By Will Parry
With its 5-4 decision in the historic, decade-long Walmart discrimination case, the Supreme Court’s right-wing majority has gravely weakened the people’s right to address corporate injustice with a class-action lawsuit.
The court’s ruling was limited to the finding that Walmart women workers’ circumstances did not have enough in common to make them a class for the purposes of a lawsuit. The court did not address the charge of raw, corporation-wide gender discrimination.
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, cited Walmart’s formal policy forbidding discrimination and its practice of granting local managers substantial discretion, which he argued resulted in varied pay and promotion practices in the company’s 4,500 stores.
The right of 1.5 million present and former women Walmart workers to back pay and to a gender-free opportunity for promotions was at stake in the case originally filed in the name of Walmart greeter Betty Dukes, a modest and courageous African American woman.
Having been denied the right to file a class action, it will now be difficult for the company’s female employees to pursue individual claims. The average wages lost for a member of the rejected class – around $1,100 a year – is too small a sum to give lawyers an incentive to prepare and pursue individual suits against a corporate behemoth.
Despite the difficulties, attorneys for the women predicted that many individual claims would be filed and that efforts would be made to construct one or more smaller groups that might meet the Supreme Court majority’s definition of a class.
The plaintiffs presented 130 sworn statements from women employees documenting specific instances of discrimination in pay, in promotions and in the work environment. Since the case was originally filed in 1999, more than 12,000 women Walmart employees have contacted the plaintiffs’ attorneys with issues arising from company practices.
This mass of evidence supported the conclusion, expressed by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her dissenting opinion, that “gender bias suffused Walmart’s corporate culture.” Ginsburg’s dissent was joined by the other two women justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Elia Kagan, as well as by Justice Stephen Breyer.
The outpouring of corporate support for Walmart during the court case is proof of its watershed importance. More than 20 major corporations, including Bank of America, Microsoft and GE, filed amicus briefs on the company’s behalf – in other words, in support of a corporation’s sovereign right to treat its women employees like second-class citizens
While legal action on behalf of Walmart’s women workers is expected to continue on a smaller scale, company labor relations policies are also being challenged by a growing movement within the ranks of the “associates,” as Walmart calls its employees.
At the company’s stores in many parts of the country, including the Puget Sound area, a movement is taking shape called “OUR Walmart,” which stands for “Organized and United for Respect at Walmart.” Demonstrating their seriousness, more than one hundred workers and supporters marched on the company’s Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters June 20 to demand better treatment.
Karen Casey, a company senior vice president for labor relations, having met with the delegation and listened to their grievances, replied that “our cornerstone at Walmart is respect for the individual.”
“Well then,” responded Misty Tanner, an “associate” who had traveled from Seattle to take part in the protest, “that needs to drain down to the stores, because your store managers lost it.”
The OUR Walmart delegation said that if they don’t see results from their action they will be back.
Reacting to the Supreme Court decision, the National Organization for Women called on Congress to enact the Paycheck Fairness Act, “which would provide more effective remedies to victims of sex-based wage discrimination.”
“NOW also calls on Walmart to end its unconscionable resistance to employees’ efforts to form unions and bargain collectively over pay, benefits and other conditions of employment,” the statement added.
Indeed, if Walmart’s workers and their labor and community supporters can crack this brutal stronghold of anti-unionism, it could inspire a rebirth of militant unionism across the entire working class.
Showing posts with label Supreme Court. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Supreme Court. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Monday, April 5, 2010
AFL-CIO raps decision
Responding to the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, the AFL-CIO declared the decision will increase “the already excessive influence that corporations exert in our electoral system.”
The court erred in treating union political expenditures like those of corporations, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said. “Unions, unlike businesses, are democratically-controlled, nonprofit membership organizations representing working men and women across the country, and their independent speech should accordingly be given greater protection,” he said.
The court erred in treating union political expenditures like those of corporations, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said. “Unions, unlike businesses, are democratically-controlled, nonprofit membership organizations representing working men and women across the country, and their independent speech should accordingly be given greater protection,” he said.
Will Wal-Mart be our next President?
By Will Parry
Will the United States Supreme Court now rule that Wal-Mart can run for President?
That was the sardonic question posed by Greg Palast, writing in the February 15 Progressive Populist, after the court’s five right-wing justices declared that corporations have the same First Amendment rights as us human beings.
Palast was making a point through exaggeration, in the fine old tradition of Mark Twain. What is not at all far-fetched is a future in which the Wal-Marts of the corporate world elect their stooge as president, and stack the Congress and the state legislatures while they’re at it.
That’s the threat posed by the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in the Citizens United case.
President Obama called it “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”
The corporation, writes Patricia J. Williams in the February 15 issue of The Nation, “will now enjoy a range of First Amendment benefits…constrained only by the size of its treasury in deploying whatever technological bullhorn has the greatest chance of drowning out everyone else.”
Or as The New York Times declared in a January 22 editorial: “If a member of Congress tries to stand up to a wealthy special interest, its lobbyists can credibly threaten: We’ll spend whatever it takes to defeat you.”
Lawrence M. Noble, former general counsel of the Federal Election Commission, makes the same point about corporate blackmail: “We have got a million we can spend on advertising for you or against you – whichever one you want.”
In his scathing 90-page dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that “while American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of money in politics.”
“Corporate interests already had too much money power over our political system,” writes Jim Hightower, the well-known Texas populist. “Using their PACs, executive bundling, 527s, front groups and other financing gimmicks, their chosen candidates have long had big advantage over lesser-funded aspirants.”
Consumer advocate Ralph Nader pointed out that “the financial sector invested more than $5 billion in political influence purchasing over the past decade, with as many as 3,000 lobbyists, winning deregulation and other policy decisions that led directly to the current financial crisis.”
Now the lid on corporate spending, never screwed on too securely, is blown sky-high.
Plainly, progressives cannot hold still for what Jim Hightower calls “a black-robed coup” by Alito, Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia and Thomas.
New York Senator Charles E. Schuman and Maryland Representative Chris Van Hollen, both Democrats, have been working on legislation in anticipation of the court’s ruling. One possibility would be a bill to ban political advertising by corporations that hire lobbyists, receive government money, or collect most of their revenue abroad.
Advocates are also stepping up the demand for public financing of elections, encouraged by the filing of the Fair Elections Now Act, which would provide congressional candidates with an alternative to corporate-funded campaigns.
Sponsored by Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois and Representative John Larson of Connecticut, both Democrats, the bill would encourage unlimited small-dollar donations from individuals. It would also provide qualifying candidates with public funding in exchange for refusing corporate or large private contributions. The bill has broad support, including 126 House co-sponsors.
Conceding that it will require a long-term campaign, Public Citizen is calling for a constitutional amendment, stating that for-profit corporations are not entitled to First Amendment protections except for freedom of the press.
Will the United States Supreme Court now rule that Wal-Mart can run for President?
That was the sardonic question posed by Greg Palast, writing in the February 15 Progressive Populist, after the court’s five right-wing justices declared that corporations have the same First Amendment rights as us human beings.
Palast was making a point through exaggeration, in the fine old tradition of Mark Twain. What is not at all far-fetched is a future in which the Wal-Marts of the corporate world elect their stooge as president, and stack the Congress and the state legislatures while they’re at it.
That’s the threat posed by the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in the Citizens United case.
President Obama called it “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”
The corporation, writes Patricia J. Williams in the February 15 issue of The Nation, “will now enjoy a range of First Amendment benefits…constrained only by the size of its treasury in deploying whatever technological bullhorn has the greatest chance of drowning out everyone else.”
Or as The New York Times declared in a January 22 editorial: “If a member of Congress tries to stand up to a wealthy special interest, its lobbyists can credibly threaten: We’ll spend whatever it takes to defeat you.”
Lawrence M. Noble, former general counsel of the Federal Election Commission, makes the same point about corporate blackmail: “We have got a million we can spend on advertising for you or against you – whichever one you want.”
In his scathing 90-page dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that “while American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of money in politics.”
“Corporate interests already had too much money power over our political system,” writes Jim Hightower, the well-known Texas populist. “Using their PACs, executive bundling, 527s, front groups and other financing gimmicks, their chosen candidates have long had big advantage over lesser-funded aspirants.”
Consumer advocate Ralph Nader pointed out that “the financial sector invested more than $5 billion in political influence purchasing over the past decade, with as many as 3,000 lobbyists, winning deregulation and other policy decisions that led directly to the current financial crisis.”
Now the lid on corporate spending, never screwed on too securely, is blown sky-high.
Plainly, progressives cannot hold still for what Jim Hightower calls “a black-robed coup” by Alito, Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia and Thomas.
New York Senator Charles E. Schuman and Maryland Representative Chris Van Hollen, both Democrats, have been working on legislation in anticipation of the court’s ruling. One possibility would be a bill to ban political advertising by corporations that hire lobbyists, receive government money, or collect most of their revenue abroad.
Advocates are also stepping up the demand for public financing of elections, encouraged by the filing of the Fair Elections Now Act, which would provide congressional candidates with an alternative to corporate-funded campaigns.
Sponsored by Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois and Representative John Larson of Connecticut, both Democrats, the bill would encourage unlimited small-dollar donations from individuals. It would also provide qualifying candidates with public funding in exchange for refusing corporate or large private contributions. The bill has broad support, including 126 House co-sponsors.
Conceding that it will require a long-term campaign, Public Citizen is calling for a constitutional amendment, stating that for-profit corporations are not entitled to First Amendment protections except for freedom of the press.
She laced up her sneakers and walked across the U.S.
Doris Haddock, whose one-woman march for campaign finance reform began in Pasadena, California, on New Year’s Day of 1999 and ended 14 months and 3,200 miles later in Washington, DC, died March 9 at the age of 100.
Widely known as “Granny D,” Mrs. Haddock lived long enough to denounce the U.S. Supreme Court majority that gave corporations the First Amendment rights of human beings.
“The Supreme Court,” she said, “representing a radical fringe that does not share the despair of the grand majority of Americans, has today made things considerably worse by undoing the modest reforms I walked for….The Supreme court now opens the floodgates to usher in a new tsunami of corporate money into politics.”
In 2004, at age 94, Granny D. ran for the U.S. Senate against Republican Judd Gregg, receiving 34% of the vote despite refusing private campaign contributions.
Widely known as “Granny D,” Mrs. Haddock lived long enough to denounce the U.S. Supreme Court majority that gave corporations the First Amendment rights of human beings.
“The Supreme Court,” she said, “representing a radical fringe that does not share the despair of the grand majority of Americans, has today made things considerably worse by undoing the modest reforms I walked for….The Supreme court now opens the floodgates to usher in a new tsunami of corporate money into politics.”
In 2004, at age 94, Granny D. ran for the U.S. Senate against Republican Judd Gregg, receiving 34% of the vote despite refusing private campaign contributions.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)