|
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 |
|
SHEILA
Y. THOMAS (SBN 161403) 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 |
|
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 |
DEBRA
GARDNER PUBLIC
JUSTICE CENTER 500
East Lexington Street Baltimore,
MD 21202 Telephone: (410) 625-9409 Facsimile: (410) 625-9423 |
|
SHAUNA
MARSHALL (SBN 90641) HASTINGS
COLLEGE OF THE LAW 200
McAllister Street San Francisco, CA 94102 Telephone: (415)
565-4685 Facsimile:
(415) 565-4854 Attorneys for Plaintiffs |
|
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
I, Sheila Joyce, declare:
1. I am a 29 year old female who lives in
Salisbury, North Carolina. I began
working at Wal-Mart a little over two years ago, in February 2001. I work at the Concord, North Carolina
Wal-Mart Supercenter, store # 1027.
2. I feel that Wal-Mart has discriminated
against me based on my gender because I am aware that Wal-Mart has paid a male
employee more money than me for doing the same work.
3. I began working at Wal-Mart as an
overnight stocker in the paper goods and chemicals department, which is on the
general merchandise side of the Supercenter.
I was evaluated on the first 90 days of performance as an overnight stocker
in May 2001. I was rated as "exceeds
expectations," the highest possible rating.
4. In November 2001, Earl Easley, a
stocker supervisor, requested that I transfer to the grocery department. I said that I would transfer, but because I
understood that Wal-Mart paid grocery department stockers more than general
merchandise stockers, I first asked co-manager Bill Williams I would get a
raise for transferring. Mr. Williams
said that I would get a raise for transferring to the grocery department.
5. Once I got to the grocery department, I
did not receive my transfer raise. My
pay stayed the same, $8.40 per hour.
Meanwhile, within days of my move to the grocery department, Wal-Mart
hired a new male stocker for the grocery department, Jerry Hamilton. Jerry Hamilton told me personally that he was
hired at a rate of $9.00 per hour. About
that time, Wal-Mart also hired Richard Gieck, another male grocery department
stocker, who also started at a rate of $9.00 per hour. Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Gieck and I worked the same
shift in the grocery department, the overnight shift.
6. When I was hired, I was hired at $8.00
per hour. After 10 months of employment
with Wal-Mart and after receiving my 90-day pay increase I was making $8.40 per
hour. But there I was, working in the
grocery department with two new males who were making $.60 more per hour than
me from the moment they set foot in Wal-Mart.
When I found out Mr. Hamilton was making more money than me, for doing
the same job, I was upset. It certainly
did not seem right. I felt like I could
not complain about his pay rate, because Wal-Mart has a strict policy
forbidding employees from speaking about pay.
Instead, I persisted in trying to get my transfer raise.
7. First, I complained to co-manager Mr.
Williams that I should be making more money in the grocery department and
requested a transfer raise again. Mr.
Williams, who originally told me I would get a raise if I transferred, now told
me he could not give me a raise because I was no longer in his section of the
store.
8. In January 2002, after two months in
the grocery department, I received my first annual performance evaluation. Just like on my 90 day performance
evaluation, I was rated as "exceeds expectations," the highest
possible rating.
9. In February 2002, I was given a $.35
merit raise for my performance. But I
still did not receive my transfer raise, and at this point I was still making
less money than Mr. Gieck and Mr. Hamilton who had only been with Wal-Mart for
three months.
10. By March 2002, I took my complaints to
Co-Manager Neil White, who was the co-manager over the grocery department. Mr. White that he would check to see if it
was policy to give associate’s a transfer raise when moving from general
merchandise to grocery. Mr. White later
told me that it was not standard policy to receive a transfer raise. He did not give me the raise.
11. Within a few days of Mr. White’s decision
not to make my pay at least comparable with the new, less experienced stockers
in the grocery department, I called the home office. I talked to someone in the personnel
office. I told them that I believed
Wal-Mart was discriminating against me in my rate of pay because I was
female.
12. In April 2002, after having to fight for
5 months, Store Manager Ken Garner, met with me and told me he was going to
give me the $.50 transfer raise. The
raise was put into effect at that time.
However, to this day, I have never received back pay for the five months
I worked in the grocery department with men who were hired at a higher rate
than me.
13. Four months after I complained to the home
office about gender discrimination, I applied for a transfer to a new Wal-Mart
opening in Salisbury, North Carolina. A
co-manager of the new store, Paul Renn, met with me and told me I had the
job. When I later contacted Mr. Renn to
find out when I would make the transfer, Mr. Renn pretended like we never met
and that he had not given me the job. I
did not get the transfer.
14. In January 2003, I saw a posting on the
time clock that stated Wal-Mart was accepting applications from employees for
the Management Training Program. I met
all of the qualifications to apply so, the next night, I applied for a
management trainee position over the pipeline, Wal-Mart’s computerized
communication system.
15. I felt like the opportunity to apply over
the pipeline for a management trainee position was unique. To my knowledge, since I had been working at
the Concord Wal-Mart, management trainee positions had never been posted. In fact, I was never given any information
or guidance on how to gain entrance into the Management Training Program before
the January 2003 opportunity.
16. Approximately six weeks after submitting
my application for a management trainee position I still had not gotten a
response from Wal-Mart. I saw other
employees get interviewed, but I was not interviewed. Then the store manager, Ken Garner, called me
into his office and told me that I was not going to get interviewed. He said that too many people had applied and
Wal-Mart could not interview all of them.
I asked Mr. Garner who decides who would be interviewed out of the
applicants. Mr. Garner told me that the
home office made the decision.
17. Approximately a week later, on March 11,
2003, I called the home office to find out more information about how to get an
interview for the trainee positions. I
asked the home office who makes the decisions regarding which employees are
interviewed for a position. The home office
told me that the store manager, together with the district manager, made those
decisions.
18. Neither
the home office nor the store manager told me any steps I could take in order
to receive an interview.
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
__________________ that the foregoing is true and correct.
This
Declaration was signed by me on ______________________, 2003, at
_______________________.
______________________________
Sheila
Joyce
49:C:\Documents\eal\c-walm dec supp class cert.doc
02/06/2003 3:34:38 PM