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JOCELYN
D. LARKIN (SBN 110817) THE
IMPACT FUND 125
University Avenue Berkeley,
CA 94710 Telephone: (510)
845-3473 Facsimile: (510) 845-3654 |
JOSEPH
SELLERS CHRISTINE
WEBBER CHARLES
TOMPKINS JULIE
GOLDSMITH COHEN,
MILSTEIN, HAUSFELD & TOLL West
Tower – Suite 500 1100
New York Avenue Washington,
D.C. 20005-3964 Telephone: (202) 408-4600 Facsimile: (202) 408-4699 |
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IRMA
D. HERRERA (SBN 98658) DEBRA
A. SMITH (SBN 147863) EQUAL
RIGHTS ADVOCATES 1663
Mission Street, Suite 250 San
Francisco, CA 94103 Telephone: (415)
621-0672 Facsimile: (415) 621-6744 |
STEPHEN
TINKLER MERIT
BENNETT TINKLER
& BENNETT 309
Johnson Street Santa
Fe, New Mexico 87501 Telephone: (505) 986-0269 Facsimile: (505) 982-6698 |
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SHEILA
Y. THOMAS (SBN 161403) EQUAL
RIGHTS ADVOCATES 5260
Proctor Avenue Oakland,
CA 94618 Telephone: (510) 339-3739 Facsimile: (510) 339-3723 |
DEBRA
GARDNER PUBLIC
JUSTICE CENTER 500
East Lexington Street Baltimore,
MD 21202 Telephone: (410) 625-9409 Facsimile: (410) 625-9423 |
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STEVE
STEMERMAN (SBN 067690) ELIZABETH
LAWRENCE (SBN 111781) DAVIS,
COWELL & BOWE 100
Van Ness Avenue, 20th Floor San
Francisco, CA 94102 Telephone: (415)
626-1880 Facsimile: (415) 626-2860 Attorneys for Plaintiffs |
SHAUNA
MARSHALL (SBN 90641) HASTINGS
COLLEGE OF THE LAW 200
McAllister Street San Francisco, CA 94102 Telephone: (415)
565-4685 Facsimile: (415) 565-4854 |
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
I, Donna Adair, declare:
1.
I make this statement on the basis of my personal knowledge, and, if
called as a witness, could and would testify competently to the facts herein.
2.
I am a female former employee of Wal-Mart, and reside in
Tennessee. I am currently a store manager
at Parent-Teacher Store in Franklin, Tennessee.
I have been in that position since September 2001. In my position, I have responsibility for
supervising employees.
3.
I was employed by Wal-Mart from November 1993 to approximately April
2001. I worked in three Wal-Mart stores:
in Clear Lake, California in Sacramento, California and in Franklin,
Tennessee. Throughout my employment, I
received above standard ratings and was commended for my ability to manage and
supervise associates. I was never
disciplined in any way while an employee of Wal-Mart. Despite my excellent management and
supervisory skills, I was denied promotional opportunities offered to less
qualified men. Also, I was paid less
than men with whom I worked.
4.
Prior to joining Wal-Mart, I had worked in retail at J.C. Penney and a
family-owned business, Circle F Western Shop.
I applied at a new Wal-Mart Store in Clear Lake, California with little
knowledge of the employment opportunities within the company. Initially, I was hired to help set up the store, which had not yet
opened. After the store opened, I worked
as a service desk clerk. for a short
time and was then promoted to Customer Service Manager (“CSM”) within three
months after I was hired. A month later,
I was promoted to Head CSM. Both my
supervisors and the associates I supervised recognized my excellent supervisory
skills and how the front-end ran smoothly during my shifts while I worked in
the positions.
5.
I realized after joining Wal-Mart that there were opportunities to advance
within the company and informed the Store Manager Randy Ward sometime in 1994
that I was interested in a promotion to Support Manager. I specifically expressed interest in a
Support Manager position that was given to a male associate Simon Williams despite
my qualifications. Subsequently, I expressed interest in another Support
Manager to Store Manager Ward position a number of months later and was
promoted to the position in October 1994.
6.
While I was Support Manager, I continued to be interested in promotional
opportunities and expressed this interest to Store Manager Randy Ward. In November 1995, I was promoted to the
Assistant Manager in Training Program. I
was in the program for approximately 16-20 weeks in the Clear Lake store and
was then promoted to the position of Assistant Manager in the Clear Lake
store. Each evaluation I received as an
Assistant Manager rated me as “exceeding expectations”.
7.
I fully expected to move up within the company and be promoted to
Store Manager. However, experiences I
had with former Divisional Vice President Kendall Schwindt and Regional Vice
President J.R. Reed made it clear to me that because I am a woman I would not
be promoted to Store Manager.
8.
The day after Easter in 1995 another female assistant manager, B.J. Black, and
I reported to work at 4:00 a.m. to prepare for a visit from Kendall
Schwindt. Randy Ward was on vacation and
it was our responsibility to make sure that the store complied with company
guidelines. Mr. Schwindt visited our
store at approximately 9:00 a.m. that morning and toured the store with Ms.
Black and me. During the tour, Mr.
Schwindt ridiculed and talked down to both of us in front of associates we
supervised. He told us that we were very
poor examples of managers for the "fine young men" who were Assistant
Manager Trainees and who were standing with us.
In my experience as an employee of Wal-Mart, I had never observed anyone
from Home Office speak to a manager in a store in the way Mr. Schwindt spoke to
us. I had never heard Mr. Schwindt speak to male assistant managers with such
contempt. I was very embarrassed by the
comments Mr. Schwindt made. Ms. Black
and I made an anonymous call to Mr. Maxie Carpenter, Vice-President of
Personnel, in the Home Office, Bentonville, Arkansas to tell him about what had
happened during the tour. I am not aware
of any investigation that occurred as a result of our use of the Open
Door. I did not tell any of my
supervisors about what happened because I feared that I would be retaliated
against for doing so.
9.
Despite this experience, I continued to work hard and my performance continued
to exceed expectations. In June or July of 1996, I transferred to a Wal-Mart
store near Sacramento, California after my husband's job relocated him to the
area. I remained at the store near
Sacramento until December 1996. The store manager was Randy Ward who had been
at the Wal-Mart store in Clear Lake. My
responsibilities increased at the store because it was a much larger store than
the one in Clear Lake.
10.
In December 1996, I transferred to a store in Franklin,
Tennessee after my husband accepted a new position in Tennessee. The practices and procedures I had learned in
the two California stores were the same practices and policies used at the
Tennessee store. The personnel policies
were the same in Tennessee as in California.
I did not receive any additional training in order to assume the duties
of assistant manager in Tennessee. Britt
Wood (male) was the store manager when I started in the Franklin store. Following Mr. Wood, the store managers were
Cheryl Doyle and Keith Rinehart.
11.
In approximately April of 1998, I stepped down from the position of
Assistant Manager because of an incident that I felt was the last straw
involving acting-Regional Vice-President J.R. Lee. Mr. Lee made an unexpected visit to the
Franklin, Tennessee store on a day when Store Manager Doyle was off. I was assistant manager over soft lines at
the time and I walked over to the department where Mr. Lee was located. As I walked over, I noticed that he was
tearing something up and dropping it on the floor. I walked up to him and he told me
"[w]ell you have a backer that's outdated and I ripped it up. And now, you need to clean it up"
referring to the paper I had watched him drop on the floor. I had never seen a regional manager treat a
manager in the store in that way and I was very upset. I did not see Mr. Lee treat any of the other
male assistant managers who were in the store the way that he treated me even
though it was not uncommon for departments to have expired backers.
12.
I immediately drafted a letter of resignation because of the treatment
I received from Mr. Lee following the similar treatment from Mr. Schwindt. The
two incidents convinced me that I had no future with the company as these
superiors clearly did not view female managers as worthy of respect. I decided that the best thing for me to do
was to leave. I agreed to stay only
after Store Manager Doyle told me that I was too valuable to lose and offered
me a position in the cash office. I
worked in the cash office from approximately April 1998 until November 1999.
13.
I went through management training again beginning in November 1999
although I performed the actual duties of an assistant manager. My duties were
essentially the same as those I had performed before I had stepped down to work
in the cash office. I did not post for
the position and entered into the program after Store Manager Rinehart
encouraged me to do so. As part of my
job responsibilities, I handled the payroll and had access to salary
information for the associates in the store.
I discovered that Rich Hailey, another trainee who had previously worked
at Wal-Mart and left for several years, was earning approximately $4000 a year
more than I. I spoke to the store
manager Keith Rinehart, who did not deny the pay disparity. He offered no legitimate explanation for it,
and told me that it was out of his hands. He promised to take care of me in my
next evaluation. However, the pay
disparity was never corrected.
14.
In handling payroll, I noticed that men frequently earned more money
than women associates despite the fact that women were in higher positions and
had worked for the company longer. For
example, I observed that a newly hired male sales associate, James Ray, was
paid approximately $15.00 an hour. None
of the female hourly associates, including a department manager, Annie Garner,
who had worked for the company for twenty years, earned $15.00 an hour at the
time.
15.
Throughout the time that I worked as an Assistant Manager, I worked
primarily in Soft lines. I noticed that
the areas that most frequently led to promotion to store manager were the
Garden Center and Sporting Goods. It was
my understanding that Assistant Managers were to rotate and work in all areas
of the store. However, in my experience
I was not given the opportunity.
16.
In April 2000, I went out on medical leave after I broke my knee and
did not return to work. I learned I was
terminated sometime in 2001 when I received papers from the company concerning
profit sharing.
17.
I observed throughout my employment with Wal-Mart that associates were
often selected to fill open positions within stores without job posting. In the few instances in which I recall jobs
were posted, management had already decided who would fill the positions.
I declare under penalty of perjury of the laws of the United States and State of __________________ that the foregoing is true and correct.
This Declaration was signed by me on ______________________, 2003, at _______________________.
______________________________
S:\SHARE\LEGAL\Walmart\Declarations\Donna Adair class cert dec.doc