Based on the readings of the Walmart class-action discrimination case please answer discuss the following:

1-Assume that you have taken over the HR Department at Walmart and want to make sure that your pay system is fair, so you commission a salary study that reveals pay differences between men and women. If you publicize the data and try to fix the problem, you open the company up to liability for past discrimination. What will you do?

2- What do you think? Is a statistical disparity proof of discrimination, and if one exists, does that open every member of the protected group up to a remedy, even if they had not individually been discriminated against?

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Walmart's Legal Problems One of the largest discrimination lawsuits in the history of U.S. employment law is currently work- ing its way through the court system. Walmart has become one of the largest, most admired, and ironically, most detested compa- nies in the world. Its "Always Low Prices, Always" motto and business model have enabled it to become the world's largest private employer with retail outlets all over the world. This success has led to its frequent inclusion on Fortune's Most Admired Companies list. However, its positive reputation has taken serious blows over the past few years, at least in part because of its practices for managing people. Union leaders criticize Walmart for its low pay and modest health insurance. Walmart defends Walmart discouraged the promotion of women store employees to managerial positions and that it paid them less than men across all jobs. The plaintiff's lawyers argued that women made up 63.4% of Walmart's nonmanagerial workers, but only 33.6% of the store's salaried managers. They also suggested that the 33.6% is far below the 56.5% of female managers at Walmart's top 20 competitors. In June 2011 the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Walmart, finding that the alleged victims, who worked in 170 job classifications across 3,400 stores, did not have enough in common to qual- ify as a single class action. However In response to this decision, the plaintiffs' lawyers have now gotten 2,000 women in 48 states (all but Mon- tana and Vermont) to file claims of discrimination and hope to create new class-action lawsuits. By breaking the workers into smaller groups the plaintiffs' attorneys hope to prove that there was systemic discrimination against women within specific regions. Did Walmart really discrimi- nate against 2,000 women, and how would you know? itself by noting that it pays competitively with similar organizations. However, what undeniably has hurt Walmart's image is the large number of discrimination suits that it has faced over the past 10 years. For instance, it recently settled a class- action race discrimination suit regarding its hiring of drivers, agreeing to a $17.5 million settlement while denying that it had engaged in any pattern or practice of discrimination. The most important one was a class-action suit brought on behalf of 2 million former female Walmart employees. The suit, known as Dukes v. Walmart, alleged that SOURCES: Bloomberg News, "Wal-Mart to Settle Bias Lawsuit," Los Angeles Times, February 21, 2009, p. C3; R. Parloff and S. Kaufman, "The War Over Unconscious Bias," Fortune, October 15, 2007, p. 90; www.huffingtonpost.com201206/06/walmart-sex-discrimination- women-_n_1575859.html Walmart's Legal Problems One of the largest discrimination lawsuits in the history of U.S. employment law is currently work- ing its way through the court system. Walmart has become one of the largest, most admired, and ironically, most detested compa- nies in the world. Its "Always Low Prices, Always" motto and business model have enabled it to become the world's largest private employer with retail outlets all over the world. This success has led to its frequent inclusion on Fortune's Most Admired Companies list. However, its positive reputation has taken serious blows over the past few years, at least in part because of its practices for managing people. Union leaders criticize Walmart for its low pay and modest health insurance. Walmart defends Walmart discouraged the promotion of women store employees to managerial positions and that it paid them less than men across all jobs. The plaintiff's lawyers argued that women made up 63.4% of Walmart's nonmanagerial workers, but only 33.6% of the store's salaried managers. They also suggested that the 33.6% is far below the 56.5% of female managers at Walmart's top 20 competitors. In June 2011 the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Walmart, finding that the alleged victims, who worked in 170 job classifications across 3,400 stores, did not have enough in common to qual- ify as a single class action. However In response to this decision, the plaintiffs' lawyers have now gotten 2,000 women in 48 states (all but Mon- tana and Vermont) to file claims of discrimination and hope to create new class-action lawsuits. By breaking the workers into smaller groups the plaintiffs' attorneys hope to prove that there was systemic discrimination against women within specific regions. Did Walmart really discrimi- nate against 2,000 women, and how would you know? itself by noting that it pays competitively with similar organizations. However, what undeniably has hurt Walmart's image is the large number of discrimination suits that it has faced over the past 10 years. For instance, it recently settled a class- action race discrimination suit regarding its hiring of drivers, agreeing to a $17.5 million settlement while denying that it had engaged in any pattern or practice of discrimination. The most important one was a class-action suit brought on behalf of 2 million former female Walmart employees. The suit, known as Dukes v. Walmart, alleged that SOURCES: Bloomberg News, "Wal-Mart to Settle Bias Lawsuit," Los Angeles Times, February 21, 2009, p. C3; R. Parloff and S. Kaufman, "The War Over Unconscious Bias," Fortune, October 15, 2007, p. 90; www.huffingtonpost.com201206/06/walmart-sex-discrimination- women-_n_1575859.html

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Question 1 As a HR Manager we need to remember that facts can not be hidden if the fact is that ther... View the full answer