Wal-Mart Discriminates?

A California judge has recently granted 'class action lawsuit' status upon the Wal-Mart sexual discrimination suit. No idea if that's the correct language or not, but once a judge says 'class action', it's pretty much over for a retailer like Wal-Mart - the world's BIGGEST company. Ummm, that's pretty big.

Retailers are particularly vulnerable to public opinion - boycotts directly affect the bottom line, and they hit quickly. So this is trouble for the big guys. Wal-Mart claims to have already 'righted the ship' - and there is some evidence of that, but this matter doesn't look to go away quickly. Wal-Mart's just made too many enemies with its heavy-handedness - and knowledge of their shoddy labor practices is growing.

But, screw 'em. They deserve it. If you follow Wal-Mart labor practices, you know they're a bunch of gangsters.

The employees' class action lawsuit website is here.

There are numerous anti-Wal-Mart sites out there - here are just a few: WAL-MART WATCH, WAL-MARTyrs, Wal-Mart Litigation Project.

More articles on how Walmart might just be hurting us all in the end: The Wal-Mart You Don't Know, The Wal-Mart Effect, Group: Wal-Mart subsidies no bargain.

PBS does a mini called 'Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes To Town', based on the documentary of the same name.

Did a quick search and found at least three anti-Wal-Mart books: The Case Against Wal-Mart, In Sam We Trust: The Untold Story of Sam Walton and How Wal-Mart Is Devouring America, How Wal-Mart is Destroying America and The World and What You Can Do About It. Just hard to imagine that the Wal-Marts of yesteryear - say GM Motor Company - provoked such antipathy. But, who knows?

On the other side of things, here's a non-sucky piece from Slate that seems to have something coherent to say - strange, since most of Slate's stuff recently is virulently right-wing, and therefore idealogical, anti-logic and non-thinking.