Working Life

    Keep our eye on the ball. I’m sure the Waltons are doing a great dance over in Bentonville, Arkansas in light of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling blocking a class-action suit against the companythat, had it been successful, would have likely cost the company billions of dollars in damages. But, let’s be clear: Wal-Mart […]

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   It’s bad enough that the global financial crisis has put millions of people out of work and trashed the future of the ranks of workers everywhere. But, let’s take a moment to consider an undercurrent of the economic crisis, fanned by fear, stupidity and the relentless drive to cut government (oh, that comes under […]

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We have an affliction that really undermines a decent society. It’s a tendency to want to ignore inconvenient facts, either explicitly or because we are encouraged to look quite narrowly and myopically at a problem. Which brings me to Wal-Mart’s new attempt to whitewash its practices, using the First Lady as a prop.   We […]

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   I am hardly surprised by this: More than six years before the biggest sex discrimination lawsuit in history was filed against Wal-Mart Stores, the company hired a prominent law firm to examine its vulnerability to just such a suit. The law firm, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, found widespread gender disparities in pay […]

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    In the midst of the focus on the unethical behavior of Wall Street, let’s give a little stage time for Wal-Mart: In a closely watched case, a sharply divided federal appeals court on Monday ruled 6-5 that a sex discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart could proceed as a class action for more than a million […]

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The greatest threat to our future is the way in which we let certain trends and norms become an almost accepted way the economy works. For example, the poverty-level minimum wage is rarely challenged and it is a fundamental part of the strategy of business in America–and a core reason for the greatest divide between […]

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   We haven’t checked in with the folks from Bentonville in a bit but Wal-Mart makes the news today: A small group of West African men who came to the Rockies in search of economic opportunity are embroiled in a dispute with Wal-Mart, accusing it of a raft of discriminatory actions. Most say they were […]

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One day, as a society, we will look back at the absurdity of discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals as something as abhorrent as racial discrimination. But, that day is not here yet–and it’s likely the California State Supreme Court today will make the road just a bit harder. Which is why everyone […]

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  The Beast of Bentonville–aka Wal-Mart–is slowly, but surely, letting go of the argument "we’re innocent" of widespread lawbreaking. And this just in: it will settle 63 lawsuits for a cool $640 million.   From The New York Times: Wal-Mart Stores, the nation’s largest retailer, said Tuesday that it would pay up to $640 million […]

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    Yesterday, the House passed a bill called the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. You may remember Ledbetter was the victim of an idiotic Supreme Court decision that denied her claim of discrimination because the Court said she had waited too long to file the claim. That outrageous decision would be overturned by law if […]

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