

In 2001, the lawsuit was granted class action status by the US District Court in San Francisco, the plaintiffs seeking to represent all women who work or have previously worked for Walmart since December 26, 1998.  Class certification was granted in June of 2004 by Federal District Judge Martin Jenkins, though Walmart appealed the decision.  However, on February 6, 2008, the district court’s class certification was affirmed by the Ninth Circuit.

Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is the largest civil rights class action suit in US history, with over 1.6 million women represented.

Low Prices From Low Wages

The low prices offered by Walmart are in part due to the lower wages paid by Walmart.  If Walmart were to join the rest of us here in reality and offer its female employees equal wages for equal work, what impact would that have on Walmart’s pricing?

Let’s take a trip down Hypothetical Lane, shall we?  Let’s imagine that all 1.6 million women represented in the class action lawsuit against Walmart only worked for the company for a total of 20 hours.  That would equate to a total of 32,000,000 hours worked (1.6 million x 20 hours each).  If these women made $0.37 less per hour as stated by Dr. Richard Drogin’s study, that would mean Walmart saved $11,840,000.00 in wages.

Think about that for a minute.  That’s almost 12 million dollars for only a single part time week for each of the women represented in the lawsuit.  A significant majority of those 1.6 million women worked for Walmart more than 20 hours total.  The actual figure of savings by Walmart for paying women unfair wages is much, much higher.

What are your thoughts about this?

Similar Posts:

• Conclusion of the “Why Walmart is Bad for America” Series
• Walmart Hurts Communities, Contributes to Poverty
• After School Special, Walmart’s Child Labor Violations
• Walmart Believes “Made in America” is so 1985
• Why Walmart is Bad for America Series