With Wal-Mart’s Sex Suit Win, the Joke’s on Women: Susan Antilla

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-07/with-wal-mart-s-sex-suit-win-the-joke-s-on-women-susan-antilla.html

For a moment, I wondered if my phone had gone dead.

I was talking to Deondrea Thomas, who works as a sales associate in the shoe department at the Duncanville, Texas, Wal-Mart. She’d been chatting away for 10 minutes when I asked whether she’d ever used Wal-Mart’s “Open Door” policy for employees who have a complaint about their job.

Suddenly, there was dead air. Then, a burst of nervous laughter. “Nobody likes that policy,” she said, her cheerful tone turning abruptly dark. Take a concern to management and “your hours will be cut or there will be some kind of retaliation.”

Wal-Mart women aren’t doing a lot of laughing since the Supreme Court banished their class-action sex discrimination suit to a litigation dumpster. On June 20, the court said that the million-and-a-half women suing for pay and promotion discrimination could not proceed as a single class.

[marmar]

1. The Supreme Court has quashed any illusion of democracy.

nt

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Citizen Worker]

3. Actually, the joke is on us. Access to the legal system is slowly being closed off to workers.

[WhiteTara]

4. None of it is a joke. Women were screwed by the USSC

and not one of us is laughing.

[Harry Callahan]

7. The OP referenced "joke."

I am always suspicious of class actions. Typically, the complainants receive very little compensation, and watch in dismay as their attorneys hit the jackpot.

[Remember Me]

8. And new law (precedent) gets laid down

to protect people -- that is, when things go right. Sometimes money isn't the only thing or even the most important thing, ya know??

[Fuddnik]

5. Another drive-by right wing talking point?

[marmar]

6. Clearly....... They're all over the board right now.

nt

[awoke_in_2003]

9. I have worked for many companies...

with "Open Door" policies. What they never tell you is that if you use these for lodging complaints, you might as well show yourself the front door- or they will show it to you soon enough.