|
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 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 |
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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,
Paula Bird, 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 have a GED and a technical degree in
medical office management. Prior to my
work with Wal-Mart, I had been a manager at a senior center in Missouri. I currently work as a shift manager at a KFC
restaurant and am also self-employed as a house cleaner. I am also responsible for raising four children
between the ages of nine and sixteen along with my husband, who is on active
duty with the United States Air Force.
3. I began working for a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Sedalia, Missouri in 1998 as an overnight unloader/stocker making $6.40 an hour. Between 1999 and 2000, I also worked at a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Marshall, Missouri and at a Hypermart in Kansas City, Missouri. When I left in 2000, I was making $8.73 an hour. I always worked full-time. I frequently worked night shifts and was regularly required to work weekends.
4. When I began my employment with Wal-Mart
in 1998, I had high hopes that I would be able to advance into management in
order to be better able to support my four small children and myself. Immediately after I was first hired, I spoke
with Store Manager Steve Biermann and expressed my interest in going into
management training. Mr. Biermann told
me I would have to spend several years in different positions, including
several department manager positions, before he would recommend me for the
training program. He gave me an example
of a woman [name unknown] who had been department manager in several
departments for over five years, whom he was only now recommending for
management training. At the time, I
assumed that Mr. Biermann was telling me the truth about the time it would take
to reach management training. I had
never seen anything written about promotional requirements so I had nothing
against which to compare Mr. Biermann’s statements. Because I had been told that advancement into
management at Wal-Mart would take at least five years, in the “Associates
Comments/Goal Settings” section of my 1999 Performance Appraisal, I wrote, “My
goal is to make it into management within 4½ years.” Attached hereto as Exhibit A is a true and
correct copy of my Performance Appraisal dated November 24, 1999. In fact, during my tenure, I saw men who were
put in management training after a much shorter period of time and without
serving in different department manager positions. For example, when I worked in the Hypermart
in Kansas City, Missouri, Store Manager William Fryman told me he had moved
from customer service manager to store manager within one and a half
years.
5. While I worked in Sedalia, Missouri, I was not allowed to unload off of trucks, only off of the conveyer belt. My supervisors, including male Unit Lead Jesse Spencer, rarely allowed women to unload off of the trucks. In my experience, it was much more physically strenuous for workers to unload off of a moving conveyer belt because it required much more rapid and coordinated movement.
6. In 1999, Store Manager Biermann allowed
me to transfer to a Wal-Mart Store that was closer to my family. Even though I would remain within the same
district, Mr. Biermann told me that transferring would force me to lose my
annual bonus. I transferred to the
Wal-Mart in Marshall, Missouri and spoke with the Store Manager Garry Goldammer
about moving into management and the management training program. He told me to “start” as a stocker, which I
did. It seemed as if I was starting
over, having to prove myself all over again.
7. In
early 2000, I volunteered to work at the Wal-Mart convention in Kansas City,
Missouri to help set up a demonstration of upcoming merchandise because I felt
it would be a good way for me to continue to gain experience in order to move
into the management training program.
8. A
few months later, still in 2000, I was promoted to a support manager. At the time, Mr. Goldammer told me this was
not an official position but, because there were no management trainees in the
store at the time, they really needed someone to complete a trainee’s
tasks. As a result, not only was I
responsible for supervising customer service managers and cashiers, I was also
trained by Mr. Goldammer and all the assistant managers to complete the tasks
of a management trainee. This included
making cash deposits and bank pick-ups, and learning alarm codes to close the
store. I often completed these tasks
alongside, or in place of, assistant managers.
Even while I was trained and treated like a management trainee, and
expected to perform the same tasks, I was not allowed the title or salary of an
assistant management trainee, nor was I ensured a promotion into an assistant
manager position after the training period.
Store Manager Goldammer told me that accepting this support manager
position would help me get promoted to the management training program and I
wanted to believe him.
9. Also at this time, I continued to work on
my days off as a customer service manager at the Kansas City Hypermart because
Mr. Goldammer told me that the more experience I had, the better it would be to
help me gain entry into the management training program. I spoke with the Kansas City Hypermart Store
Manager Fryman about the opportunities for moving into management training. He told me that if I agreed to transfer
permanently to his store, he would assist me in getting into management
training. Despite a much longer daily
commute and concerns about the high-crime area surrounding this store, I agreed
to transfer because Mr. Fryman promised to help me advance in my career.
10. In June 2000, when I started work as the
department manager of Hardware in the Kansas City Hypermart, Store Manager
Fryman gave me one week to clear out all the overstock. I had only been there one week before the
department had a bad inventory. The
inventory issue had arisen long before I arrived and I could not have done
anything to fix in the few days that I had been responsible for the department. Nonetheless, Mr. Fryman berated and criticized
me. I did not believe that the treatment
that I received was appropriate. That
same day, I also personally observed him yelling at another female department
manager in front of co-workers until she was in tears. That day, I wrote a letter giving my notice
and describing what had happened.
Attached hereto as Exhibit B is a true and correct copy of my letter of
resignation, dated July 20, 2000. I gave
the letter to Assistant Manager Sheila Compton.
She told me to speak with the male District Manager [name unknown] at
the Lee’s Summit, Missouri Wal-Mart Store.
I called the district manager and he asked me to come to the store to
discuss what happened. I went to the
Lee’s Summit Wal-Mart and explained what had happened, including describing Mr.
Fryman’s poor treatment of myself and the other female department manager. The district manager then told me he was
“outraged” at Mr. Fryman’s behavior, that I had a right to be upset, and he
promised he would speak with Mr. Fryman over the weekend and that I should
return to work on Monday to meet with Mr. Fryman about this incident.
11. When I returned on Monday, Mr. Fryman
looked at me and asked, “What are you doing here, I have nothing to say to
you.” I felt that I was being retaliated
against for using the Open Door policy.
I called the district manager to ask whether he had spoken to Mr. Fryman
over the weekend but he was unresponsive only telling me that I had a bad
attitude. Finally, I insisted on having
a meeting with Mr. Fryman and Ms. Compton to discuss Mr. Fryman’s behavior but
he refused to acknowledge any of my concerns.
He just kept repeating, “Well, I don’t see it that way.” When I realized that my concerns about
mistreatment were not going to be addressed, I gave my notice and said goodbye. I really felt cheated because Mr. Fryman had
assured me that, if I transferred to his store, he would assist me in advancing
my career. Instead, I believe that he
was looking for a scapegoat for existing problems in my store.
12. Despite the fact that I had been an
excellent employee for Wal-Mart, I was never asked to fill out an Exit
Interview and no one contacted me again about the reasons why I felt that I had
to leave.
I declare under penalty of perjury of the laws of the United States and State of Missouri that the foregoing is true and correct.
This Declaration was signed
by me on ______________________, 2003, at Knob Noster, Missouri.
_____________________________________
Paula Bird