The lawsuit Dukes v. Wal-Mart is considered the biggest lawsuit in the history of the United States. The action against company was filed in 2001 by female employees of the stores. The lawsuit alleges that Wal-Mart actively discriminated agains

Statistic facts of analysis:

> Women work force outnumbered men by almost 4-1 among supervisors, and still only 45.1% of supervisors were women;

> Low numbers also were in the positions with a high pay, only 37.6% of Assistant Managers, 21.9% of Co-Managers, and 15.5% of store Managers;

> 65% of hourly employees are women compared to about 33% of management employees;

> Wal-Mart's number of women in management (32.4%) is significantly behind several of the other retailers reporting (43.2% to 65.3%);

> It took on average 4.38 years for women to reach an Assistant Manager Position, comparing to 2.86 years for men. To reach a Store Manager position, the average male needed 8.64 years comparing to 10.12 years for a female employee

Unfortunately, even after these statistics was introduced to the judges, the case was still tossed out by Supreme Court. The Court supported its decision by stating that it's very hard to make correct opinion regarding 1.5 employees that were mistreated, because everyone's situation is different, and some females workers could have been dismissed by promotion Committee of the Wal-Mart not because of their gender, but because of their different individual situations. Because of that, the case against Wall-mart was changed from representing 1.5 females workers nationwide to 90.000 women employees who are currently or formerly employed at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores in four regions in California and neighboring states.

The impact of this legal action on women at Wal-Mart and corporations overall was described by Brad Seligman with a statement that he made, "The case we are starting today is the first of many". (2) In my opinion the biggest affect that this case has accomplished, is providing the strength to mistreated minority groups (not only women), to fight back for the fear treatment from giant corporation.

Since the lawsuit was filed, Wal-Mart and many other corporations' policies were changed. As stated in the text, after the public accusations "Law firms released reports on how to avoid or at least lower the chances of facing similar litigation". (3) (morganlewis.com). This meant that even though the case was not accepted by Supreme Court, it still provided a positive impact on the diversity and gender issues in big corporations.

I personally was very surprised that the case was dismissed even after the statistical information which was provided to the Court. I might agree with judges, that is some cases of possible discriminations the gender of employees didn't play any role, but when 1.5 million females are complaining about abuses that they sustain because of their sex, any person would raise a red flag realizing that there is something wrong with the Wal-Mart's attitude towards female employees.

References

) Sample page of Wal-Mart's online Application For Entry-Level Management Positions 79

Plaintiffs Third Amended Complaint ¶ 2, Dukes v. Wal-Mart (N.D. Cal. 2001) at

http://www.walmartclass.com/staticdata/pleadings/p4.html.

2) Andrew M, (2011) New York Times: Female Wal-Mart Employees File a New Bias Case. New York, N. Y: New York Times Company

3) See http://www.morganlewis.com/pubs/ dukes%20v.%20walmart.pdf

Dukes v. Wal-Mart 2

Running head: Dukes v. Wal-Mart