Wal-Mart
It All Started When Seven Female Employees in San

question 118

Multiple Choice

Wal-Mart
It all started when seven female employees in San Francisco sued for employment discrimination. Then a federal judge granted class-action status to the suit, allowing 1.5 million women who have worked or now work for Wal- Mart to join the lawsuit and ordered the company to turn over 250 computer tapes containing payroll, performance, and promotion data for the last six years. When those data were analyzed by a statistics professor, here is what he found:
$\begin{array}{|l|l|l|l|l|}\hline \text { Job } & \text { Women } & \text { Men } & \text { Women } & \text { Men } \\\hline \text { Store Manager } & \$ 89,300 & \$ 105,700 & 14.30 \% & 85.70 \% \\\hline \text { Co-Manager } & \$ 56,300 & \$ 59,500 & 22.80 \% & 77.20 \% \\\hline \text { Asst. Manager } & \$ 37,300 & \$ 39,800 & 35.70 \% & 64.30 \% \\\hline \text { Mgt. Trainee } & \$ 22,400 & \$ 23,200 & 41.30 \% & 58.70 \% \\\hline \text { Cashier } & \$ 13,800 & \$ 14,500 & 92.50 \% & 7.50 \%\\\hline\end{array}$ Women were consistently paid less than men in the same jobs, especially store managers. And, while 65 percent of Wal­Mart's million­plus employees were female, a much smaller percentage of women held key management jobs, again especially store manager positions (just 14.3 percent) . Even after controlling for seniority, part-time status, store location, and job title, women were still paid 34 cents less per hour than male workers. Consistent with these data, it took the average woman 4.4 years to be promoted to assistant manager and 10 years to become a store manager, compared to just 2.9 years and 8.6 years, respectively, for the average man. Of course, Wal-Mart appealed the judge's decision to expand the case from the seven original plaintiffs to the class­action suit with 1.5 million women. That appeal and then an eventual trial or settlement may take years. The question now is what does Wal-Mart do in the interim?
Certainly, pressure is building for Wal-Mart to address these issues. Even Wal-Mart stockholders are not happy. A spokesperson for Libra Investments, which owns 30,000 shares of Wal­Mart stock, said, "We are increasingly concerned about the number of lawsuits filed against Wal-Mart and the number of negative articles in the press. We believe there is a long-term financial risk to shareholders, from community resistance to stores to [price-to- earnings] contraction."
One of the things Wal-Mart decided in response is that it will promote women and minorities proportionate to how many apply for managerial jobs. Lee Scott, Wal­Mart's CEO, said, "If 50 percent of the people applying for the job of store manager are women, we will work to make sure that 50 percent of the people receiving those jobs are women." Not everyone, however, believes this is an equitable or legal solution. Roger Clegg, a lawyer for the Center for Equal Opportunity in Virginia, said, "Based on what [CEO Lee] Scott said, that's fine if 50 percent of
the people who are most qualified happen to be female, but if all the most qualified applicants are women, they should be hiring all women, not just 50 percent. And conversely, if less than 50 percent women are the most
qualified, they shouldn't be hiring 50 percent women. Wal-Mart, in its panic to reassure people that it wouldn't discriminate against women and minorities, is saying it will be discriminating against men and non-minorities, and that's illegal." Wal­Mart, however, maintains that its approach is fair, legal, and does not constitute a quota for the promotion of women and minorities.
The other significant change that Wal-Mart is making to its organizational structure and leadership is the addition of a corporate compliance department, which will be responsible for overseeing workers' pay as well as work hours and breaks (Wal-Mart has also been sued for allegedly not paying workers the overtime pay they deserved and for not giving workers the work breaks to which they're entitled on a daily basis) , and for making sure that Wal­Mart's practices are in compliance with federal, state, and local employment laws wherever it does business throughout the world. CEO Lee Scott described the 140­person compliance office as "the eyes and ears of the board and management team."
-Refer to Wal-Mart. The promotion of women and minorities proportionate to how many apply for managerial jobs is most similar to ____________.

• A) affirmative action
• B) the access and legitimacy paradigm
• C) the glass ceiling
• D) the learning and effectiveness paradigm
• E) diversity

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Definitions:

Ether

is a class of organic compounds characterized by an oxygen atom connected to two alkyl or aryl groups, historically used as an anesthetic.

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Infectious diseases are disorders caused by pathogenic microorganisms such as viruses, bacteria, fungi, or parasites that can be spread, directly or indirectly, from one individual to another.

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