One person’s story doesn’t win a class-action suit, but if this is typical I would think Wal-Mart has a multi-billion dollar problem. From the Denver Post —
For Mary Henderson, an assistant store manager at the Wal-Mart store in Trinidad, a class-action sexual discrimination lawsuit against her employer is about one thing: equal pay.
Henderson, 49, has been with the company for six years and makes $32,000 a year. She claims that a male assistant manager at the same store, with less experience, makes $9,000 more than she does. She said that he showed her his W-2 form.
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Henderson started out in 1998 making $5.75 an hour as a sales floor associate in the sporting goods department at the La Junta Wal-Mart.
“The man who started right across from me started $1.50 higher,” she recalled. “I was told it was because he had to do more lifting.”
Henderson said it took three years to earn her first promotion. When she first applied for the assistant manager’s position, she said her store manager told her, “You have a husband that can support you. You don’t need to be an assistant manager,” and that another man deserved the position because “he’s the head of a family.”
She said that she told the manager that he was comparing apples and oranges.
“I asked him what was the difference, was it something that I was born without?” she said, referring to her gender. “He actually turned white and walked away.”