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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 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, Micki Earwood, declare:
1.
I am a 32 year old
female and live in Springfield, Ohio.
2.
During my
employment at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., (“Wal-Mart”) I encountered discrimination
based upon my gender with regard to promotions.
I also observed discrimination against other women at Wal-Mart with
regard to pay. I reported the observed
pay disparity to management and was terminated in retaliation for reporting
discrimination.
3.
I was employed at Wal-Mart from January 12,
1989, until September 28, 2000. I
initially was employed in the Urbana, Ohio Wal Mart Store and remained in that
store until the end of 1992. I worked
for a short period of time in the Mentor, Ohio Store and then transferred to
the Bellfontaine, Ohio Store. I transferred
back to the Urbana, Ohio Store from the Bellfountaine, Ohio Store and remained
there until my termination on September 28, 2000.
4.
Throughout my
career at Wal-Mart, I worked in numerous departments as an associate and as a
Department Manager. I was an associate
in the Receiving, Housewares and Beauty Aides Departments. I was a Department Manager in Electronics,
Housewares, Hardware, Household Chemicals and Furniture, and Food. I also served as a Support Manager and I was
the Personnel Manager at the Urbana Store at the time of termination in
September 2000.
5.
I performed well
in all my positions at Wal-Mart. With
one exception only, my evaluations were either meets standards, exceeds
standards, or outstanding. At the time of my termination at Wal-Mart, I was
making $12.62 per hour.
6.
On many of my
evaluations, I expressed an interest in progressing into management with the
company. I also orally informed my store
managers throughout my employment that I wanted to progress into
management.
7.
In the Summer
1998, I spoke with my District Manager, Cindy Range, who asked me if I was
interested in the Management Training Program.
I told Ms. Range that I was very much interested in the Management
Training Program and we agreed to speak again.
8.
Ms. Range and I
spoke again shortly thereafter and she asked me if I was willing to transfer to
either Illinois, Michigan or New York in order to be in the Management Training
Program. I told her that I was willing
to transfer and I would prefer to transfer to New York. Ms. Range told me that she would get back to
me regarding the Management Training Program.
9.
During the Summer
and throughout the Fall of 1998, Ms. Range never got back in touch with me
despite my numerous calls to her office.
I spoke with her assistant and asked him if she would meet with me the
next time she was in my store. I never
heard back from her or her assistant concerning this request. I talked to my Store Manager, Jim Phelps,
about Ms. Range’s failure to get back to me regarding the promotion to the
Management Training Program on numerous occasions. Mr. Phelps repeatedly told me he could not
help me in this regard. I asked him if
he could speak with Ms. Range about this issue since he meets with her every
week and he refused. Mr. Phelps informed me that he had nothing to do
with promotions and he would not help me in any way.
10.
I know that Mr.
Phelps could have helped me in this regard if he had chosen to as I had
observed him help men at my store get into the Management Training
Program. Mr. Phelps helped Phillip
Roher, Ben Perry, and Tony Walters get into the Management Training Program
during the same time frame that he was denying me any assistance.
11.
I also observed
Mr. Phelps fail to assist other women in my store who wanted to get into the
Management Training Program. I know that
Glenna Buuck tried to transfer to another district so she could be promoted and
Mr. Phelps refused to permit her transfer thereby denying her the promotional
opportunity. To my knowledge, Mr. Phelps
never interfered in any male’s transfers.
12.
Angie Hart was a
college student working at the Urbana, Ohio Wal-Mart who wanted to become
involved in the Intern Program but Mr. Phelps would not assist her. Ms. Hart found it necessary to move from the
Urbana Store into another district so she could get into the Intern
Program.
13.
At the time that
Mr. Phelps was interfering in Ms. Buuck’s transfer and refusing Ms. Hart’s
request to be in the Intern Program, our District Manager was Mike Fetrow (Ms.
Range’s successor). Mr. Fetrow also
refused to allow Ms. Hart into the Intern Program and both Mr. Phelps and Mr.
Fetrow permitted Ben Perry, a male, to be placed in the Intern Program in the
Urbana, Ohio Store.
14.
While I was at
the store, I personally observed Mr. Phelps constantly treat male employees
better than he treated female employees.
When women came into the personnel office to speak with him, he would
make them beg for any request that they needed granted. Mr. Phelps was condescending towards the
women that approached him and he would rarely would look women in the eye. Mr. Phelps always made it more difficult for
women to voice complaints or to obtain pay raises to which they were
entitled. Mr. Phelps would always put
off women and delay acting on their requests.
15.
After I was
denied the opportunity to be in the Management Training Program, I remained as
a Support Manager. I was then transferred to Food as a Department Manager. After that position, I learned that the
Personnel Manager position was open and I applied for that job. I had previously expressed my interest in the
Personnel Manager position to Mr. Phelps as well as previous managers before
him and I felt that this was another track that I could be promoted from into
management. Virtually everyone in the
store knew I wanted to be the Personnel Manager so when the position was posted,
I was the only applicant. I became the
Personnel Manager on August 5, 1999, and remained in that position until I was
terminated in September 2000.
16.
As Personnel
Manager, I did all the new hiring for new associates. I also did all of the scheduling for the
entire store with the exception of Special Divisions. I was also in charge of posting hourly job
openings. However, I was not in charge
of posting any job openings for management positions. To my knowledge, none of the management
training positions or assistant manager positions were posted while I was
employed at Wal-Mart. As Personnel
Manager, I also was privy to payroll information regarding all of the employees
of the store where I worked. I
understood that the payroll information was confidential and I never disclosed
the information I obtained while viewing the payroll to anyone other than upper
level management when I reported pay inequalities that I observed.
17.
During the Summer
of 2000, I called Mr. Fetrow, my District Manager to report that Mr. Phelps was
awarding men raises that were outside the guidelines and that he was not giving
women comparable raises. I gave Mr.
Fetrow specific examples. Mr. Fetrow never
responded to my phone calls regarding this issue, so I contacted Don Swann,
Regional Vice President. Mr. Swann
told me that Mr. Fetrow was a very busy man and that I should just give him
another chance to try and work it out and fix this situation. When Mr. Fetrow eventually returned my call,
I mentioned the pay disparity issue to him.
Mr. Fetrow told me that he would be in the store the very next day and
would discuss this issue with me. When
Mr. Fetrow came into the store the next day he ignored me and did not speak to
me regarding the pay disparity issue.
18.
Some of the
specific instances of unequal pay that I reported to Mr. Fetrow were, Roger
Hart receiving a $1.00 per hour raise when he was only making $7.00 per hour
which was far in excess of the 5% pay increase policy at Wal-Mart. While I was Personnel Manager, I did not
observe any women receive a raise of $1.00 per hour. I also reported Kevin Sanderson receiving
raises of the same magnitude of Roger Hart and the fact that women never
received those types of raises. I also
reported the fact that Jerry Lewis received a raise every 90 days from Mr.
Phelps for total raises of over $3.00 per hour in less than 1 ½ years. I personally observed Mr. Phelps tell many
woman who were requesting raises that he could never give more than a 5%
raise.
19.
I observed
another example of unequal treatment of
women with respect to pay and promotions.
Robert (Pat) Bing, a male associate, and Shelley Engle, were both
promoted on the same day and were told they would be receiving their raises for
the promotion when the pay review occurred in 60 days. Robert (Pat) Bing was given a raise and
Shelley Engle was not given a raise.
20.
On another occasion, Mr. Phelps ordered me to
post a support manager position and to include in the posting that applicants
would be required to work nights and weekends.
Mr. Phelps then stated, “so they can’t have kids.” I believed that this was a form of illegal
discrimination. I was also personally
offended by this comment since I was a single mother and had worked as a
support manager while my daughter was three years old. I reported this incident regarding Mr. Phelps
to both Mr. Fetrow and Mr. Swann. To my
knowledge, nothing was ever done by upper management with regard to this particular
complaint.
21.
On September 15,
2000, Mr. Fetrow and I were supposed to meet regarding the issues I had
raised. Mr. Fetrow came into the store,
but he did not initiate a meeting. Mr.
Fetrow then came into the store on September 16, 2000, where, again, I was supposed to meet with him regarding the
issues I had raised. Instead, at the end
of the day (2 hours after I was regularly scheduled to leave work that day), I
was put into a room behind closed doors with three males, Mr. Fetrow, Mr.
Phelps and Anthony Detillio of loss prevention.
I was informed in that meeting by Mr. Fetrow that I was being
investigated because I allegedly had a tape recorder at work and was allegedly
taping conversations of management, I told him that I did have a tape recorder
but did not know where it was, and that I had not taped any conversations at
work. Mr. Fetrow told me that I was being placed on paid leave
while I was being investigated. I was
called back to work approximately ten days later and was told I was being
terminated. I believe I was investigated
and terminated in retaliation for having reported my Store Manager, Jim Phelps,
to his superiors for his discrimination against women.
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
Ohio that the foregoing is true and correct.
This
Declaration was signed by me on April _____, 2003 at Springfield, Ohio.
_________________________________________
Micki
Earwood