Last week, Jamie appeared as a keynote speaker at the American Association of University Women-Wisconsin‘s annual conference. Next week, she’s off to Rome, Italy to speak at the midyear-meeting of the American Bar Association’s International Labor & Employment Law Committee. There, Jamie will speak a panel that will discuss caregiver discrimination in the workplace and how this issue is being addressed in the United States, Europe, and Canada.

While in Wisconsin, Jamie spoke on the importance of one of ERA’s biggest cases — Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, a class action lawsuit against the retail giant alleging that company executives systematically discriminated against women in pay and promotion, all in the name of saving money. A case like Dukes, Jamie argued in her remarks, is the exact reason for national equal pay reforms. (If you’d like to support ERA’s efforts to close the gender wage gap, you can learn more here.)

While in Italy, Jamie and her other panel members will address the growing barriers faced by mothers (and fathers) in the American workplace. From caregiver discrimination to a lack of access to affordable daycare and an absence of access to paid leave laws, America is becoming an increasingly hostile place to work and raise a family at the same time. For more information on the ABA conference, click here.

After the U.S. Supreme Court moved to decertify a class of more than 1 million women workers at the retail giant in 2011, ERA and its co-counsel filed a new suit against Wal-Mart in San Francisco on behalf of thousands of women at store locations across the West alleging that the company’s pay and promotion practices discriminate against women because of their sex. That suit was given the greenlight to proceed by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer last year. Read more about Breyer’s decision here.

In the coming months, ERA and new co-counsel Hadsell, Stormer, Richardson & Renick intend to file a motion to certify the class before Judge Breyer.

Contact:
Pam@turnerstrategies.com
402-305-0799

Equal Rights Advocates Executive Director Noreen Farrell available for comment
nfarrell@equalrights.org; 510-701-8243

(SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Sept. 22, 2012) A federal court has given the plaintiffs in the California-focused Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., lawsuit the green light to proceed with their gender discrimination class action against the giant retailer.

In rejecting Wal-Mart’s motion to dismiss the case, Judge Charles R. Breyer, of the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, yesterday upheld the plaintiffs’ right to proceed as a class and present evidence that Wal-Mart and its subsidiary Sam’s Club discriminated against its California region female workers in pay and promotion.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs argue that the amended class action, filed in U.S. District Court in October 2011, is in full compliance with the U.S. Supreme Court’s new guidelines for class actions in employment and discrimination cases. Those guidelines arose from the Supreme Court’s decision in the Wal-Mart v. Dukes decision.

“We have maintained all along that the Supreme Court’s decision did not preclude us from seeking justice for the women of Wal-Mart through class actions consistent with its new guidelines and standards, nor did the Court rule on the merits of the case,” said lead counsel Brad Seligman, of the Impact Fund. “This decision vindicates our argument.”

Plaintiffs’ counsel Noreen Farrell, executive director of Equal Rights Advocates, adds: “The women of Wal-Mart have been waiting for more than a decade for their day in court. Sex discrimination in pay and promotion hurts lives and families. We applaud the decision giving our clients the green light to prove their claims.”

The case began in the same U.S. District Court in June 2001 when the plaintiffs brought suit against Wal-Mart on behalf of a nationwide class of female workers alleging pay and promotion discrimination. The District Court certified the national class in 2004, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the lower court decision in 2010. Wal-Mart appealed The Ninth Circuit’s ruling to the Supreme Court, which reversed the decision in June 2011.

Plaintiffs’ co-lead counsel Joseph Sellers, of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, PLLC, states: “We have strong new evidence that Wal-Mart has a long and egregious history of pay and promotion discrimination throughout its California stores. We welcome the opportunity to present this evidence to the Court.”

Relying on well-documented discrimination in pay and management promotion practices, the named plaintiffs represent more than 100,000 current or former women employees—with the exception of store managers and pharmacists— of California Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores. The class includes women who worked at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores and were subject to pay and promotion discrimination at any time since Dec. 26, 1998.

Named California plaintiffs are current Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., employees Betty Dukes, an 18-year employee who works at a cashier/greeter in a Contra Costa County Wal-Mart, and Christine Kwapnoski, a 26-year employee who works as an assistant manager in a Contra Costa County Sam’s Club, a division of Wal-Mart. Also named are former employees Edith Arana, of Los Angeles County; Deborah Gunter, of Riverside County; and Patricia Surgeson, of Sacramento County — all of whom worked at Wal-Mart stores in California.

Judge Breyer set a hearing for Feb. 15, 2013, on the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification.

In addition to the case before the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, another case class action pay and discrimination case against Wal-Mart, Odle v. Wal-Mart has been filed in a federal court in Texas, and other regional cases are expected to be filed elsewhere in the nation this year.

For more information on the case, visit www.walmartclass.com.

Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., plaintiffs are represented by the Impact Fund, Berkeley, Calif.; Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, PLLC, Washington, D.C.; Equal Rights Advocates (ERA), San Francisco, Calif.; Davis Cowell & Bowe, LLP, San Francisco, Calif.; and the Law Office of Sheila Thomas.

“Congress has sent a loud and clear message today that it will not fix practices that have caused a gender wage gap in nearly every profession in this country. This complacency makes the continued fight by female retail workers in Dukes v. Wal-Mart as important today as it was when the case was filed over a decade ago,” stated Noreen Farrell, Executive Director of Equal Rights Advocates (ERA). ERA represents the plaintiffs in Dukes v. Wal-Mart along with The Impact Fund, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, and Davis, Cowell & Bowe LLP.

It has been almost one year since the Supreme Court handed down its decision on class certification in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes. Though the Court rejected a nationwide class in the case, the Dukes plaintiffs filed an amended action on behalf of current and former Wal-Mart employees in California. A similar state-focused suit has been filed on behalf of women workers at Wal-Mart from Texas and others are being developed across the country.

This Friday, June 8, 2012, a United States District Court judge in the Northern District of California will consider a motion by Wal-Mart to dismiss the amended complaint filed by plaintiffs in Dukes v. Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart challenges the narrower class action on the grounds that it is precluded by the Supreme Court decision. Plaintiffs strongly reject this argument: “It is about time that Wal-Mart allows these women their day in court. The company can dodge adjudication on the merits of their claims for only so long,” stated Noreen Farrell of Equal Rights Advocates.

The PFA would have eradicated pay secrecy policies faced by the plaintiffs in the Wal-Mart case and other low-wage workers. These policies prevent employees from gaining information necessary to enforce their rights. “We are disappointed that Congress failed to seize the great opportunity offered by the PFA. Equal Rights Advocates remains poised for continued and future efforts to achieve wage justice for working women,” stated ERA staff attorney Jamie Dolkas.

Equal Rights Advocates
www.equalrights.org
Advice & Counseling Hotline: 1-800-839-4372