By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
 
02/16/2003
The New York Times
Page 22, Column 5
c. 2003 New York Times Company

An ambitious discrimination lawsuit against Wal - Mart , the nation's
biggest employer, accuses it of favoring men over women in promotions
and pay.

The plaintiffs' lawyers want the lawsuit to include all 700,000 women
who worked at Wal - Mart from 1996 to 2001, which would make it by far
the largest employment discrimination class action in American history.
The lawyers plan to file their motion for class certification in April.

The lawsuit, filed in 2001 in federal court in San Francisco, focuses
largely on one statistic compiled by plaintiffs' experts: in 2001, the
suit claims, women made up 65 percent of Wal - Mart 's hourly employees
but only 33 percent of its managers.

The suit also claims wide disparities in pay. In a study released early
this month, Richard Drogin, an emeritus statistics professor at
California State University at Hayward hired by the plaintiffs' lawyers,
found that full-time women hourly employees working at least 45 weeks at
Wal - Mart made about $1,150 less per year than men in similar jobs, a
6.2 percent gap. Women store managers, he found, made an average of
$89,280 a year, $16,400 less than men.

In another expert's report, William T. Bielby, a sociology professor at
the University of California at Santa Barbara, found that women make up
89.5 percent of Wal - Mart 's cashiers, 79 percent of department heads,
37.6 percent of its assistant store managers and 15.5 percent of its
store managers. The lawsuit claims that among 20 other large retailers,
57 percent of the managers were women . Hourly jobs at Wal - Mart pay an
average of about $18,000 a year, while the average managerial job pays
$50,000.

''There are enormous disparities in the rate of promotion for men and
women in management,'' said Joseph Sellers, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.
''There is strong evidence that the company is mistreating women because
they are women .''

Wal - Mart officials have dismissed the lawsuit as baseless, saying it
reflects efforts by lawyers to squeeze a company that has very deep
pockets -- it has 3,300 stores, including Sam's Clubs, and annual
revenues of more than $230 billion.

''As Wal - Mart , we do not discriminate against anyone, including
women ,'' said Mona Williams, Wal - Mart 's vice president for
communications.

Ms. Williams questioned the statistics put forward by the plaintiffs'
lawyers and by their hired experts, who used computer tapes provided by
Wal - Mart to analyze the company's employment practices.

''These numbers,'' she said, ''were put together in all these different
ways by people who have a vested interest, by people who are trying to
sue us, by lawyers who stand to make an awful lot of money in this
case.''

Ms. Williams also disputed many of the plaintiffs' statistics, but said
the company would not provide its own statistical reports until it gives
them to the court on March 31.

Ms. Williams said women 's lack of interest in managerial jobs helped
explain the lower percentage of women managers. She noted that when Wal
- Mart posted notices companywide in January inviting workers to apply
to become management trainees, only 43 percent of those who expressed
interest were women .

''Many of these women had the opportunity to go into training to become
an assistant manager,'' Ms. Williams said, ''but they did not want to
work the odd shifts, like working all night long, Saturdays or
Sundays.''

But Wal - Mart employees involved in the lawsuit tell a different
story.

In depositions, one woman said a manager told her that a man was
promoted over a qualified women because ''he has a family to support.''
Another woman testified that a department manager in South Carolina
explained to her that Wal - Mart paid men more than women because the
Bible says God made Adam before Eve.

While working as an assistant Sam's Club manager in Riverside Calif.,
Stephanie Odle said she was surprised to discover that a male assistant
manager at the store was making $60,000 a year, $23,000 more than she
was earning.

''I was outraged,'' Ms. Odle said. ''When I went to the district
manager, he first goes, 'Stephanie, that assistant manager has a family
and two children to support.' I told him, 'I'm a single mother and I
have a 6-month-old child to support.' ''

Diane Durfey said that when she told her superiors she wanted to become
a store manager, she was shocked by their response.

Ms. Durfey, then an assistant store manager at a Wal - Mart in Utah,
said the store's top manager told her that managers like him worked long
hours and ''it was maybe not something for women because it means you
have to be away from home a long time each day.''

''It was just very discouraging,'' said Ms. Durfey, a Brigham Young
graduate who is single and has no children. ''It made me feel there was
no room for advancement.''

The sex discrimination lawsuit is one of a growing number of challenges
to working conditions at Wal - Mart , which has more than one million
workers. Accusing Wal - Mart of providing worse wages and benefits than
unionized stores, a claim the company denies, labor unions are make
their biggest push ever to organize Wal - Mart workers, but so far have
made little headway. More than 40 lawsuits are pending that accuse Wal -
Mart of pressuring or forcing employees to work unpaid hours off the
clock. Wal - Mart officials deride all these lawsuits, though in
December a jury in Oregon found Wal - Mart guilty of forcing 400
employees to work off the clock.

Ms. Williams acknowledged that the companywide posting for trainees was
a first for Wal - Mart . The posting went up after the plaintiffs'
lawyers and experts had repeatedly asserted that Wal - Mart 's failure
to post many management positions was a major reason for its low
percentage of women managers. The lawyers argued that without posting,
promotions often relied on favoritism and a buddy network. 

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