With all the hoo-hah inside the labor movement, I’ve left my favorite Beast of Bentonville alone for a couple of weeks. Well, praise be, it never ceases to feed the machine…The Beast has now made a motion in court to throw out the huge class action discrimination case filed against it–that case could cover more than 1.5 million women who were underpaid by Wal-Mart.

As the Los Angeles Times reports (registration required), the Beast is arguing that the case is way too big and can’t possibly be considered a coherent class action. But, the piece quotes one epxert pointing out that “if the plaintiffs’ petition for a class action is rejected, it becomes too expensive for plaintiffs’ lawyers to pursue their cases individually and they will ‘usually fold’…”

But, what I found interesting is this line: “Advocates for workers, however, say the case must remain a class action because the courthouse is often the only place where low-wage, nonunion employees can stand up to corporate giants like Wal-Mart.”

Aha…there’s our new line for Republicans and anti-lawyer groups: you want to reduce class actions and legal fees, just give workers the real right to unionize (card check, neutrality, mandatory arbitration for first contracts after a short period of time) cuz with unions no one will sue you!

Okay, I’m going back for my afternoon meds now.