San Francisco judges rule against Wal-Mart (yawn)

From the UK Independent...

The biggest sex discrimination lawsuit in US history has taken a big step forward with the ruling by a federal appeals court allowing a complaint brought by six women in 2001 against Wal-Mart to proceed as a class-action case. The decision means that over one million past and present female staff may seek compensation from the world's largest retailer which could ultimately run into the billions of dollars.

The panel of three judges at the San Francisco court did not pronounce on the merits of the case but upheld a 2004 lower court ruling allowing it to go forward as a class-action issue. Wal-Mart, however, vowed to continue the fight, first by asking the appeals court to reconsider the decision, and if that fails, by taking the matter to the Supreme Court in Washington.

First of all, does anybody in their right mind think Wal-Mart would ever have a snowball's chance in heck of getting a fair trial in San Francisco? Really?

Second, the case itself is ludicrous. Let me repost what I posted a few months ago about the allegations that Wal-Mart practices gender-based discriminations...

Who isn't? I go into the men's room based on gender discrimination. I shop in the men's section for clothing based on gender discrimination. The term "gender discrimination" is treated as if it, in itself, is describing a bad thing. It isn't. Everyone, Everyone, discriminates based on gender.

But, there are cases of inappropriate gender discrimination. (note that the complaint made by the fake pastors didn't call it "inappropriate gender discrimination", but simply "gender discrimination"). But statistic rarely, ever give you an accurate view of when inappropriate gender discrimination has occurred, and almost all of the "evidence" against Wal-Mart in the class action suit being chummed by low-life attorneys is based on statistics. 

Women simply aren't as assertive as men. It's a fact of life, and pretending they are helps no one. But, there are some women who see that difference and try to compensate. Unfortunately most do so by simply becoming unbearably pushy and bullying. (Yes, I know there's a word for that, but I don't like using it) So when it comes to a qualified pool of management applicants, men will be better represented, and you will always (unless another form of inappropriate gender discrimination is applied) find more men in management.

Another dirty little secret of life is that entry level positions in quite a number of industries go most of the time to women. Armed with an Associate in Business Administration and an Associated in Management I hit the pavement in my earlier years looking for entry level positions in accounting firms or other related businesses. What I discovered is that I was being passed over for girls, who had no degree and no experience. But, while entry level positions were handed out freely to highly unqualified women, advancements weren't. Easy in, but not easy up. It was those rare men who somehow managed to get in the door that advancements were given to. Unfair? Really? Why is it unfair that men get advanced more easily, but not unfair that women get in the door more easily. When the National Organization for Women starts complaining about the low expectations businesses have for entry level women, then I'll start taking them serious about complaints of few women in management. 

Notice that no one is complaining that Wal-Mart actually hires more women than men, only that they advance more men than women. Hmmmmmmm.

Meanwhile scavenging lawyers are harassing Wal-Mart because of the very phenomenon that women enjoy when it benefits them, but whine about when it doesn't. 

That being said, Wal-Mart has always had a problem (as do most bigger business) with accountability among its management. Jerks may be hard to get along with, but sometimes they improve profits by streamlining personnel expenses. Ultimately it's a short-term, and self-defeating tactic, because it lowers payroll at the expense of employee loyalty, and employee loyalty translates into efficiency. But a brusk, insensitive, no-nonsense manager can strip off the dead wood from a low performing store, which endears him to management, who then will sometimes look the other way when complaints arise about his (or her) tactics. But, that's a fairly common business practice, and a by-product of that is an increase in the very kind of complaints Wal-Mart is being accused of. But that increase is typically not in legitimate complaints, but retaliatory complaints over other perceived wrongs that just don't sound as good as "sexual discrimination".

Here's another interesting thing to note. There are four law firms and three non-profit organizations in the class action suit against Wal-Mart. Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld and Toll is one of them. Of the 61 attorneys they list, only 38 have distinctly male names, 18 have distinctly female names and 5 have names that, well, it's anybody's guess. So if we look at only those obviously male or female, that's 56 attorneys, 32% of which are women. Remember, the complaint is that Wal-Mart is unfairly discriminating because only 33% of their management is female.

Then there's Davis, Cowell and Bowe. Twenty four attorneys listed, 17 men, 7 women. So only 29% of their attorneys are women.

The other two are small firms. Tinkler & Firth (there's Stephen Tinkler and Charlie Firth, so they have 0% women.) and Merit Bennet. He's a guy, and listed only by name among those working on the class action suit, but his firm is Bennet and Kosh (Talia Kosh), and there's no info on who Talia Kosh is.

So half of the firms suing Wal-Mart have an even poorer "record" (if you call raw statistics a record, which they're certainly doing) of what they are implying is inappropriate gender discrimination.

The Independent article claims that Wal-Mart will be unlikely to prevail in the higher courts, but higher courts overturning the lunacy handed to them by lower courts is actually fairly commonplace, especially when those cases originate in the 9th circuit, renown for their moronic decisions. Besides which, Limeys still haven't figured out that socialized medicine is a bad idea I doubt they're the best expert on the American court system, not to mention the complexities of workplace ethics in a capitalist setting.

Posted by Danny Carlton at February 8, 2007 6:48 AM