Due to a glaring silence in the media, you may not know that the 13% unionized darling of the big-boxes, Costco, is being sued in an attempted class-action sex discrimination lawsuit:
The latest suit seeks class action status and could include as many as 650 former female Costco workers across America subjected to gender discrimination.The same arguments made in Ellis vs. Costco Wholesale Corporation are currently being used against Wal-Mart in Dukes vs. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc..Fewer than one in six of Costco's senior store managers are women, yet the company's workforce is roughly 50 percent female, according to the suit.
Monetary damages were not specified, but attorneys said damages could reach into the millions.
"There is no clearer example of a glass ceiling than how Costco promotes workers into assistant manager and general manager positions," said Brad Seligman, executive director of The Impact Fund and the lead attorney on the case. "There is no promotion system at Costco. Women must rely on the subjective and arbitrary decisions of Costco's all-male senior management."
Seligman was lead counsel on the mother of all sex discrimination class actions against retail stores. The $107 million settlement he won from Lucky Stores Inc. in 1993 helped lay the foundation for The Impact Fund.
Northern District Chief Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, who was the trial judge in the Lucky Stores litigation, was assigned Tuesday to the Costco case.
In fact, both the Costco and Wal-Mart cases are spearheaded by the Impact Fund.
I'd just like to point out the almost incredible similarity between the Wal-Mart Class and CostCo Class websites. The women pictured in both websites are the same, and are, in fact, wearing the same clothing.
For a few months, I've been reading through the Wal-Mart filings, testimonies, a d reports, and in a month or so, I'll have many posts regarding the allegedly "expert" testimony, "scientific" methodologies, and legal maneuvers on both sides.
Posted by Kevin on April, 18 2005 at 01:58 PM
