Number of the Day

[Content Note: Misogyny; gender-based discrimination.]

1,975: The number of charges filed with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that Walmart discriminated in pay and promotion decisions on the basis of gender.

Nearly 2,000 current and former Walmart employees filed claims of discrimination on the basis of gender with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Complaints were filed in all but two states - Montana and Vermont - but at least one complaint was filed in every US Walmart retail region. The lawsuits were filed in response to last year's Supreme Court ruling on a class-action lawsuit, Dukes v. Walmart Stores, Inc., in which the Supreme Court overturned a lower court's certification of a national class of women.

Brad Seligman, one of the lawyers for the women in Dukes v. Walmart Stores, Inc., said that "the fact that EEOC charges were filed in every single Walmart region in the nation demonstrates the widespread and pervasive nature of Walmart's pay and promotion discrimination against its women employees."

Indeed.

In related news: "Walmart's outsourcing of jobs is driving down wages at American factories, according to a report from the National Employment Law Project."

What a great company. We should give them more tax breaks.

Walmart's garbage employment policies underscore the speciousness of waxing rhapsodic about "job creators" without any kind of qualifications about what kind of jobs are being created. Walmart's increasingly expansive presence across the nation creates retail jobs—but does so at the expense of US factory jobs. (Not to mention the jobs lost at the smaller and/or independent retailers Walmart drives out of business.) Meanwhile, the jobs Walmart creates lack protections, benefits, and equal pay.

The US needs fewer jobs like the ones Walmart is creating, and more like the ones Walmart endeavors to destroy to maximize profits.