Wal-Mart Concerned About Discrimination Lawsuits

Thousands of lawsuits target Bentonville-based Wal-Mart Stores, but none worries the company more than the lawsuit by six former employees alleging that the country`s largest private employer discriminates against women in pay and promotions because of their gender. Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams says that lawsuit is the most important of the more than 6600 suits the company is facing because of its scope. Tomorrow, a federal judge in San Francisco will hear arguments for the suit to be elevated to class action status -- a move that could add one and a half million plaintiffs. The women claim Wal-Mart`s tight central control of its more than 34-hundred stores and one-point-one (m) million employees in the United States can only mean that that Wal-Mart culture favored men over women in pay and status. The company acknowledges that there have been individual instances of employees being treated unfairly, but denies that any discrimination filtered down from headquarters in northwest Arkansas. The lawsuit, filed in 2001, seeks an order ending discriminatory practices at Wal-Mart and lost wages, though lawyers did not list a dollar amount. Posted by Mike Hellgren