Talk:Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Vandalism removed
I changed [an inappropriate phrase to] "Women". This sort of abuse should be detected automatically, and quickly reverted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.23.126.79 (talk) 03:47, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I edited this comment and its header, since it repeated the vandalism, and we don't need to advertise it. Ocaasic 13:16, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Requested move
Self nomination Would anyone get ticked if I moved this article to Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.? After all, this is the correct name of the case. Tuxide 19:56, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Went ahead and did it, after quickly reaching consensus on freenode. Tuxide 20:02, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Is there a place for criticism of the walmartclass.com report?
I thought that the PDF report at walmartclass.com was an effective statement making the case that women are paid less at Wal-Mart than their male counterparts, but does the wiki article have room for a rebuttal or challenge to this statement?

It is fair criticism to tabulate Wal-Mart's roster and mathematically challenge Wal-Mart for paying women less than men for the same work; however. is there room for a counter-argument that there are physical, cultural, and ideological differences between men and women that may considerably influence the results found in the report?

There are jobs done at Wal-Mart that are more desirable for women than for men... starting with the women's fashion department but continuing throughout the entire sales force. Women disproportionately choose non-management positions. Women choose assignments that are aesthetically pleasing or produce satisfaction in non-financial ways. Women disproportionately accept lower pay for their work and don't assert themselves as much as men do. Women may place higher value on non-monetary aspects of their jobs such as flex time, child care, or networking with their friends. There are a large number of single-parent households led by women who will accept lower-paying jobs out of a sense of desperation. Societal forces such as these are always in play and, when appropriate, should be contemplated in real-life decision-making. Women overwhelmingly consider child care when contemplating work. A majority of married women earn less than their working husbands (which is not true in reverse) and this could create a barrier to her promotion when it means moving away from his job for her to accept her new job in a new region.

The $11 billion sought as relief by Dukes et. al. is a tremendous amount of money that stands to harm Wal-Mart's bottom line for years to come, and this case is about changing outcomes in order to achieve equality, so it would seem prudent to examine the probable outcome of the relief sought in this case.

Will hiring, firing, promotion, and compensation decisions have to be altered in order to accomodate future statistics? Will the wages that Wal-Mart and many other employers pay be based not on what the worker willingly accepts, but plugged into calculations to guarantee gender equity? Should employers be required to adjust their bargaining habits to compensate for groups of employees who are not as good at bargaining? Most importantly to Wal-Mart, will the bottom line be maintained, that is, will radical change of the pay structure to try to achieve pay equity cause profits to increase? These are some interesting possible, even likely, outcome-based questions relevant to a case about a dollar per hour difference earned by male and female associates in America, selling goods that were likely produced in factories by young women in China for less than a dollar an hour.

In a two-dimensional model of supply and demand, adjusting the price of a good changes the quantity supplied and the quantity demanded based on the demand's inflexibility. Goods such as tomatoes, cheese, or coffee might replaced by substitutes or consumers might simply balk at higher prices and not buy them. Demand for tomatoes could fall dramatically, for example, if a tax on them were hiked, with the result being that less tax was collected on tomatoes than before the hike. Commodities such as oil, wood, gasoline, and in this case, human labor, have demand curves as well. Tax or regulate a commodity and the price goes up, and the quantity demanded tends to go down, both unwelcome changes.

Jessemckay (talk) 05:00, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Your points seem like original research, which would be outside of the posting guidelines for WP. It's difficult to even capture the ideological split on this case within the context of an encyclopedia article, especially since terms like "liberal" and "conservative" appear to carry their own POV problems.  All that seems really important is to identify that there are different viewpoints and that the case is ongoing, with links to more information. - AyaK (talk) 22:36, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
There seems to be someone based at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee who is continually vandalising this article in a puerile way. Any edit from an IP address beginning 129.89 is almost certainly vandalism. Nunquam Dormio (talk) 09:26, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Factual correction and additional details; Proposed Merger
The class was certified under 23(b)(2) not 23(b)(3). I edited accordingly and added reference to original district court opinion. I also added details re the en banc opinion authors and the upcoming Supreme Court oral argument date. To balance the defense counsel quote in the en banc paragraph, I added a quote from plaintiffs' counsel with appropriate reference. I would also like to propose merging this article into the Supreme Court Wikipedia article for this case. Dangtony (talk) 18:29, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Is there an article for the Supreme Court case? I can't seem to find it. I would definitely support the merge. As you can see with many other SCOTUS articles (i.e. Roe v. Wade), an extensive section about the background leading up to the decision is not uncommon. Sailing to Byzantium (talk) 02:11, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Wal-Mart v. Dukes. Merger and redirect of this article to that one is appropriate; this case is dead and superseded. THF (talk) 02:53, 21 June 2011 (UTC)