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The Dukes Of Walmart - A Thread about [Sexual Discrimination]

2

Posts

  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    MrMister wrote: »
    Can I assume you're all for massive deportation efforts for all 20 million+ illegal immigrants?

    Excellent topic change.

    Not really. If you don't think a powerful centralized federal government has the responsibility or capability or feasibility to actually enforce enacted laws that is their duty to uphold, why would you expect a loosely incorporated company staffed with typically sub-intelligent staff to hold fast to progressive gender ideology in its lowest reaches?

    The two aren't connected, but the logic behind them is.

    Atomika on
  • EvanderEvander Disappointed Father Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    And lets not forget that Dukes has a potential plaintiff class of over 1 million people. That's a full 1/300th or thereabouts of the US.

    Hmm. I find that a questionable claim.

    One in every 150 people are disgruntled Wal-Mart employees?

    that would be 2/300ths

    Evander on
  • DoctorArchDoctorArch Curmudgeon Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Uh, it's the company's job to make sure the guys they hire don't do that

    It's a company with over 8400 storefronts and over 2.1 million employees, and largely based in small rural communities.

    Good luck with that.


    It's not exactly like you're pulling from the best talent pool, anyway. I'd guess most people looking for long-term employment at a place like Wal-Mart aren't going to represent the best of a progressive liberal workforce.

    I hate to break it to you but the size of the company is irrelevant. You have a clear hierarchical command structure, and those at the top I'm certain must have seen the data showing this disparity and have known about this lawsuit for some time. If a department manager is being a sexist douche, then its an assistant managers job to fix it, if the AM is a douche its the SM's job to fix it. If the SM is being a douche, its the DM's job, then the RM's, also there's various levels of human resources along the way.

    Anyone who's worked at wal-mart can tell you that in their computer system they have an elaborate system that keeps track of every single statistic involving the company down to individual stores. A store employee can't see things like payroll records, but if you can with a few clicks get a simple statistical analysis on what brands of soap do better than others, I'm sure those at the top are aware of something this major.

    Ironically, this is also how religious organizations work too. As anyone who has spent time in the recent Catholic threads can attest to.

    DoctorArch on
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  • Kipling217Kipling217 Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    @ Kahvall: Yes it is central HQ's fault. To supervise your subordinates into not being discriminatory is mandatory by law. The Managers of Wall-mart stores are hired to managed in a manner that does not contradict US law. Regional store managers are not allowed to ignore directives from central hq. If they are and you are aware of it, failure to take action makes you culpable in turn.

    If you know about a subordinate thats sexist/racists it is your duty as a employer to reprimand him. Managers that ignore company policy can be fired for cause.

    Kipling217 on
    The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
  • EvanderEvander Disappointed Father Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Archgarth wrote: »
    Uh, it's the company's job to make sure the guys they hire don't do that

    It's a company with over 8400 storefronts and over 2.1 million employees, and largely based in small rural communities.

    Good luck with that.


    It's not exactly like you're pulling from the best talent pool, anyway. I'd guess most people looking for long-term employment at a place like Wal-Mart aren't going to represent the best of a progressive liberal workforce.

    I hate to break it to you but the size of the company is irrelevant. You have a clear hierarchical command structure, and those at the top I'm certain must have seen the data showing this disparity and have known about this lawsuit for some time. If a department manager is being a sexist douche, then its an assistant managers job to fix it, if the AM is a douche its the SM's job to fix it. If the SM is being a douche, its the DM's job, then the RM's, also there's various levels of human resources along the way.

    Anyone who's worked at wal-mart can tell you that in their computer system they have an elaborate system that keeps track of every single statistic involving the company down to individual stores. A store employee can't see things like payroll records, but if you can with a few clicks get a simple statistical analysis on what brands of soap do better than others, I'm sure those at the top are aware of something this major.

    Ironically, this is also how religious organizations work too. As anyone who has spent time in the recent Catholic threads can attest to.

    depends on the religion. Catholicism has a strongly entrentched hierarchy. other religions less so

    Evander on
  • DoctorArchDoctorArch Curmudgeon Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Evander wrote: »
    Archgarth wrote: »
    Uh, it's the company's job to make sure the guys they hire don't do that

    It's a company with over 8400 storefronts and over 2.1 million employees, and largely based in small rural communities.

    Good luck with that.


    It's not exactly like you're pulling from the best talent pool, anyway. I'd guess most people looking for long-term employment at a place like Wal-Mart aren't going to represent the best of a progressive liberal workforce.

    I hate to break it to you but the size of the company is irrelevant. You have a clear hierarchical command structure, and those at the top I'm certain must have seen the data showing this disparity and have known about this lawsuit for some time. If a department manager is being a sexist douche, then its an assistant managers job to fix it, if the AM is a douche its the SM's job to fix it. If the SM is being a douche, its the DM's job, then the RM's, also there's various levels of human resources along the way.

    Anyone who's worked at wal-mart can tell you that in their computer system they have an elaborate system that keeps track of every single statistic involving the company down to individual stores. A store employee can't see things like payroll records, but if you can with a few clicks get a simple statistical analysis on what brands of soap do better than others, I'm sure those at the top are aware of something this major.

    Ironically, this is also how religious organizations work too. As anyone who has spent time in the recent Catholic threads can attest to.

    depends on the religion. Catholicism has a strongly entrentched hierarchy. other religions less so

    I concede your point and will restate that "this is how hierarchical religious organizations operate (Catholics, Mormons, Scientologists, etc.)"

    DoctorArch on
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  • EvanderEvander Disappointed Father Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Archgarth wrote: »
    Evander wrote: »
    Archgarth wrote: »
    Uh, it's the company's job to make sure the guys they hire don't do that

    It's a company with over 8400 storefronts and over 2.1 million employees, and largely based in small rural communities.

    Good luck with that.


    It's not exactly like you're pulling from the best talent pool, anyway. I'd guess most people looking for long-term employment at a place like Wal-Mart aren't going to represent the best of a progressive liberal workforce.

    I hate to break it to you but the size of the company is irrelevant. You have a clear hierarchical command structure, and those at the top I'm certain must have seen the data showing this disparity and have known about this lawsuit for some time. If a department manager is being a sexist douche, then its an assistant managers job to fix it, if the AM is a douche its the SM's job to fix it. If the SM is being a douche, its the DM's job, then the RM's, also there's various levels of human resources along the way.

    Anyone who's worked at wal-mart can tell you that in their computer system they have an elaborate system that keeps track of every single statistic involving the company down to individual stores. A store employee can't see things like payroll records, but if you can with a few clicks get a simple statistical analysis on what brands of soap do better than others, I'm sure those at the top are aware of something this major.

    Ironically, this is also how religious organizations work too. As anyone who has spent time in the recent Catholic threads can attest to.

    depends on the religion. Catholicism has a strongly entrentched hierarchy. other religions less so

    I concede your point and will restate that "this is how hierarchical religious organizations operate (Catholics, Mormons, Scientologists, etc.)"

    many cults seem to go this way as well

    which feeds in to the point about size

    Evander on
  • KhavallKhavall British ColumbiaRegistered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    @ Kahvall: Yes it is central HQ's fault. To supervise your subordinates into not being discriminatory is mandatory by law. The Managers of Wall-mart stores are hired to managed in a manner that does not contradict US law. Regional store managers are not allowed to ignore directives from central hq. If they are and you are aware of it, failure to take action makes you culpable in turn.

    If you know about a subordinate thats sexist/racists it is your duty as a employer to reprimand him. Managers that ignore company policy can be fired for cause.

    Bolded is the issue I have.

    I don't see in the story where it's shown that Wal-Mart HQ knew that this was happening at all.

    Khavall on
  • Kipling217Kipling217 Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    MrMister wrote: »
    Can I assume you're all for massive deportation efforts for all 20 million+ illegal immigrants?

    Excellent topic change.

    Not really. If you don't think a powerful centralized federal government has the responsibility or capability or feasibility to actually enforce enacted laws that is their duty to uphold, why would you expect a loosely incorporated company staffed with typically sub-intelligent staff to hold fast to progressive gender ideology in its lowest reaches?

    The two aren't connected, but the logic behind them is.

    No it isn't and you are being dishonest in saying so.

    Identifying and deporting illegal imigrants is a completly different problem then managing your own employees.

    Kipling217 on
    The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Khavall wrote: »
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    @ Kahvall: Yes it is central HQ's fault. To supervise your subordinates into not being discriminatory is mandatory by law. The Managers of Wall-mart stores are hired to managed in a manner that does not contradict US law. Regional store managers are not allowed to ignore directives from central hq. If they are and you are aware of it, failure to take action makes you culpable in turn.

    If you know about a subordinate thats sexist/racists it is your duty as a employer to reprimand him. Managers that ignore company policy can be fired for cause.

    Bolded is the issue I have.

    I don't see in the story where it's shown that Wal-Mart HQ knew that this was happening at all.

    They knew. Their command and control system allows them to see all sorts of metrics about their stores.

    AngelHedgie on
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  • CoinageCoinage Heaviside LayerRegistered User regular
    edited April 2010
    I find this funny because I work for Bed Bath and Beyond, and my experience has been that hot women are the ones who are hired and promoted, at least on the lower levels I inhabit. Maybe that's just the Operations Manager at my store, though: we only have about 45 employees, so it's not the same thing as a Walmart.

    And I have to agree that retail companies keep a lot more data than you would realize, although I don't know how much of it would be relevant to the case.

    Coinage on
  • Kipling217Kipling217 Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Khavall wrote: »
    Kipling217 wrote: »
    @ Kahvall: Yes it is central HQ's fault. To supervise your subordinates into not being discriminatory is mandatory by law. The Managers of Wall-mart stores are hired to managed in a manner that does not contradict US law. Regional store managers are not allowed to ignore directives from central hq. If they are and you are aware of it, failure to take action makes you culpable in turn.

    If you know about a subordinate thats sexist/racists it is your duty as a employer to reprimand him. Managers that ignore company policy can be fired for cause.

    Bolded is the issue I have.

    I don't see in the story where it's shown that Wal-Mart HQ knew that this was happening at all.

    Considering they have copies of every employee/store/promotion of all their employees they probably had more then an inkling as to what was going on. Its not like regional branches can hide their wrongdoings from the very people they report too for any lenght of time. Even if they tried, one of the assignments of higher ups is to verify information given to them(i.e. investigate if the regional managers are full of shit).

    Kipling217 on
    The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Evander wrote: »
    And lets not forget that Dukes has a potential plaintiff class of over 1 million people. That's a full 1/300th or thereabouts of the US.

    Hmm. I find that a questionable claim.

    One in every 150 people are disgruntled Wal-Mart employees?

    that would be 2/300ths

    Separately, the available labor force in the US is about 150 million people.

    AH claim makes the spurious assertion that not only is upward of one in 150 people a Wal-Mart employee, they're in the subset of litigious disgruntled Wal-Mart employees.

    Seeing as how I currently reside in a city of 50,000 and have no Wal-Mart at all, there must be some stores elsewhere just jam-packed with employees to make up the difference.

    Atomika on
  • EvanderEvander Disappointed Father Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Evander wrote: »
    And lets not forget that Dukes has a potential plaintiff class of over 1 million people. That's a full 1/300th or thereabouts of the US.

    Hmm. I find that a questionable claim.

    One in every 150 people are disgruntled Wal-Mart employees?

    that would be 2/300ths

    Separately, the available labor force in the US is about 150 million people.

    AH claim makes the spurious assertion that not only is upward of one in 150 people a Wal-Mart employee, they're in the subset of litigious disgruntled Wal-Mart employees.

    Seeing as how I currently reside in a city of 50,000 and have no Wal-Mart at all, there must be some stores elsewhere just jam-packed with employees to make up the difference.

    wait, you are arguing that Walmart can't possibly have that many employees, because there is no walmart in your town? Really?

    http://www.hoovers.com/company/Wal-Mart_Stores_Inc/rrjiff-1-1njea5.html

    It looks like he was wrong, by the way. The number is actually over 2mil, so yeah, that is 1 in 150.

    Now, I don't know what proportion of those might be overseas, but that is still a HUGE group.

    Evander on
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Evander wrote: »
    wait, you are arguing that Walmart can't possibly have that many employees, because there is no walmart in your town? Really?

    No, I'm arguing against one in every 150 people being a litigious disgruntled Wal-Mart employee. That's half again of their entire workforce.

    That's a ridiculously large number.


    The fact that apparently one in every 75 people works for Wal-Mart is a separate, and immensely sad, argument.

    Atomika on
  • EvanderEvander Disappointed Father Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    do you not understand the word "potential"?

    he didn't say they were all disgruntled.

    he said that is the potential number possible.

    Evander on
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Evander wrote: »
    do you not understand the word "potential"?

    he didn't say they were all disgruntled.

    he said that is the potential number possible.

    But they'd have to be disgruntled to sue their employer, right?

    I mean, stop me if I'm wrong there.


    Otherwise, it's just another case of AH stacking the data to support confirmation bias. We can all play that game. Like, did you know McDonalds potentially could be poisoning millions of people every day with anthrax? I'm appalled that no one has made their corporate paymasters answer for such irresponsible contingencies.

    Atomika on
  • EvanderEvander Disappointed Father Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Evander wrote: »
    do you not understand the word "potential"?

    he didn't say they were all disgruntled.

    he said that is the potential number possible.

    But they'd have to be disgruntled to sue their employer, right?

    I mean, stop me if I'm wrong there.


    Otherwise, it's just another case of AH stacking the data to support confirmation bias. We can all play that game. Like, did you know McDonalds potentially could be poisoning millions of people every day with anthrax? I'm appalled that no one has made their corporate paymasters answer for such irresponsible contingencies.

    again, you are ignoring the key word "potential". This is not the plaintiff set, it is the pool that plaintiffs can come from.

    also, the way class actions suits go, people who don't care will sign on in order to get a pay-out that DOES inflate numbers.

    Evander on
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Evander wrote: »
    also, the way class actions suits go, people who don't care will sign on in order to get a pay-out that DOES inflate numbers.

    That still alleges that almost half of their employees would join the suit.

    Again, it's just Hedgie stacking the deck for argument's sake.

    Atomika on
  • rational vashrational vash Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    This is pretty good timing for me. You see, my conservative philosophy teacher has made the following article required reading. I've already gotten The Cat's views on it, but since this thread is here I might as well drop it.
    Research Suggests Career Decisions, Not Sex Bias, Are at Root of Pay Disparity
    by John Stossell

    May 27, 2005 — - Last month on Wage Equity Day, politicians demanded new laws to protect women from what they say is an unfair pay scale. We hear about the so-called wage gap over and over, and many studies have found that women make about 75 cents for every dollar a man earns. Activists and politicians say the pay difference is all about sexism.

    "No matter how hard women work, or whatever they achieve in terms of advancement in their own professions and degrees, they will not be compensated equitably," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.

    Activists have convinced some young women that even if they work the same hours, have the same education and do the same type of work, they will be paid less than men.

    But how could this be possible? Suppose you're an employer doing the hiring. If a woman does equal work for 25 percent less money, why would any employer ever hire a man?

    Martha Burk, chair of the National Council of Women's Organizations, gave me this simple answer: "Because they like to hire men, John. They like to hire people like themselves and they darn sure like to promote people like themselves," she said.

    In her new book, "Cult of Power: Sex Discrimination in Corporate America and What Can Be Done About It," Burk concludes what we've all heard. "Women make less. Even if it's the exact same job title and it is the exact same work and the experience is comparable," she said.

    But author Warren Farrell, who spent about 15 years going over U.S. Census statistics and research studies, said Burk is wrong. Farrell's research found that the wage gap exists not because of sexism, but because more men are willing to do certain kinds of jobs. "The average full-time working male works more than a full-time working female," Farrell said.

    Farrell illustrates his findings at lectures by asking men and women to stand up in answer to a series of questions about their job choices, such as whether they work more than 40 hours a week, or have held a job that has required them to work outdoors, or if they have 20 years experience in their current occupation.

    Again and again, more men stand up.

    Different job choices are why men earn more, Farrell says in his new book, "Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap -- and What Women Can Do About It."

    "The women themselves say they're far more likely to care about flexibility. The men say I'm far more likely to care about money," Farrell said.

    What about the fact that almost all of the biggest money makers -- the company bosses -- are men? There are some female chief executive officers making big bucks, but they are the exception. Isn't that discrimination?

    "We have been suckered into believing that because there are more men at the top than women at the top, that this is a result of discrimination against women. That's been the misconception. It's all about trade-offs. You earn more money, you usually sacrifice something at home," Farrell said.

    If they aren't discriminating, why do companies give out multimillion-dollar settlements? "They're afraid ... of getting publicity for a year saying that they're anti-female, so you settle," Farrell said.

    Decades ago, Farrell was a man who joined Gloria Steinem in feminist protests. He's the only man to have been elected three times to the board of the National Organization for Women. "I used to wear a '59 cent' pin to protest the fact that men earned a dollar for each 59 cents that women earned for the same work. And then I asked myself one day: "If men are earning a dollar, maybe I'll go out and start an all-female firm and I'll be able to produce products for 59 cents that male firms are producing for a dollar," he said.

    He came to realize that there's something wrong with the statistic.

    Farrell combed through jobs data and found that higher-paying jobs are more likely to require longer commuting times, safety risks, frequent travel, long hours and other factors that, on his tests, led the men to stand while the women sat.

    Those jobs pay more because fewer people want to do them. It's not sexism. It's just supply and demand. In some fields, like office jobs -- finance for example -- women make as much or more than men.

    However, activists say America needs a law like the one passed in Ontario where employers must rate every job to make sure women are paid fairly.

    Companies say the law is complicated and costly. "We spent months, spent thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars on this project to do a 3-cent adjustment that may not have even been necessary," said Sheldon Caplan, who works for a Canadian company that sews and sells sofa cushions.

    While the law may have helped some women increase their wages, a broader study in The Canadian Journal of Economics found the law has had "no effect on the wage gap."

    We don't need a law, Caplan said. Any company that discriminates by sex or anything other than work ability will have higher costs. "I hope my competitors discriminate. I want my competitors to discriminate because then they will go out of business," he said.

    But the wage-gap myth persists, Farrell said, because nobody wants to confront it.

    Feminists and activists now see Farrell as the bad guy, but he's just saying what's true.

    "Women and men look at their life, and women say, 'What do I need? Do I need more money, or do I need more time?' And women are intelligent enough to say, I need more time. And so women lead balanced lives, men should be learning from women."

    But some politicians say we should import the bureaucratic mess Ontario has created?

    Give me a break.

    rational vash on
  • chasmchasm Ill-tempered Texan Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    I'm one of two male department managers at my store, which is one of the bigger supercenters in the country.

    chasm on
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  • Orochi_RockmanOrochi_Rockman __BANNED USERS regular
    edited April 2010
    They probably commute to one of the ones where I live Ross. Off the top of my head I can think of about oh.....six different Wal Marts I could drive to from my house and the furthest one would probably take me about 20 minutes to reach.

    Orochi_Rockman on
  • Kipling217Kipling217 Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    This is pretty good timing for me. You see, my conservative philosophy teacher has made the following article required reading. I've already gotten The Cat's views on it, but since this thread is here I might as well drop it.
    Research Suggests Career Decisions, Not Sex Bias, Are at Root of Pay Disparity
    by John Stossell

    May 27, 2005 — - Last month on Wage Equity Day, politicians demanded new laws to protect women from what they say is an unfair pay scale. We hear about the so-called wage gap over and over, and many studies have found that women make about 75 cents for every dollar a man earns. Activists and politicians say the pay difference is all about sexism.

    "No matter how hard women work, or whatever they achieve in terms of advancement in their own professions and degrees, they will not be compensated equitably," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.

    Activists have convinced some young women that even if they work the same hours, have the same education and do the same type of work, they will be paid less than men.

    But how could this be possible? Suppose you're an employer doing the hiring. If a woman does equal work for 25 percent less money, why would any employer ever hire a man?

    Martha Burk, chair of the National Council of Women's Organizations, gave me this simple answer: "Because they like to hire men, John. They like to hire people like themselves and they darn sure like to promote people like themselves," she said.

    In her new book, "Cult of Power: Sex Discrimination in Corporate America and What Can Be Done About It," Burk concludes what we've all heard. "Women make less. Even if it's the exact same job title and it is the exact same work and the experience is comparable," she said.

    But author Warren Farrell, who spent about 15 years going over U.S. Census statistics and research studies, said Burk is wrong. Farrell's research found that the wage gap exists not because of sexism, but because more men are willing to do certain kinds of jobs. "The average full-time working male works more than a full-time working female," Farrell said.

    Farrell illustrates his findings at lectures by asking men and women to stand up in answer to a series of questions about their job choices, such as whether they work more than 40 hours a week, or have held a job that has required them to work outdoors, or if they have 20 years experience in their current occupation.

    Again and again, more men stand up.

    Different job choices are why men earn more, Farrell says in his new book, "Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap -- and What Women Can Do About It."

    "The women themselves say they're far more likely to care about flexibility. The men say I'm far more likely to care about money," Farrell said.

    What about the fact that almost all of the biggest money makers -- the company bosses -- are men? There are some female chief executive officers making big bucks, but they are the exception. Isn't that discrimination?

    "We have been suckered into believing that because there are more men at the top than women at the top, that this is a result of discrimination against women. That's been the misconception. It's all about trade-offs. You earn more money, you usually sacrifice something at home," Farrell said.

    If they aren't discriminating, why do companies give out multimillion-dollar settlements? "They're afraid ... of getting publicity for a year saying that they're anti-female, so you settle," Farrell said.

    Decades ago, Farrell was a man who joined Gloria Steinem in feminist protests. He's the only man to have been elected three times to the board of the National Organization for Women. "I used to wear a '59 cent' pin to protest the fact that men earned a dollar for each 59 cents that women earned for the same work. And then I asked myself one day: "If men are earning a dollar, maybe I'll go out and start an all-female firm and I'll be able to produce products for 59 cents that male firms are producing for a dollar," he said.

    He came to realize that there's something wrong with the statistic.

    Farrell combed through jobs data and found that higher-paying jobs are more likely to require longer commuting times, safety risks, frequent travel, long hours and other factors that, on his tests, led the men to stand while the women sat.

    Those jobs pay more because fewer people want to do them. It's not sexism. It's just supply and demand. In some fields, like office jobs -- finance for example -- women make as much or more than men.

    However, activists say America needs a law like the one passed in Ontario where employers must rate every job to make sure women are paid fairly.

    Companies say the law is complicated and costly. "We spent months, spent thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars on this project to do a 3-cent adjustment that may not have even been necessary," said Sheldon Caplan, who works for a Canadian company that sews and sells sofa cushions.

    While the law may have helped some women increase their wages, a broader study in The Canadian Journal of Economics found the law has had "no effect on the wage gap."

    We don't need a law, Caplan said. Any company that discriminates by sex or anything other than work ability will have higher costs. "I hope my competitors discriminate. I want my competitors to discriminate because then they will go out of business," he said.

    But the wage-gap myth persists, Farrell said, because nobody wants to confront it.

    Feminists and activists now see Farrell as the bad guy, but he's just saying what's true.

    "Women and men look at their life, and women say, 'What do I need? Do I need more money, or do I need more time?' And women are intelligent enough to say, I need more time. And so women lead balanced lives, men should be learning from women."

    But some politicians say we should import the bureaucratic mess Ontario has created?

    Give me a break.

    Think I have heard this one, its the "mommy" track versus the "career" track. It was used in the 80s to funnel women into dead end jobs under the guise of making it easier for them to have children. It didn't hold up very long in court, once it got challenged.

    Two understand its basic flaws think about this: why is it called a "mommy" track and not a "daddy" track? and why do women desire "flexibility" in the workplace? Flexibility or high wages are not mutualy incompatible aspects of most jobs. By making them incompatible you are creating a system that discriminates even if the people in it make the decision of their own free will(after being subject to societal pressure of course).

    Kipling217 on
    The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    This is pretty good timing for me. You see, my conservative philosophy teacher has made the following article required reading. I've already gotten The Cat's views on it, but since this thread is here I might as well drop it.
    Research Suggests Career Decisions, Not Sex Bias, Are at Root of Pay Disparity
    by John Stossell

    May 27, 2005 — - Last month on Wage Equity Day, politicians demanded new laws to protect women from what they say is an unfair pay scale. We hear about the so-called wage gap over and over, and many studies have found that women make about 75 cents for every dollar a man earns. Activists and politicians say the pay difference is all about sexism.

    "No matter how hard women work, or whatever they achieve in terms of advancement in their own professions and degrees, they will not be compensated equitably," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.

    Activists have convinced some young women that even if they work the same hours, have the same education and do the same type of work, they will be paid less than men.

    But how could this be possible? Suppose you're an employer doing the hiring. If a woman does equal work for 25 percent less money, why would any employer ever hire a man?

    Martha Burk, chair of the National Council of Women's Organizations, gave me this simple answer: "Because they like to hire men, John. They like to hire people like themselves and they darn sure like to promote people like themselves," she said.

    In her new book, "Cult of Power: Sex Discrimination in Corporate America and What Can Be Done About It," Burk concludes what we've all heard. "Women make less. Even if it's the exact same job title and it is the exact same work and the experience is comparable," she said.

    But author Warren Farrell, who spent about 15 years going over U.S. Census statistics and research studies, said Burk is wrong. Farrell's research found that the wage gap exists not because of sexism, but because more men are willing to do certain kinds of jobs. "The average full-time working male works more than a full-time working female," Farrell said.

    Farrell illustrates his findings at lectures by asking men and women to stand up in answer to a series of questions about their job choices, such as whether they work more than 40 hours a week, or have held a job that has required them to work outdoors, or if they have 20 years experience in their current occupation.

    Again and again, more men stand up.

    Different job choices are why men earn more, Farrell says in his new book, "Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap -- and What Women Can Do About It."

    "The women themselves say they're far more likely to care about flexibility. The men say I'm far more likely to care about money," Farrell said.

    What about the fact that almost all of the biggest money makers -- the company bosses -- are men? There are some female chief executive officers making big bucks, but they are the exception. Isn't that discrimination?

    "We have been suckered into believing that because there are more men at the top than women at the top, that this is a result of discrimination against women. That's been the misconception. It's all about trade-offs. You earn more money, you usually sacrifice something at home," Farrell said.

    If they aren't discriminating, why do companies give out multimillion-dollar settlements? "They're afraid ... of getting publicity for a year saying that they're anti-female, so you settle," Farrell said.

    Decades ago, Farrell was a man who joined Gloria Steinem in feminist protests. He's the only man to have been elected three times to the board of the National Organization for Women. "I used to wear a '59 cent' pin to protest the fact that men earned a dollar for each 59 cents that women earned for the same work. And then I asked myself one day: "If men are earning a dollar, maybe I'll go out and start an all-female firm and I'll be able to produce products for 59 cents that male firms are producing for a dollar," he said.

    He came to realize that there's something wrong with the statistic.

    Farrell combed through jobs data and found that higher-paying jobs are more likely to require longer commuting times, safety risks, frequent travel, long hours and other factors that, on his tests, led the men to stand while the women sat.

    Those jobs pay more because fewer people want to do them. It's not sexism. It's just supply and demand. In some fields, like office jobs -- finance for example -- women make as much or more than men.

    However, activists say America needs a law like the one passed in Ontario where employers must rate every job to make sure women are paid fairly.

    Companies say the law is complicated and costly. "We spent months, spent thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars on this project to do a 3-cent adjustment that may not have even been necessary," said Sheldon Caplan, who works for a Canadian company that sews and sells sofa cushions.

    While the law may have helped some women increase their wages, a broader study in The Canadian Journal of Economics found the law has had "no effect on the wage gap."

    We don't need a law, Caplan said. Any company that discriminates by sex or anything other than work ability will have higher costs. "I hope my competitors discriminate. I want my competitors to discriminate because then they will go out of business," he said.

    But the wage-gap myth persists, Farrell said, because nobody wants to confront it.

    Feminists and activists now see Farrell as the bad guy, but he's just saying what's true.

    "Women and men look at their life, and women say, 'What do I need? Do I need more money, or do I need more time?' And women are intelligent enough to say, I need more time. And so women lead balanced lives, men should be learning from women."

    But some politicians say we should import the bureaucratic mess Ontario has created?

    Give me a break.

    Stossell? The man's a fucking hack, in every negative sense of the word. I mean, he actually defended price gauging during Katrina. Not to mention he's gotten caught in all sorts of lies.

    I did a whole thread on his hackiness when he fled to Fox News.

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  • The CatThe Cat Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited April 2010
    Khavall wrote: »
    Yeah, the biggest thing I have about this is if Wal-Mart will be held up compared to an idea of zero gender discrimination, or if they'll be held up to the national average of gender discrimination. Because while the idea of having no gender discrimination is wonderful, and it'd be great if Wal-mart, as such a huge employer, held that up, I don't know if I'm ok with the entire company being responsible for changing the national average.

    By your standards, nothing would ever change. Bad luck for Walmart for getting dinged, but they're far from the only company to have been sued for this, and plenty of those lawsuits won. Hell, UCal Santa Barbera got dinged recently, and you'd think an academic institution in a progressive state could do better.

    Walmart aren't too big to fail.

    The Cat on
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  • The CatThe Cat Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited April 2010
    Are statistics of women getting worse pay and promotions even good enough to stand up in court?


    I mean, for a class action suit to stick, it has to be proven that discrimination was a vast company-wide instituted policy. Instead, what I bet we'll find is a company from Arkansas guilty of hiring people in predominantly poor rural communities who bring along with them the same values of those areas; namely, women need to be in the kitchen and the like.

    Cultural prejudice != systematic discrimination.

    What utter, utter nonsense. Cultural prejudice is systematic discrimination. Culture is where all discrimination comes from! And companies operating under legal requirements to not discriminate do not get to give the hicks a pass just because.

    The Cat on
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  • Xenogears of BoreXenogears of Bore Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Walmart has been sued over this repeatedly over the past quarter decade and has lost or settled just about every case. If that doesn't scare the shit out of them, I don't know what will.

    I've worked for Walmart before in their slightly less shitty Sam's club brand and I still heard the horror stories, and the store I was at I would consider to be pretty well run. It's a culture of greed and old values there, take that for what you will.

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  • The CatThe Cat Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited April 2010
    Khavall wrote: »
    Now, I don't know if Wal-mart HQ had directives out saying "HEY PAY WOMEN LESS", but if they did a reasonable amount of work towards having no gender discrimination, and the regional branches just ignored it, without necessarily giving responses to HQ saying "HEY WE DON'T LIKE THEM WEAK WOMEN FOLK"... Is it really the companies fault?

    Yes, god damnit. End of story.

    The Cat on
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  • Xenogears of BoreXenogears of Bore Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Yeah, this whole corporation is a single entity bullshit in the US is and should be a double edged sword. You want the full rights of a US citizen despite being an evil soulless multinational tentacle monster? Well, be prepared to except the blame for anything those tentacles do.

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  • The CatThe Cat Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited April 2010
    Coinage wrote: »
    I find this funny because I work for Bed Bath and Beyond, and my experience has been that hot women are the ones who are hired and promoted, at least on the lower levels I inhabit. Maybe that's just the Operations Manager at my store, though: we only have about 45 employees, so it's not the same thing as a Walmart.

    And I have to agree that retail companies keep a lot more data than you would realize, although I don't know how much of it would be relevant to the case.

    Same thing happens with the admin staff in our State Government's central office, from what I hear. This too is actionable discrimination* and in no way detracts from the illegality and unfairness of another company paying women less! Funny how that works.


    *harder to prove, given the very subjective definitions of female beauty, but still

    The Cat on
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  • Xenogears of BoreXenogears of Bore Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Once any former minority group or majority group assumes/reassumes a decent amount of power in any organization for any decently long period of time they will tend to discriminate towards people similar to themselves in race, political leaning, and even race and surprisingly, body type.

    It's human nature. We should all be Confucian in our hiring, based on pure merit, but our brains tend to naturally bias people because we want to believe in people that think/look/act like us, rationalizing that somehow we can figure them out better.

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  • The CatThe Cat Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited April 2010
    Once any former minority group or majority group assumes/reassumes a decent amount of power in any organization for any decently long period of time they will tend to discriminate towards people similar to themselves in race, political leaning, and even race and surprisingly, body type.

    It's human nature. We should all be Confucian in our hiring, based on pure merit, but our brains tend to naturally bias people because we want to believe in people that think/look/act like us, rationalizing that somehow we can figure them out better.

    Yes, and that's a problem, and that's why there are laws and lawsuits for addressing the matter.

    The Cat on
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  • The CatThe Cat Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited April 2010
    By the way, is anyone going to stand up in here and declare the entire lawsuit a crock before it even goes to court, or just pick around the edges by "speculating" about the company's recordkeeping system, the cultural background of its middle management, and what really is discrimination anyway?

    Like, we c what ur doin thar.

    The Cat on
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  • Xenogears of BoreXenogears of Bore Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    The Cat wrote: »
    By the way, is anyone going to stand up in here and declare the entire lawsuit a crock before it even goes to court, or just pick around the edges by "speculating" about the company's recordkeeping system, the cultural background of its middle management, and what really is discrimination anyway?

    Like, we c what ur doin thar.

    I should hope not. Walmart is boned on this one. It should have known it was going to be like this when it showed up for work showing that much leg. She was asking for it, I tells ya.

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  • chasmchasm Ill-tempered Texan Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    The Cat wrote: »
    Khavall wrote: »
    Now, I don't know if Wal-mart HQ had directives out saying "HEY PAY WOMEN LESS", but if they did a reasonable amount of work towards having no gender discrimination, and the regional branches just ignored it, without necessarily giving responses to HQ saying "HEY WE DON'T LIKE THEM WEAK WOMEN FOLK"... Is it really the companies fault?

    Yes, god damnit. End of story.

    It absolutely lies with corporate.

    chasm on
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  • enc0reenc0re Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    There are two legal tests you can use when prosecuting discrimination claims, disparate treatment and disparate impact. Disparate treatment is per se illegal. You meet the disparate treatment if the employer demonstrably treated female employees differently because they were female. I find it highly unlikely that the plaintiffs have such a smoking gun here, since the class is certified to potentially include all 1.6 million current and former female Wal-Mart employees.

    The other test, which I anticipate here, is disparate impact. Under that test, you only have to show that the outcomes were disparate for men and women. You can show this statistically. However, disparate outcomes is not per se illegal. If the statistical test is met, the employer has a defense. They have to demonstrate that the disparate outcome "is job related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity." E.g. if you show that you have a gender neutral, quantitative, business related employee evaluation that results in disparate impact, you are in the clear.

    enc0re on
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    The Cat wrote: »
    By the way, is anyone going to stand up in here and declare the entire lawsuit a crock before it even goes to court, or just pick around the edges by "speculating" about the company's recordkeeping system, the cultural background of its middle management, and what really is discrimination anyway?

    Like, we c what ur doin thar.

    We don't have to speculate, any person who's worked for wal-mart and wasted time in their computer system knows to what ridiculous extent wal-mart tracks everything. They absolutely must know about this, and have known about this. They just didn't care.
    chasm wrote: »
    I'm one of two male department managers at my store, which is one of the bigger supercenters in the country.

    Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly but aren't department managers the overworked underpaid minions of the salaried members of management, acting as scapegoats for any bad managerial decisions? I'm not trying to rag on your job, at least you get hours, I just remember my manager being treated like a dog whenever she failed to magically shit profits out as if setting endcaps and stocking can really make that happen.

    override367 on
  • chasmchasm Ill-tempered Texan Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    I don't get shit on by management, but then again, I've go the only dept. in the store that's having YOY growth.

    chasm on
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  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    I wonder what % of store managers are female

    override367 on
  • chasmchasm Ill-tempered Texan Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    I don't think there's a single one in my district. Lots of co-managers, but I can't think of a female store manager.

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