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    Case 7C: Sex Discrimination at Walmart

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    ChiragNarula
    Betty Dukes filed a complaint about gender discrimination at her job at Walmart. She was subsequently demoted and had her hours and pay reduced. She and five other women then filed a class action lawsuit against Walmart, alleging that female employees were paid less and promoted less than male employees. The lawsuit represented over 1.6 million current and former female Walmart employees. Walmart argued that pay and promotion decisions were made individually at each store, rather than under a company-wide policy of discrimination. Ultimately, Walmart understood the financial and reputational risks of not settling the case.

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    Case 7C: Sex Discrimination at Walmart

    Uploaded by

    ChiragNarula
    32 views2 pages
    Betty Dukes filed a complaint about gender discrimination at her job at Walmart. She was subsequently demoted and had her hours and pay reduced. She and five other women then filed a class action lawsuit against Walmart, alleging that female employees were paid less and promoted less than male employees. The lawsuit represented over 1.6 million current and former female Walmart employees. Walmart argued that pay and promotion decisions were made individually at each store, rather than under a company-wide policy of discrimination. Ultimately, Walmart understood the financial and reputational risks of not settling the case.

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    Group8_Ethics

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    Betty Dukes filed a complaint about gender discrimination at her job at Walmart. She was subsequently demoted and had her hours and pay reduced. She and five other women then filed a class action lawsuit against Walmart, alleging that female employees were paid less and promoted less than male employees. The lawsuit represented over 1.6 million current and former female Walmart employees. Walmart argued that pay and promotion decisions were made individually at each store, rather than under a company-wide policy of discrimination. Ultimately, Walmart understood the financial and reputational risks of not settling the case.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    32 views2 pages

    Case 7C: Sex Discrimination at Walmart

    Uploaded by

    ChiragNarula
    Betty Dukes filed a complaint about gender discrimination at her job at Walmart. She was subsequently demoted and had her hours and pay reduced. She and five other women then filed a class action lawsuit against Walmart, alleging that female employees were paid less and promoted less than male employees. The lawsuit represented over 1.6 million current and former female Walmart employees. Walmart argued that pay and promotion decisions were made individually at each store, rather than under a company-wide policy of discrimination. Ultimately, Walmart understood the financial and reputational risks of not settling the case.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    Case 7C: Sex Discrimination at Walmart

    1. What is the situation?


    • In the case, the protagonist Betty Dukes after receiving promotion complained to district
    manager about the sex discrimination, she faced from the HOD and store manager.
    • As a result of this she was demoted and her working hours and wages were reduced.
    • She along with five other women employees Wal-Mart stores launched a suit against the
    company.
    • They charged that female employees were paid less than men in comparable positions,
    despite having higher performance ratings and greater seniority, and received fewer and
    waited longer for promotions to in-store management positions than men. These women
    launched the suit on behalf of 1.6 million female employees who worked in Walmart between
    1996-2001.
    • The company understood its finance and reputation would be affected if they did not settle
    the case.
    • To defend themselves, the company tried to demonstrate that pay and promotion decisions
    were independently determined by individual managers at the store level and were not based
    on a uniform company policy.
    2. Ethical conflict / dilemma in that
    • Was the store manager right to demote Betty on the basis of her complain to District
    Manager?
    • Was it ethical for the store manager to discriminate the wages & promotions & on the basis
    of gender?
    • Should the store manager have assigned the roles to women on the basis of stereotypical
    perception that women can’t handle leadership role.
    • Lack of transparency in their internal hiring process
    • Was Betty right to generalise the issue that all female employees faced discrimination &
    blame the company as a whole rather than blaming the store manager.
    3. Application of the appropriate framework / theoretical lens
    • Avoiding discrimination: Avoiding discrimination is better than preventing it at the later
    stage
    • Discrimination related to hiring and promotions can be avoided by only considering job
    related characteristics of a person and specifying the job requirement in a detailed way
    • Affirmative Action: Once the discrimination is identified it is important to understand how
    to deal with it. In this case taking an affirmative action and providing special benefits could
    prove to be risky for the organisation as more and more people could go and do the same,
    company should’ve given them due justice by investigating the
    situation and punishing the store manager of that particular location rather than providing
    special benefits to the six women.
    4. Choices / options to choose
    • Rather than demoting Betty & decreasing her wages & working hours, her allegations
    should have been taken up seriously by the company.
    • The role of store manager and HOD should have been questioned in case of Betty’s
    demotion.
    • Walmart should have a transparent process to fill vacant positions in their store
    • Roles & responsibilities should be assigned based on the employee’s performance rather
    than their gender
    • Setup a hotline number where employees can anonymously complain about any such issues
    that they face at workplace.
    5. Appreciation of any risks along the way
    • On Betty’s part there was a risk of she losing her job or encountering a hostile environment
    at work due to complain against her manager & HOD.
    • Walmart is a huge company, they had stronger & more resources at their deployment to
    tackle this situation. Despite knowing this Betty and the other five female employees stood
    their ground and fought for equal rights for women at Walmart stores.

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