Seekonk Wal-Mart Employees Worry More About Wages Than Discrimination

Two male employees working at the Wal-Mart store in Seekonk don't believe there is any sexual discrimination in their workplace. The two spoke a few hours after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision to reject a massive class-action suit brought against the international corporation by female employees.

The two male stockers, who were bringing shopping carts into the air-conditioned facility Monday afternoon, said there are "a lot of women managers" at the Seekonk store. In fact, they said, the "zoning manager" positions, a tier below manager, are mostly filled by women.

"There's not a lot of that talk here," Ed Williams, a Wal-Mart employee for about 10 years, said of sexual discrimination and the Supreme Court case.

Employee Matt Saial said no one at the store on Monday was talking about the Supreme Court decision. 

Both men are more concerned with wages than they are with discrimination. Saial earns $8.20 an hour. He said he was making more than $17 per hour at his last job, at a Stop & Shop grocery store.

"When the economy is better, I'll be able to say something about the money ... I'm just lucky to have a job," Saial said.

Workers' representative says lawsuit is essentially dead

United Food and Commercial Workers union spokeswoman Jennifer Stapleton said the dismissal of the lawsuit as a class action likely spells the end of employees’ legal efforts.

“The only thing left is to bring a lawsuit individually, which for someone making $8 an hour is pretty difficult,” said Stapleton, assistant director of Making Change at Wal-Mart, a union campaign to represent Wal-Mart workers. “It’s very difficult to hold a company like Wal-Mart accountable.”

But the dismissal does not end employees’ efforts to lobby Wal-Mart for more equitable working conditions, Stapleton said. UFCW is working with WalMart associates to form the Organization United for Respect at Wal-Mart, which drafted and submitted to company executives a Declaration of Respect calling for Wal-Mart to “create a culture free from discrimination.” While the organization is not a union, Stapleton said, it “does give workers a collective voice and allows them to take collective action.”

Banding together is the only way for associates to convince company executives to treat all employees equitably, especially when it comes to salary, the chief complaint among female employees, Stapleton said.

“We continue to hear reports of discrimination across the country. Any woman not represented by a union contract is vulnerable,” Stapleton said. “The only way to hold Wal-Mart accountable is for associates to make themselves heard.”

Editor's note: Patrick Luce contributed to this story.