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Meet Betty Dukes, the Black Woman Who's Taking on Walmart
By Monee Fields-White,
New America Media
When Betty Dukes decided
in 2001 to take on the world's largest retailer, Walmart Stores, Inc.,
she first thought she would be a lone soldier.
Yet as the years have passed, more than 9,500 women openly have stepped
forward to join Dukes in a nine-year crusade to thwart alleged
persistent discrimination against Walmart's female employees in pay and
promotions. The fight has become the largest gender-bias class-action
lawsuit in U.S. history— representing about 1.6 million former and
current female employees and possibly costing the Bentonville,
Ark.-based retailer billions of dollars.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the
closely watched case. A decision—which could have huge implications for
the rights of workers to sue their employers —is expected by next June.
At first, "I found myself standing alone, but I wasn't standing alone,"
says Dukes, 60, who joined the retailer's Pittsburg, Calif., store in
1994 as a part-time cashier for $5 an hour.
Dukes, a native of Tallulah, La., saw the job as a chance to better her
life by climbing the corporate management ladder at Walmart, she says.
But in 1997, by which time she had advanced to the level of customer
service manager, she found out that each step beyond that point was
becoming steeper—and more frustrating. The company, she says, offered
her little chance for advancement. She went to her many managers to
complain, though that turned into an ongoing quarrel and eventually led
to a demotion to cashier and pay cut of about 5 percent, she says.
Her struggle became central to the federal lawsuit, filed in June 2001
in the U.S. District Court. In late April 2010, the Ninth Circuit U.S.
Court of Appeals upheld a decision allowing the case to go to trial as a
class action on behalf of the millions of former and current female
Walmart employees— which the suit says represent 72 percent of all
hourly employees.
Dukes and the five other main plaintiffs charged in the suit that
Walmart violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The retailer consistently
paid its male employees more than women for the same work, and women
have had to wait longer than men for promotions, they maintain.
The lawsuit claims that women account for only one-third of what Walmart
considers management. At the store level, they hold "traditionally
'female' positions, such as assistant managers whose primary
responsibility is supervising cashiers, and the lowest level of
managers."
A Climb Too Steep
Dukes came to Walmart with 20 years of retail experience, working at
chain stores such as Pleasanton, Calif.-based Safeway, Inc. "I was
definitely familiar with the retailing industry, and I had the basic
skills," she says, adding that she had never faced any problems in her
prior jobs.
Her troubles at Walmart began just a few months after she was promoted
to be a customer service manager in 1997, she says. "It was a
combination of things," she says.
She complained to a district manager about her situation, resulting in
several disciplinary write-ups from the store's management. The initial
written warning said she returned late from breaks, which she says many
of her male and white colleagues did as well. Some even failed to clock
out for breaks.
The last straw came in mid-1999, says Dukes. She needed change to make a
small purchase during a break and asked a fellow colleague to open the
cash register with a one-cent transaction. While Dukes says it was a
common practice among Walmart staff, she was demoted to cashier for
misconduct, resulting in the pay cut. She once again went to the
district manager, stating that the punishment was too severe and was in
retaliation for her numerous prior complaints. Nothing was done, she
said.
In fact, she began to see her hours rolled back, making it hard for her
to make ends meet. Dukes, who is divorced and childless, eventually
moved in with her mother. "It was just so outrageous," she says. "From
that point, I started looking for some venue of change to hear my call."
She found the platform with the Equal Rights Advocates and the Impact
Fund, who have represented Dukes and the thousands of other women who
have come forward to share their story.
The Sky Wasn't the Limit
Take Edith Arana, 49, who had worked in retail for more than 10 years
before joining a California-based Walmart store. She was hired as a
personnel manager, but she also filled in for numerous departments. That
included handling store merchandising and payroll. "We were always told
for the beginning that this is a family-based company. This is a company
that you can come in as a cashier, and the sky is the limit," Arana
says.
However, Arana says those promises weren't kept, and she quickly hit the
ceiling when she pushed to run a department within stores. The promotion
would have helped her chances to get in the company's assistant
management training program -- and eventually oversee an entire store.
The higher-paying position would have also helped her care for her dying
husband and three young children at the time.
While store management alluded to her chances of moving up and taking
part in the training, she says she consistently was passed over for
promotions that were given to men with less experience. Many of the
available positions she discovered after they were filled, and those she
applied for, she didn't even get an interview. She says when she
inquired about the reasoning behind the decisions, she was offered
little explanation, if any at all.
"I was so destroyed and devastated by this," says Arana, whose husband
passed away from liver cancer during her struggle with Walmart. Arana
now works in a public library. "I'm hoping that we get everything we ask
for."
The Stakes for Big Business
Walmart has fought hard against the allegations—arguing that the
discrimination cases brought by the six women were isolated instances,
and not a company policy. "We do not believe the claims alleged by the
six individuals who brought this suit are representative of the
experiences of our female associates," said Jeff Gearhart, executive
vice president and general counsel.
Supporters of the retailer have lined up in its corner, just as its
staunch critics have backed the plaintiffs.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other organizations have raised
concerns about the suit's ramifications for other companies as well as
the merits for the district court's approval to make it a class-action
suit. "It will have a potentially destructive effect on the Chamber's
members, who will likely face billions of dollars in new class-action
claims, brought on behalf of putative classes that fail to satisfy the
requirements" for being certified as a class-action suit, "without any
opportunity to present evidence in their own defense," the chamber said
in its legal brief
Washington-based National Women's Law Center (NWLC) is among a host of
civil rights advocates that have applauded the women's push. "They are
really brave to be able to stand up to a big company and say what you're
doing isn't fair," said Fatima Goss Graves, vice president for education
and employment at NWLC. "That takes a lot."
Not One to Quit
Dukes is mostly quiet about her background, except to proudly talk about
her family's journey to California from Louisiana 50 years ago and her
work as an ordained minister. She has stood strong within her faith
during the battle and to help her get through the workdays at the
Pittsburg store. So far, she says there have been minimal troubles at
work during the court case.
"I'm just not one to quit," says Dukes, adding that with since the case
and the connected media attention began her pay has been raised to
$15.23 an hour.
But that's not enough to erase what has happened, she says. "I'm
demanding justice. I want justice for every woman past and present that
has been discriminated against."
Because of that notion, she was lauded as the next Rosa Parks in the
book entitled, Selling
Women Short: the Landmark Battle for Workers' Rights at Walmart.
Dukes believes she's not worthy of that comparison.
"Rosa Parks is an icon of change," she says. "We're still working for
change. This is a universal movement. Not only will it have significant
impact on the lives at Walmart, but it will resonate around the country
for change."
Monee Fields-White is a Chicago-based writer who covers a wide array
of topics, including business and economic news.
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