BRAD SELIGMAN (SBN 083838) 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
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
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
STEVE STEMERMAN (SBN 067690) ELIZABETH LAWRENCE (SBN 111781) DAVIS, COWELL & BOWE 100 Van Ness Avenue, 20^th 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

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

BETTY DUKES, PATRICIA SURGESON, EDITH ARANA, DEBORAH GUNTER, CHRISTINE KWAPNOSKI, CLEO PAGE, KAREN WILLIAMSON, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, vs. WAL-MART STORES, INC., Defendant

Case No. C-01-2252 MJJ DECLARATION OF LORI ARHANGELSKY IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR CLASS CERTIFICATION

I, Lori Arhangelsky, declare:

1. I am a 33 year old female who currently lives in Rogers, Arkansas. I worked for Wal-Mart on two separate occasions. Between November 1996 and August 1997 I worked at the Cherry Lane Wal-Mart store, in the Fort Worth, Texas area. From approximately January 11, 1999 until April 23, 1999 I worked at the Wal-Mart store in Hulen, Texas. During my employment at Wal-Mart, I experienced sexual harassment and discovered the Open Door did not work. I was also denied promotional opportunities and saw a less experienced male awarded a promotion. I was discouraged from pursuing a management position.

2. In November 1996 I was hired at the Cherry Lane store as a sales associate in the Health and Beauty Department. In January 1997, Assistant Manager Mike Fuller told me that because of my hard work and my attention to detail he was promoting me to Sales Associate in the Electronics Department. Although Mr. Fuller termed the move as a promotion, I did not receive a corresponding raise when I accepted the new position.

3. While working at the Cherry Lane Wal-Mart store, I suffered severe sexual harassment. Support Manager Gilbert Hill, my direct supervisor, repeatedly harassed me with comments and questions such as, “when are we going to have sex?” One day in the summer of 1997, he pushed me against some pallets and put his hands up the front of my shirt. I was so scared and distraught I left work immediately. Assistant Manager Mike Fuller later called me into the office to discuss the incident. When I arrived, Support Manager Hill was in the office. Mr. Fuller asked me to explain what was going on with Mr. Hill right there in the room. I was very intimidated by this. While we were in the office, Mr. Hill admitted to the verbal portion of the assaults. However, I never observed or was made aware of any discipline Wal-Mart took against Mr. Hill for the sexual harassment.

4. In late July or early August of 1997, I approached Store Manager Jim Brown and told him that I was uncomfortable working with Support Manager Hill after his repeated sexual harassment. I requested a transfer to the Hulen or Lakeworth stores, two other Wal-Marts in the area. Store Manager Brown told me neither store had any openings. The Store Manager told me I had two options, I could quit or just deal with it. Therefore, I gave my two weeks notice and quit.

5. With over a year break from working at a Wal-Mart store, in January 1999, I decided I would attempt once more to have a career at Wal-Mart I applied at store the Hulen, Texas Wal-Mart store because I did not want to return to the Cherry Lane store due to my damaging experience there.

6. I was hired as an Electronics Associate at the Hulen, Texas store in mid-January 1999. Within weeks of starting at the Hulen store, I talked to Assistant Manager David White and Store Manager John Jurca about becoming part of the Wal-Mart management team. When I told them I was interested in the Management Training Program, Mr. Jurca asked me if I had a college degree. I said no. He informed me that he tends to hire people with a college degree in business management for the Management Training Program. As I did not have a college degree, I understood from Mr. Jurca that I was not qualified to be a manager at Wal-Mart.

7. Because Mr. Jurca led me to believe that he would not choose me for the Management Training Program because I lacked a college degree in business management, I set my goals on a Support Manager position. Support Manager is the level of management just below Assistant Manager at Wal-Mart. I talked to Mr. White and Mr. Jurca repeatedly about being promoted to Support Manager during my time at the Hulen Wal-Mart. Neither of them would respond to me about my interest. Typically, Mr. White and Mr. Jurca changed the subject or brushed me off. Neither of them told me what I needed to do in order to become a Support Manager.

8. By the end of January 1999, Assistant Manager David White approached me and asked me to apply for a Customer Service Manager position. This is an hourly position. Almost all if not all the Customer Service Managers I observed at both the Cherry Lane and the Hulen Wal-Marts were women. I was upset because I felt Mr. White was trying to steer me toward a front end position when I had clearly let him know I was interested in a Support Manager position. He told me that because I am a woman I was better suited for the front end at that time. I asked why he thought it was alright for a woman to take care of the money at the front end but not alright for a woman to be a Support Manager over other areas of the store. Mr. White responded by saying it would be best for me to start at the front end and work my way up into a support manager position.

9. Based on Mr. White’s recommendation I decided to accept the Customer Service Manager position, because I believed it would lead to a promotion to a Support Manager position. Mr. White informed me I would receive a .50 cent raise with the promotion. However my pay did not increase when I took over the position.

10. In approximately March 1999, a Support Manager opening was posted in the break room. I told Mr. White and Mr. Jurca that I wanted to be considered for the position. Neither of them would give me the code necessary to take the CBL (computer based learning) knowledge tests required by Wal-Mart for the position. Instead they ordered me back to the front end podium, my work station.

11. Toward the end of March 1999, I was asked to train Walter Cagle, an associate from the Electronics Department, in Customer Service Manager duties. I believed at this time that Mr. Jurca must have been considering me for the support manager position and that Mr. Cagle was going to take over my current position as Customer Service Manager.

12. After three weeks of CBLs and other training, Mr. Cagle had not learned the position. In my experience, I had never seen an employee take longer than three or four days to learn the position. When I participated in the Wal-Mart Customer Service Manager training, I learned the position in two days. After three weeks I felt that Mr. Cagle was incapable of learning the position. Mr. Cagle could not grasp basic tasks that were essential to the customer service manager job, such as learning the override reason codes, closing out a shift properly and maintaining customer flow through the front end. I engaged in a daily battle of helping Mr. Cagle grasp these core tasks. Finally, I approached Assistant Manager Steven Thompson and told him that Mr. Cagle was not learning the position satisfactorily and the oversight he required was so extensive that I was being prevented from completing my daily Customer Service Manager duties. Mr. Thompson informed me that I had to keep helping Mr. Cagle because Mr. Cagle needed to know the Customer Service Manager duties since he was the new Support Manager. Wal-Mart filled the Support Manager opening with Mr. Cagle, instead of me. I had not even been interviewed for the position.

13. Mr. Cagle had been hired one month before me at the Hulen Texas Wal-Mart store and unlike me, he had no prior Wal-Mart experience. He spent his five months with Wal-Mart entirely in the sales associate position in the Electronics Department before Wal-Mart promoted him. Unlike me, he had never held a supervisory or management position in the store.

14. I was devastated when I learned that Wal-Mart chose not to promote me and not even to interview me for the position before placing a male with demonstrably lesser skills and ability than me, and no Wal-Mart management experience, in the support manager position.

15. I protested to Store Manager Mr. Jurca and Assistant Manager Mr. White. I told them it was unfair that Wal-Mart did not consider me for the Support Manager position when they both knew I wanted the promotion and that it was unfair that they then expected me to train Mr. Cagle. Mr. Jurca and Mr. White did not act concerned by my frustration. Mr. White just expressed that I should be happy with what I had, a Customer Service Manager position. Again, neither Mr. Jurca nor Mr. White told me what I needed to do in order to be promoted. They offered no explanation to justify their selection of a less qualified, less experienced man for the position.

16. After Mr. Cagle was promoted instead of me, I decided to leave Wal-Mart as I felt my hard work was not recognized and that promotional opportunities were denied me because of my gender. I wrote a letter of resignation explaining that I needed to seek a job that gave me more opportunity to use my skills and earn a living than Wal-Mart was providing.

17. From the time I was placed in the Customer Service Manager position at the end of January 1999, through the end of March 1999 I approached Mr. White repeatedly about my promotion raise. Mr. White repeatedly told me to wait until the next pay period to see if the raise would be reflected on my check. The raise did not take affect until April 3, 2003, and I never received any back pay.

I have personal knowledge of each and every fact set forth in the Declaration, and if called to testify as a witness in this matter, I could and would competently testify to each of these facts.

I declare under penalty of perjury of the laws of the United States and State of Arkansas that the foregoing is true and correct.

This Declaration was signed by me on ______________________, 2003, at _______________________.

______________________________

Lori Arhangelsky

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