Wal-Mart Suit May Force Wider Look at Pay Gap Between Sexes

There were 6,037 wage discrimination charge filings with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in fiscal 2003, which accounted for 7.5 percent of the EEOC's total private sector cases. The number of wage filings has remained the same over the past decade, according to a spokesman.

The average median weekly earnings of full-time male employees in 2003 was $695 a week, while women earned $552 a week on average. That means women earned 79.4 percent of men's salaries in comparable positions, according to Labor Department figures.

That gap has decreased slightly but steadily during the past 20 years. In 1993 women earned 71.4 percent of what men earned, and in 1983 it was 66.7 percent.

"This [gap] is narrowing quite slowly," said Jane E. Smith, chief executive of Business and Professional Women/USA. "It will be another 50 years before we see it disappear if it goes at the rate it's going."

Fox said he is working with three to four dozen companies to analyze their pay scales "because they got religion after hearing about what's going on," he said.

In addition, the ruling Tuesday will likely empower women at other organizations to believe they have a voice when it comes to pay equity and opportunities, perhaps forcing employers to take a second look at pay so they don't end up in litigation, labor attorneys said.

Although Wal-Mart's reputation is "not to bend to litigation," no matter what happens with the case, its effects will be felt across the workplace landscape, according to Arisa L. Lieberwitz, associate professor of labor law at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

"Because Wal-Mart's so big, so enormous, so powerful . . . where there is a large lawsuit, people pay attention," Lieberwitz said. "It may be that women elsewhere can use this as a vehicle for trying to improve their situation in their own workplace."

Beyond the pay issue, the case could have a positive effect on women's careers, said Amy Oppenheimer, an attorney and workplace harassment expert based in Berkeley, Calif. "If Wal-Mart starts promoting women and allowing them to go where many of these men have gone, it's going to open lot of doors."

According to statistics gathered by an expert for the plaintiffs in the Wal-Mart case, women from the most menial positions up to top levels make less than men in the same positions. The numbers also found the number of women decrease as the level of job increases. Lawyers for the plaintiffs say Wal-Mart women were not told when higher level job opportunities opened, or they were told not to apply for certain jobs because they belonged elsewhere.

In response to the suit, Wal-Mart officials have revamped some employment practices. Among other things, the company started new job structure and pay classification earlier this month, to "maintain both internal equity and external competitiveness," according to a news release.