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Wal-Mart, women and America’s excluded workers

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There has been plenty of media coverage for the nationwide Wal-Mart workers’ strike on ‘Black Friday.’

Over 1000 different protest groups in 46 states were reported to have walked out in protest against poor wages, bullying, anti-union threats and expensive health-care plans, which they claim keep Wal-Mart employees in poverty.

Absent from strike reports, however, is that 70% of Wal-Mart’s hourly workers are women, and are disproportionately affected by Wal-Mart’s poor labour conditions.

In 2011, 1.5 million female employees brought a class-action law-suit against the superstore chain but the litigation was dismissed in the Supreme Court.

During the hearings, though, evidence revealed a host of damaging accusations.

For example, female employees held two-thirds of the lowest-level jobs, only one third of management jobs, and were paid on average $1.16 less an hour than men in the same jobs, even when the women had more seniority and better performance ratings.

The suit failed not because the allegations weren’t credible but because the presiding judges felt that 1.5 million women did not constitute a single ‘class’ of people.

Discrimination that relegates women to the worst positions repeats itself across various industries in the US.

The legal wage for restaurant employees, 66 per cent of whom are women in the US is $2.13 (just over £1.30), with workers being expected to earn tips to make up the difference to the national minimum wage of $7.25.

Such situations exacerbate the already-existing gender pay gap whereby US women only earn 77 cents to every dollar earned by their male counterparts.

A study by Restaurant Opportunities Center Ltd found that food servers, 71% female, are almost three times as likely to be paid below the poverty line than the rest of the general population.

Perhaps most shockingly, female restaurant workers file sexual harassment complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission at 5 times the rate of the rest of the female workforce.

This pattern repeats itself with domestic workers, a group who are predominantly women of colour.

They are excluded from many of the protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act such as minimum wage, sick pay, time off and overtime.

Home carers, again a predominantly female group, are also not eligible for minimum wage due to archaic legislation that still deems them ‘companions’ rather than employees.

The Obama administration announced plans to close this legal loophole in 2011, but has yet to do so.

Critics were sceptical about the impact of the Wal-Mart protest and as well they may be since the superstore giant still saw the usual holiday crowds surging through its doors.

However it’s worth noting that Wal-Mart workers coordinated a trans-American protest that grabbed the global media’s attention and even drew support from congressmen in Florida and California who joined the picket lines.

This is certainly not an achievement to be sneezed at in these apathetic times.

The simple fact that Wal-Mart workers dared to organise in the face of a company reported to be viciously anti-union shows how strongly they feel about their treatment.

And when workers who have been systematically denied rights band together, they can achieve change.

Domestic workers successfully campaigned for a Bill of Rights (enshrining the right to overtime, paid days off, compensation, rest days and protection against harassment and discrimination) which was introduced in New York in 2010.

If Wal-Mart does change its ways, the millions of women working at its stores across the US can claim a victory.

Women who are systemically relegated to the ‘bottom of the pile’ by embedded gender discrimation.

  1. Thanks for highlighting this issue and all the other work you do!

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