The Wal-mart Lawsuit.

[TheOcean]

How do you feel about the Supreme Court's ruling today on the lawsuit against Wal-Mart, which claimed that more than a million women are being discriminated against in the work place? The Supreme Court ruled in Wal-Mart's favor, but just barely, with a 5-4 vote.

Do you feel that they are right, that something this large can't be glued together? Do you feel that they chose the wrong side, and that women's rights (and other rights) just took a step back 40 years?

I for one am not pleased that they chose wal-mart's side, but I do understand why they did it. If the supreme court was willing to break up the lawsuit into separate chunks themselves, then rule on each of them I'd be happy, alas that is very much not their job.

A link for references below.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...n-2300301.html

[HolyShadow]

I love how it seems to ignore the fact that 4 liberal judges opposed it as a block and keeps complaining over and over that conservatives are biased just because they have more judges on their side.

That's not really how thinking is supposed to work, but they can go ahead and write what they want.

This is generally the case with most supermarkets: They tend to treat women like shit. While it could have something to do with a male archetype being generally more of what they're looking for in a leader, that just seems unlikely given the specific circumstances.

But it's not just that... the way management seems to generally work in supermarkets is "Have they been here a while? Yes? Do they have high pay? Yes? Have they made any mistakes ever since they began working here? No? Follow them around and find some mistakes. Or make some up, but be discreet." This is regardless of sex, but women tend to get targeted more.

[TheOcean]

I more happy than anything that someone posted. The link I gave is rather opinionated, I agree, but as my sister was involved in the lawsuit I can't help but be angry that big business got another ass kiss basically. I more agree with the justice who pointed out that harassment is more subtle than anything else, and of course they wouldn't be able to correlate it the way the other justices were expecting.

That and I had to listen to Keith Olberman rant about it on his new show tonight, thanks auntie for having to watch 5 hours of news straight...

[TitanAura]

Have you ever heard the statistic "working women today earn an average of 80 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts"?

Not to give Walmart ammunition, but that statistic is purposefully misleading and biased. I'm all for women's rights and equality but let me mathematically break down how that statistic was achieved (specifically in the US):

Total Dollars made by Women / Total Number of Women : Total Dollars made by Men in the US / Total Number of Men

Here's what's wrong with that equation:
1. There are more women than men (however this is an insignificant difference and therefore negligible).
2. This puts every wage into one gigantic pot and delivers an AVERAGE rather than a MEAN (an Average is every number added up and then divided by how many numbers there were, where as the Mean is based upon the *frequency* of a given number).

Where this statistic breaks down in its execution is the inclusion of the top 2% (which are predominantly male) and therefore tips the scale SIGNIFICANTLY towards males. This statistic is constantly used to trick people into believing that if a man and a woman both apply for the same exact "average" job (such as a cashier at Walmart, K-mart, Meijer, etc) and are both hired, the woman's salary would be 80% that of the man's.

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY 100% FALSE.

The statistic easily shifts back to being 1:1 if you simply remove 2 key demographics used in the statistic:
1. Top 2% Incomes
2. THE UNEMPLOYED (since women are far more likely to leave the work force for various reasons, often to be stay-at-home Mothers, they should not be included as they further bolster the women's denominator in the statistic as this does a hell of a lot more for the statistic than simply having greater numbers)

HOWEVER, what this statistic *does* reveal is a confirmation of the "glass ceiling" (*ahem* a woman can only ascend so high on the corporate ladder etc etc). While it is almost impossible to ascertain absolute proof, I can personally say with a fair amount of certainty that Walmart is probably guilty of discriminating against women in terms of managerial and corporate hiring.

In short, don't believe everything you read because it is likely biased and withholding valuable information from you and Walmart is owned by massive pricks. What REALLY needs to happen is Walmart needs to be sued for its Anti-Unionization policies.

[TheOcean]

I agree that the 80% thing is misleading, but I also know my sister worked at wal-mart for 2 years, was employee of the month 8 times, and was never offered anything higher than bottom rung employment as three men with less experience started with more pay than her, were promoted above her, and eventually fired her for complaining about it.

And this happened in Arkansas, in the home town of Wal-mart.

Wal-mart deserves to get caught on something like this, and as my sister is stubborn and mean, she's not letting it go and is still suing, 4 years after her job was over, and has already stated despite the supreme court's decision she'll go it alone if necessary.

This was also back in the day when walmart made you pay if something was stolen from your section during your shift. As my sister worked the late shift in the make-up department and the day crew didn't do inventory one month they made her pay them 50 dollars, rather than give her a paycheck. That is not right. I fully agree that wal-mart needs a union, but I doubt it will help with a lot of the silent issues like women's/minority's rights.

[TitanAura]

Originally Posted by TheOcean

I agree that the 80% thing is misleading

Well, that's the only thing I was refuting because I've been wanting to get that factoid off my chest for so long and text was the only way I could do it because 4 times in the last 6 months I've tried to explain to someone why that statistic was false and misleading and I'd get labeled as a chauvinist pig by ignorant fucks GSNIOGSDNOWERIO.... sorry I had to get that off my chest.

Walmart deserved to lose this lawsuit. Plain and simple. Money wasn't supposed to be part of the equation but rather the discrimination for promotions and managerial positions (which THEN resulted in higher salaries). I bet during that trial Walmart brought up those numbers the same way I did and said "Look, we pay men and women the same in each position!" and when asked why there were 8 male managers for every 1 female manager, Walmart steered clear of the issue and 5 supreme court justices with them.

All in all, I'll only be worried for the survival of humanity if our generation grows old after having lived in this age of corporate oppression, corruption, and general stupidity without the pent up resentment towards corporations boiling over. In about 20-30 years, after China takes the lead in the world economy, we'll finally get sick of corporations constantly falling back into debt and feed them to the dogs, go through another great depression and FINALLY fix the fucking system.

[TheOcean]

If we're lucky. Though to be fair we're reaching the cusp that we did 200 years ago, simply in a non-political setting. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and one day they'll rise up with a guillotine and take care of the problem if the government doesn't step in. Why the government is too short sighted to see history repeating itself I do not know.

Also I totally understand you needing to get that statistic off your chest. Its a frustrating thing to deal with means and medians.

[Fat1Fared]

=@ Titan=I will deal with Titan first, because he brings up an important issue, that money side of case was a foolish was to tackle because as titan already proved, it proves very little and is a stat which bugs me. A prime example of it, is the British Tennis case which made male and female Tennis players receive equal amounts for joining Tennis competition despite the obvious point that womans Tennis is shorter than men's and woman actively turned down chance to change that. To me, what that suggests is that sexism which makes a females life easier is ok, Sexism which makes harder is bad. Now that may not sound a bad thing, but there are two problems with this:
1=when you lessen one persons pain, you raise anothers
2=this is not the issue, the issue is fair balance, if you want balanced equality you cannot pick and choose what is equal based on your own convincance because that will lead to unequal results.

@ Holy=what are you on about, it made 1 paragraph about it at end and what did it say, a very fair point that Republican Judges are acting like Politicians, which is not their good. This has been occurring since time of Roosevelt and is sickening....this bit would disgust me, but you because it helps republican party, I guess its corruption is ok:

The ruling, which prevents internal company documents from being made public during trial, is the latest example of the right-leaning court reaching a conservative view in a controversial test case. Last year, it voted to reform electoral finance laws to allow corporations to secretly give unlimited funds to political candidates of their choosing

@ Ocean=well first this:

I also know my sister worked at wal-mart for 2 years, was employee of the month 8 times, and was never offered anything higher than bottom rung employment as three men with less experience started with more pay than her, were promoted above her, and eventually fired her for complaining about it.

=this far from conclusive evidence, I am not saying you are right or wrong here, just that personal case studies are normally too small and too bais to actually be really helpful, I mean the Head Director of the British Branch of my ex-step-fathers US owned business is a woman, but that does not prove sexism no longer exists or has become against men. It is sort of like cases, where an ethic person gets job and suddenly it positive discrimination.
-Another good example is my old school promoted 4 woman to be highest people within the school and I know it did this as positive discrimination, because it was very proud and open about fact. So that proves a problem within my individual school, but not very school is Britain.
-Now I say all this, because despite being very pro-equal rights, sexism pee's me off lot of time, because people have become so obsessed with illness that completely lost siht of the actual problem, its causes and its cures. A good example of this is that Japanese schools highering western teachers got a bashing from some papers for highering 80% men...oh this must be an example of Japanese sexism, problem is that when look at statistic's of people applying for the job, it was 80% men, so in fact, here the employment was equal and the problem was clearly social, if this is a problem.
-Now I do not know enough by walmart to make an individual judgement here and treat the statistic's that only 14% woman in high positions with wary eyes because case of British politic's shows these issues are often a social one which politic's attempting to cure, only makes worse.
-Now this not to say I agree with court here, I completely disagree with its decision because this is what is known as policy decision and these are were court decides to make a judgement on basis of overriding social or economic justification. Now this erroneous little devils in English Law are treated with scorn by legal community for a reason, we don't like our Judges getting involved in politic's and fundamentally, this decisions are political ones, however sometimes they are needed. However the key difference between British and American judges is application of these decisions, because whereas the US judges are making arbaitory carpet blocks, the British Judges use such decisions to limit appeals only so far as is required for political issue by setting down clear guidelines of:
1=what claim actually is
2=what claimant can achieve
3=what claimant must prove, to achieve this (this will be area where make high freshhold in order to ensure only strong claims are brought forward)

=Now this is not a bash at US Judiciary as sure this is what fair minded Judges wanted to do, sadly the less fair minded and basically legally corrupt judges blocked such attempts because did not wish for any claims.

[Underling]

Originally Posted by TitanAura

2. This puts every wage into one gigantic pot and delivers an AVERAGE rather than a MEAN (an Average is every number added up and then divided by how many numbers there were, where as the Mean is based upon the *frequency* of a given number).

err... the (arithmetic) mean is exactly what you described in the first instance ("every number added up and then divided by how many numbers there were"); it is mean income that is skewed upwards

there isn't anything simply called "the average"

so i'm not really sure what it is you're calling the mean... the mode possibly...

[HolyShadow]

Fared, suppose that it was 5 democrats and 4 republicans. The democrats voted like a block, and they still would've voted like a block. Yet would that website say it's biased? No, it'd celebrate it as a wonderful day in humanity, and then attack the 4 republican minority for voting like a block.

The issue here is that one party is getting attacked for the exact same thing that another party is doing in nearly the same way, and that other party is just being ignored and given a sort of "Good try" for voting together. It's split along party lines-- that means both parties acted like politicians. It's just that the winners were the ones with more numbers in their party.

It's corrupt either way, I agree, but I can't tell whether you just missed my point altogether or tried to attack me while purposefully misunderstanding my point. It's corrupt hypocrisy, and I can't believe you didn't pick that up, Fared.

[Underling]

HS did you perhaps read a completely different article to the rest of us?

All that was said was that the votes were split down ideological lines, and that a court comprised mostly of conservative judges has been tending to make conservative decisions - those aren't attacks, they're observations of fact.

Your further claim that the liberals were somehow congratulated for voting as a block appears to have been pulled out of your ass in a similar fashion.

At least quote the article if you plan to continue making these bullshit claims.

[HolyShadow]

Handing a valuable and highly symbolic victory to Corporate America, the US Supreme Court has blocked a massive sexual discrimination lawsuit which would have claimed systematic discrimination in the employment practices of the retail giant Wal-Mart.

First, alarm bells went off here. It's not necessarily "Corporate America". It's a single large company: Walmart. They were suing over Walmart. While it is a corporation, it is not the entirety of corporate America. They're attempting to change the narrative to suggest that the case isn't specifically about Walmart when in reality, it is. They attempt to levitate it to promote class-warfare. Ie, "Corporate America vs. Working-class Women."

The suit began in 2000, when a "store greeter" from California called Betty Dukes claimed that despite six years of exemplary performance reviews, she had been denied training that would allow her to advance to a more senior position. In her complaint, Ms Dukes said that despite holding 80 per cent of poorly paid supervisory positions, female staff made up just 14 per cent of the firm's managers. Wal-Mart disputed many of her figures and denied that Ms Dukes had been subject to discrimination.
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said the plaintiffs had failed to satisfactorily demonstrate a company-wide policy of discrimination. "In all, Wal-Mart operates approximately 3,400 stores and employs more than one million people," he wrote. "Because respondents wish to sue about literally millions of employment decisions at once, they need some glue holding the alleged reasons for all those decisions together."

And then there's this whole deal. They write out a complaint from a store greeter that seems legitimate, and then provide an alternative view to it that... doesn't actually contradict it in any way. It leaves the first argument left unanswered and makes it look like the court simply ignored that fact, thus leaning further to the other side.

The ruling, which prevents internal company documents from being made public during trial, is the latest example of the right-leaning court reaching a conservative view in a controversial test case. Last year, it voted to reform electoral finance laws to allow corporations to secretly give unlimited funds to political candidates of their choosing.

This further perpetuates the narrative of "Corporation vs. Working-class Stiff". That finance law doesn't really have much to do with this case, if it were simply about this case. Again, they're making it symbolic. Maybe I just don't understand because I figure a court isn't a place for symbolic victories, but rather victories that make a real difference, but to me, this seems misplaced, and leaning toward a particular narrative that the left-wing often tells.

Yesterday, the court blocked a federal lawsuit by states and conservation groups trying to force cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. It also refused to hear an appeal from ACORN, the left-leaning community group, over a recent law that banned it from receiving federal money.

And yet again, this has nothing to do with Walmart. As far as I'm aware, Walmart isn't a power plant, and it isn't ACORN. This time, it's trying to provide the narrative of "Right-wing which supports corporation against clean air and community organizing" and attach it to a "Women vs. Corporations" thing to unify them against one faceless entity.

Now, Underling, I know how easy it is to see these things if you're outside the bubble and just how hard it is to notice these subtle nudges if you're in the bubble, but just try to realize that we're looking at it from different perspectives, rather than me being ultra right-wing ideologue who's making stuff up as he goes along. It's not nice.

[Underling]

such a transparent attempt to move the goalposts...

the independent is a left-wing newspaper... this isn't in contention...

i asked you to provide quotes justifying your claim that the article attacked the right for voting as a block, and congratulated the left for doing the same, and instead you start all this shit about corporate america... none of which had been mentioned before now...

i can only assume you've conceded that your previous points were full of shit, having abandoned them so readily...

honestly, i can't be bothered to deal with such shitty debating tactics...

[HolyShadow]

It's the store-greeter thing, mostly. How it seems to go "Well this is a legitimate argument, and the opposing one doesn't exist", combined with the whole "Along party lines" thing.

When you combine these, it becomes as I've described: Essentially congratulating the left for voting as a block for their strong logic in siding with the store greeter, and criticizing the right for doing the same thing, but for an argument that doesn't actually contradict the store greeter.

*Shrugs* That's how I read it.

To put it simply, something like "Well the right is voting along party lines illogically to support an argument that's weaker than the other side, which also voted along party lines. So therefore, since the other side is correct, the right-wing judges must inherently be incorrect, and therefore corrupt or stupid for supporting the weaker side."

[TheOcean]

Originally Posted by Fat1Fared

@ Ocean=well first this:

=this far from conclusive evidence, I am not saying you are right or wrong here, just that personal case studies are normally too small and too bais to actually be really helpful, I mean the Head Director of the British Branch of my ex-step-fathers US owned business is a woman, but that does not prove sexism no longer exists or has become against men. It is sort of like cases, where an ethic person gets job and suddenly it positive discrimination.

You know why this is funny to me? Because the Supreme Court is saying thousands of women having the same issue all together also isn't conclusive. I know my sister is one case, but that's the entire point, the Supreme Court is saying the opposite of what you're saying.

Also I used to live in a place were all of Starbucks managers in the city were women, all of them all the way up to regional, one of my male friends couldn't move up because of it, so i know reverse sexism exists.

[HolyShadow]

I'm mainly wary because my family isn't really the richest. In my extended family, at least half of the women are working at a supermarket. Every one of them complain of the exact same issue, even the one managerial woman, who has her higher-ups try to get her other management buddies follow her around and get her fired.

[TitanAura]

Originally Posted by Underling

err... the (arithmetic) mean is exactly what you described in the first instance ("every number added up and then divided by how many numbers there were"); it is mean income that is skewed upwards

there isn't anything simply called "the average"

so i'm not really sure what it is you're calling the mean... the mode possibly...

OH SHI- yeah, I fucked that up. There is only the mean, median, and mode, so yeah.... whoops.

This is what happens when you attempt to use Mathematics knowledge you learned 10 years ago without looking it up again to refresh yourself.

[getsuga tenshou]

Well I cant be to sure. I do believe that everything is based off of or has some truth to it. So I think they should have looked into this to get the facts straight.

[Jotenks]

You should have noticed this was dead and 4 months old.