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Standing Up to Wal-Mart


 

  Sprawl Busters ~ An International Clearinghouse on Big Box Anti-Sprawl Information

Voice of the Environment's mission is to educate the public regarding the transfer of public trust assets into private, mostly corporate, hands.
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For two decades, Voice of the Environment has stood up for the people and our communities against the avarice of corporations and the misguided policies of the corporate-dominated state.

 

We've all read about how Wal-Mart sucks the commercial life out of America's small and mid-sized towns. But less is known about the harsh restrictions Wal-Mart other big box retailers place on free speech and other constitutionally-protected citizen activities.

The loss of the town square has had profound social and political impacts on our country. Where free speech once flourished on sidewalks, corporations now claim the right to decide when, where, and how citizens exercise their constitutional rights in mega-malls.

We took on Wal-Mart's restrictions on free speech and won. In February 2004, we prevailed in the state Court of Appeals San Francisco before a three-judge appellate panel. The judges maintained that Wal-Mart had falsely arrested eight free speech protesters and remanded their case to Mendocino County Superior Court for a jury trial. Rather than face a jury, Wal-Mart settled the case.

Over the past several years, pressure on Wal-Mart has increased. Citizen groups regularly protest new stores moving into their towns. Studies showing the negative effects of Wal-Mart are proliferating. Recently, the New York Times published an article on Wal-Mart employees and the welfare system; because Wal-Mart offers only scant benefits to its employees (while cheekily referring to them as “associates”), the public is forced to pick up the tab. Another recent article showed that other big box stores like Costco manage to be profitable without being stingy.

Voice of the Environment will continue to monitor Wal-Mart, including their recent attempt to flood Napa and Sonoma counties in northern California with new, monstrous “supercenters.”


January 25, 2010
Wal-Mart cutting 11,200 jobs at Sam’s Club
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will cut about 11,200 jobs at Sam's Club warehouses as it turns over the task of in-store product demonstrations to an outside marketing company.
... more

August 20, 2006
An unbelievable truth
Is the megacorporation going green or just greenwashing its problems?
... more

August 17, 2006
Eye on Election, Democrats Run as Wal-Mart Foes
Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, a likely Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, delivered a 15-minute, blistering attack to warm applause from Democrats and union organizers here on Wednesday.
... more

May 3, 2006
Unions Protest Wal-Mart Health Care
Unions representing six million workers planned to rally Wednesday in 35 cities from New York to Los Angeles to protest what they called inadequate health care coverage by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the nation's largest employer.
... more

April 23, 2006
Retail giant Wal-Mart and its business practices evolve into a political issue
There is no candidate. There are no ballots. There won't be an Election Day. And yet it may be the hottest, highest-stakes political contest in America today. It's the campaign against Wal-Mart.
... more

March 9, 2006
Everyday Low Vices
In the late 1940s, when Sam Walton was franchising a Ben Franklin's variety store in Newport, Ark., he had a simple but momentous idea.
... more

January 25, 2006
What Wal-Mart Wants from the WTO
The end is near. In the time it took to create the world, the global justice movement may herald in the demise of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
... more

January 23, 2006
Wal-Mart's Health Keeps People Sick
Why can't a company that had a quarter-trillion dollars in sales and earned $10.3 billion in fiscal 2005 provide affordable health coverage for its lowest-paid workers?
... more

January 17, 2006
Wal-Mart Pulls the Plug on Valley Site
Retail behemoth Wal-Mart has dropped its plans to open a store in Northridge after deciding it did not want to conduct a lengthy environmental impact report demanded by neighbors and city officials.
... more

December 12, 2005
Big Box Balderdash
I think I've just seen the worst economic argument of 2005.
... more

November 27, 2005
Battling Wal-Mart
The Wal-Mart Watch campaign, a labor-environmental group highly critical of America's mega-mega retailer, recently launched more than 1,000 events nationwide for its "Higher Expectations Week."
... more

November 9, 2005
Wal-Mart's Tax On Us
Wal-Mart, the Alpha Dog of discount stores, has also become the Alpha Hog at the public trough.
... more

November 2, 2005
Wal-Mart: is this the worst company in the world?
It is the biggest private employer in America with a turnover equivalent to that of a medium-sized country, but churches, unions, and an innovative film-maker are set on holding Wal-Mart to account.
... more

September 13, 2005
Wal-Mart Accused of Denying Workers' Rights
An American labor rights group filed a class action lawsuit today against Wal-Mart Stores Inc., alleging that suppliers in five foreign countries denied workers a minimum wage, overtime pay and the right to unionize.
... more

July 17, 2005
How Costco Became the Anti-Wal-Mart
Jim Sinegal, the chief executive of Costco Wholesale, the nation's fifth-largest retailer, had all the enthusiasm of an 8-year-old in a candy store as he tore open the container of one of his favorite new products: granola snack mix. "You got to try this; it's delicious," he said. "And just $9.99 for 38 ounces."
... more

July 6, 2005
Tackling Wal-Mart takes Oregonization
Nothing I have written in the past three years has drawn the response of a Feb. 17, 2004 column deploring the Wal-Marting of America.
... more

May 31, 2005
Is Shopping at Wal-Mart Immoral?
Big discounters help the poor make ends meet, but they create more poverty when they pay low wages and force local stores to close. It's a conundrum facing investors and shoppers alike.
... more

May 11, 2005
Wal-Mart Crushes Union by Closing Store
Starting the first Wal-Mart employees' union in North America seemed a good idea at the time to Sylvie Lavoie.
... more

April 7, 2005
Wal-Mart's Culture of Crime and Greed
Manipulation, greed and wrongdoing in the name of profit are as much a part of the Wal-Mart business model as are those low, low prices.
... more

February 22, 2005
Wal-Mart's anti-union strategy
Last week, Wal-Mart announced it was shutting down its recently unionized store in Jonquire, Quebec. Its stated reason for doing so was that the store was simply not profitable. But the closing fits in with a larger pattern of behaviour. For several years Wal-Mart has aggressively pursued an anti-union strategy.
... more

Article Archive
April 26th, 2010

Largest Discrimination Lawsuit in U.S. History Gets Green Light
After years of delay, female Wal-Mart workers may get their day in court

Contact: : Art Silverman art@tunerstrategies.com

WASHINGTON, D.C. --

After nearly a decade of pre-trial wrangling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled today in a 100-page decision that hundreds of thousands of female Wal-Mart current and former employees who have worked at Wal-Mart stores at any time since June 2001 are entitled to proceed with a massive class action lawsuit charging sex discrimination by America’s largest retailer.

Their case (Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) alleges systematic discrimination against women in compensation and promotions at Wal-Mart and its subsidiary, Sam’s Club, throughout the United States. It is the largest civil rights class action in history.

Betty Dukes, a Wal-Mart greeter in Pittsburg, Calif., first filed suit along with five of her co- workers in 2001. Wal-Mart attorneys have been fighting ever since to keep the case from ever going to trial. But the women have prevailed on the question of whether the case can go to trial on behalf of the class. Today’s decision – the third from the Ninth Circuit -- is from an expanded panel of 11 Court of Appeals judges.

In announcing the decision today, a majority of the judges, who heard the case, found that it was a proper class action for female employees who have worked at Wal-Mart since the suit was filed in June 8, 2001. The class can seek lost pay and injunctive relief. It sent the case back to the lower court to determine whether women who were employed prior to that date may be part of the class and whether the class can seek punitive damages.

The opinion rejected Wal-Mart’s argument that the case was too large to be a class. Judge Susan Graber, joining the majority, explained the ruling was “unremarkable... [a]lthough the size of this class action is large, mere size does not render a case unmanageable.”

“It has taken a very long time, and a tremendous amount of work, but it looks like we’re finally going to get our day in court,” says lead plaintiff Betty Dukes. “That’s all we’ve ever asked for.”

The women’s case has been bolstered by Wal-Mart’s own records. Although more than two- thirds of Wal-Mart’s hourly employees are female, the records showed that women represented fewer than one-third of lower-level managers, and only 15 percent of store manager positions. Women were paid less than men of equal seniority in every major job category, even though women on average had higher performance ratings and lower turnover rates than men.

“Wal-Mart tries to project an improved image as a good corporate citizen,” says Brad Seligman, lead counsel for the plaintiffs and executive director of the Impact Fund, a nonprofit Berkeley, California foundation. “But no amount of PR is going to work until it addresses the claims of its female employees.”

Co-lead counsel Joseph Sellers, who heads the civil rights practice at Cohen Milstein, in Washington, D.C., agrees: “I hope this decision paves the way for Wal-Mart to put behind this sad chapter of its history and become as much a leader in the fair treatment of its workers as it has been a leader in financial results.”
Seligman and Sellers say they hope to be in court for the actual trial within a year.

Aside from the Impact Fund and Cohen Milstein, the plaintiffs also are represented by Equal Rights Advocates (ERA), San Francisco; the Public Justice Center in Baltimore; Davis Cowell & Bowe, San Francisco; and Tinkler Law Firm and Merit Bennett, Santa Fe, N.M. Plaintiffs’ counsel includes some of the most experienced class action and sex discrimination attorneys in the country.
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Voice of the Environment is a 501 (c-3) not-for-profit Montana-based corporation formed in 1991.