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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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SHEILA
Y. THOMAS (SBN 161403) DEBRA
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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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 |
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SHAUNA
MARSHALL (SBN 90641) HASTINGS
COLLEGE OF THE LAW 200
McAllister Street San Francisco, CA 94102 Telephone: (415)
565-4685 Facsimile: (415) 626-2860 Attorneys for Plaintiffs |
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UNITED
STATES DISTRICT COURT
I, Anna Stumpf, declare:
1. I have personal knowledge of
the facts contained in this declaration and, if called as a witness, am
competent to testify to those facts.
2. I grew up in Versailles, Missouri, the site
of one of the original five-and-dime stores run by Bud Walton. Wal-Mart and particularly the Walton family
were very important in the town. As
children, my classmates and I were excused early from school if Sam or Bud
Walton came to town. Several family
friends were employed by Wal-Mart.
3. I obtained a bachelor’s degree in Marketing
from Southwest Missouri State in 1993. I
was recruited on campus by Wal-Mart for the Assistant Manager training program
and started work on May 17, 1993, three days after my college graduation. I was very excited for the opportunity
because I had seen Wal-Mart grow from a local business in my hometown to a
retailer of national importance. My
parents were also very proud that I was going to work for Wal-Mart.
4. I understood from the outset
of my employment with Wal-Mart that I was expected to be 100% relocatable,
meaning that I might have to move anywhere in the United States at any
time. Since 1993, I have been assigned to
nine different locations in four different states (Missouri, Florida, Virginia
and Kentucky). I was also sent at
various times to do short-term store set-ups and clean-ups at stores in
Tennessee and North Carolina.
5. From the time I was hired,
my goal was to advance as far as I could within Wal-Mart management. I was initially interested in becoming a
store manager and, later, developed an interest in becoming a Regional
Personnel Manager. Because of my strong
work ethic, good people skills and consistently excellent reviews, I believed
that I could reach these goals. For
eight years, I sacrificed many important things in my life - a stable home and
community, friends and family – for Wal-Mart.
For example, I could not attend holidays with my parents and extended
family and I missed the funerals of a number of friends and family
members. I was unable to join and
participate in any church where I lived because of my long hours, weekend
schedule and frequent moves.
6. At the beginning of my tenure with Wal-Mart, I
trained for four months in the Osage Beach, Missouri Wal-Mart store and was
made an Assistant Manager in the store in October 1993. I was transferred in March 1994 to a
Jacksonville, Florida store. During the
year that I was there, the Jacksonville store went through a remodel, the
holidays and inventory. During one
period, I worked 63 overnights in a row (a minimum 12-hour shift) without a day
off. When I was not working in my own
store, I was often called in to help on my day off with the remodeling in neighboring Wal-Mart
stores.
7. I received a “meets
expectations” rating on my evaluation in February 1995. However, District Manager, Charles Durr, told
me that my performance was “above standard,” but that I had not been an
assistant manager long enough to receive anything above a “standard”
rating. The size of my raise was
determined by the evaluation rating. I
wrote on my evaluation that “I hope to eventually go on to Supercenters - and have
my own store within four years.”
Attached hereto as Exhibit A is a true and correct copy of my February
1995 evaluation.
8. In May 1995, I requested a
transfer back to Missouri, preferably to a supercenter where I felt that I
could best advance my career. I was
placed in a Jefferson City, Missouri supercenter. When District Manager Durr learned of my
impending move to Missouri, he told me that he would have given me the above
standard rating had he known he would not be paying me for the entire
year. In other words, Mr. Durr made it
clear to me that he underrated my evaluation in order to lower payroll expenses
in his district despite his recognition that I was performing at a higher level
and deserved higher pay.
9. My district manager in Jefferson City was
Charles Benzoni. A few weeks after I
arrived, he approached me on the sales floor to talk. He told me that I was one of the hardest
working, most talented assistants that he had but also that I was the lowest
paid assistant manager in the district.
He arranged for a pay adjustment for me, although I do not know whether
the adjustment brought me to a pay level that reflected the quality of my
performance or was equal to my male peers.
10. In March 1996, I interviewed
at the Wal-Mart Home office for a position as Regional Trainer. I received the position and was required to
relocate to Brooksville, Florida, although I was considered a Home Office
employee. As a Regional Trainer, I was
responsible for conducting field training programs for Assistant Managers and
other store managers, primarily the 3 ˝ day Leadership Foundation training. This training program, developed in the
Bentonville headquarters, had a standard curriculum and was administered
company-wide. I was required to make a
two-year commitment to the position.
During this time, I became interested in obtaining a position as a Regional Personnel Manager.
11. While working as a Regional
Trainer, I received an “exceeds expectations” performance rating in March
1997. About my personal goals, I wrote:
“This time next year my goal is to be a co-manager in a Supercenter, a step
toward my ultimate goal of becoming an RPM for the Supercenter division.” Attached hereto as Exhibit B is a true and
correct copy of my March 3, 1997 evaluation.
12. As a regional trainer, I
became acquainted with Regional Vice President Leroy Schuetts and I discussed
with him my career goals at Wal-Mart. I
considered this new relationship to be extremely important for me because I had
always understood the importance of having a mentor in a corporation to help
guide one’s career. I felt that Mr. Schuetts
was willing to give me this help. I told
him that I had become interested in the Regional Personnel Manager (RPM)
position. He urged me to get back into
store management if I wanted to meet my goal.
13. At Mr. Schuetts’
recommendation, I accepted a temporary position as a Co-Manager in the
Kissimmee, Florida store in September 1997.
Mr. Schuetts wanted me to work there through the holidays and then move
to a store in Valdosta, GA that was slated to open. I was designated a “Co-Manager in Training” in
Kissimmee although I was doing the same work as the other co-managers and was
in no sense in training. In my past
experience, the position of Co-Manager in Training was ordinarily used only for
brand new management employees to Wal-Mart, which I plainly was not. I learned that I had been given this
designation so that I would be paid out of the Home Office training account
rather than the store account. As a
result, the store would show higher revenue figures (ensuring the bonuses for
existing store managers) but I would not receive a bonus as all the other male
Co-Managers in the store did. It also
put me at a disadvantage later in my career in applying for store
manager positions, which often carried a requirement that one have first
completed 12 - 18 months as a Co-Manager.
I am not aware of any male employee in a comparable position that has
been designated a “Co-Manager in Training.”
14. After a month in Kissimmee,
I was moved in November 1997 to Plant City, Florida as a third Co-Manager. Regional Vice President Bob Erickson told me
that the store was in bad shape because the store manager had just been fired
and the holidays were fast approaching.
Leroy Shuetts, who had now been promoted to Divisional Vice President,
told me that the Plant City assignment would be temporary and that I would soon
be placed in a newly opening store in Valdasta, Georgia. I still had the Co-Manager in Training
designation and was not entitled to receive a bonus, although I was working 70
to 80 hours per week.
15. I prepared and submitted
comments in connection with my performance evaluation (which once again was
“exceeds expectation”) about the unfairness of the “in training”
designation. I stated in part: “I feel
that for the five months that I was left in the Co-Manager training account I
was not utilized to my potential, challenged or developed in an effective
manner. . . . decisions and placements done in dealing with my career this year
have put me at a disadvantage.” Attached
hereto as Exhibit C are true and correct copies of my evaluation and my comments.
My district manager, Guy Peshek, strongly encouraged me not to
include these comments with my evaluation, which he implied would hurt my image
in the company. He also suggested to me
that the comments were unnecessary and would not make any difference. To me, this was a clear message that the Open
Door Policy was not intended for use by managers and that using it might, in
fact, be perceived negatively.
16. Just after the holidays, I
learned from my Regional Personnel Manager and my Regional President, Bob
Erickson, of an opening for a Regional Personnel Manager. Knowing my keen interest in the position,
they submitted my name for consideration, after consulting with Leroy
Schuetts. Several weeks went by and I
did not hear anything about my application so I faxed a letter to Maxie
Carpenter, who was the hiring authority for the position, on January 19,
1998. I still heard nothing so, on
January 23, I telephoned Mr. Carpenter.
He told me that I was ineligible for the position because I had not “run
a store,” meaning that I had not been a store manager. Within weeks of my conversation with
Carpenter, I learned that an RPM position went to a male employee, Joshua Ramsey,
who ran the documentation department in the Home Office. Mr. Ramsey had never served as a store
manager.
17. In February 1998, I was
making plans to move to Valdasta, Georgia when I received a call from the new
Regional Vice President Arthur Emmanuel.
He told me that the company needed me to stay at the Plant City, Florida
store. Mr. Emmanuel felt that the
troubled store was “turning around” and he needed me to stay there. Perhaps recognizing the difficulty of the
assignment, Mr. Emmanuel promised me that I would have my own store (e.g. be promoted
to store manager) by the end of 1998 or beginning of 1999. He reassured me that I was a Rising Star in
the region and on the promotable list.
18. In August 1998, I attended
the company-wide holiday meeting and ran into Divisional Vice President Leroy
Shuetts. Mr. Shuetts assumed that I had
gone to Valdasta, Georgia but I told him that I was still in Plant City. He told me that Wal-Mart was opening a store
in Lexington, Kentucky and he wanted me to move there as a third co-manager to
assist with the opening. He then
said: “you’ll have your own store right
after we open this one, we’ve moved you around enough and if you can help us,
we’ll take care of you.” I subsequently
received a call from the RPM over the Kentucky store, Debbie Moody. She advised me that DVP Shuetts and the RVP
for the store, Bill Dillehea, had talked and agreed that there would not be a
third co-manager in the store after the first of the year, and that I would
then be promoted to store manager.
19. In September 1998, I moved
to the Lexington, Kentucky store and assisted with the enormous effort of
opening the store. I was not
promoted to a store manager position after the first of the year, as had been
promised. In January 1999, I checked the
MCS job posting system for store manager openings. I found an opening at a supercenter in
Venice, Florida. As required, I sought
and received the approval of my district manager, Gerry Gant, before posting. I also spoke to Divisional Vice President
Schuetts, who encouraged me to post and described the position as a “perfect
first store.”
20. After posting, I did not hear anything and
telephoned the RPM in Florida, Steve Schulteis.
He told me that I could not be interviewed because RVP Bill Dilleahea
had entered a “no” recommendation next to my name (i.e. vetoed my
application). I was outraged and telephoned RPM Debbie Moody to find out the
reason that Mr. Dillehea was standing in the way of my promotion. Ms. Moody advised me that Mr. Dilleahea would
not move any of the managers out of the Lexington, Kentucky store for six
months after the opening, precisely the opposite of what I had been told before
moving to Kentucky, four months earlier.
21. I telephoned Mr. Dillehea in
early February to discuss it. Wal-Mart
policy (the “Sundown Rule”) requires management to return phone messages from
customers and employees on the same day that they are received. He did not return my call for over a
month. Attached hereto as Exhibit D is a
true and correct copy of the chronology of key events that I kept on my
computer.
22. Before I heard from Mr.
Dillehea, however, I received my written performance evaluation for 1998, which
was again very high (4.1 - exceeds expectations) based on the excellent
turn-around work that I had done in Plant City.
While the evaluation had been prepared by the district manager over the
Plant City store, Greg Ley, Mr. Gant
told me that he wholeheartedly agreed with its strong endorsement. Attached hereto as Exhibit E is a true and
correct copy of the performance evaluation dated February 19, 1999.
23. Despite the very high score,
my district manager, Jerry Gant, then changed his tone and told me: “I am supposed to tell you that you are not
promotable and do not post.” Mr. Gant
then read to me from a list provided to him by Debby Moody (RPM for Bill
Dillehea) of three areas in which I purportedly needed to improve (i.e. get
organized, be more firm, hold myself accountable, take on a mentor). Ironically, these were the three key areas of
strength identified in the written performance evaluation that Mr. Gant had
just given me. Mr. Gant could not
offer any examples of inadequate performance on my part and, to his credit, he
told me that he did not agree with the list.
I was told not to post for store manager openings for six months and not
to call Leroy Schuetts to express interest in being promoted. I told Mr. Gant that I felt that I had been
lied to and that “the Open Door had been closed.” Mr. Gant told me candidly that he agreed with
me and that he would support me if I took further steps because he did not feel
that I was being treated fairly.
24. RVP Dillehea finally
returned my phone call on March 9, 1999.
He told me that he would not put me on the promotable list and there
were many others ahead of me on his list, people that he had known longer and
to whom he “owed favors.” I objected
that I was already on the promotable list and he responded: “not in my
region.” He encouraged me to move
laterally out of his region. I knew from
my past experience that there were not different promotable lists by
region. Rather, the promotable list was
company-wide and was maintained on a wall in the Home Office. It was plain to me that Mr. Dillehea was not
willing to consider my promotability based on the merits and that he was
willing to lie to ensure that his candidates got preferential treatment.
25. Within weeks of my March 9, 1999 conversation
with Mr. Dillehea, two male assistant managers in the Lexington, Kentucky store
(William Cotton and Tony Bryant) were offered promotions and/or allowed to
promote out of the store, despite RVP Dillehea’s alleged six-month prohibition
on any moves.
26. On March 24, 1999, I telephoned Divisional
Vice President Leroy Schuetts to complain about the inequitable treatment that
I had received. I specifically told him
that I felt that I had been the subject of discrimination. He asked me to write a letter explaining my
concerns. Attached hereto as Exhibit F
is a true and correct copy of the letter that I faxed to Mr. Schuetts. I met with Mr. Schuetts and Mr. Dillahea on
April 12, 1999. That meeting took place
face to face because, after reading my letter, Leroy Schuetts said that my
story did not match the one that Mr. Dillahea was telling and he wanted to get
us both together. At the meeting, RVP
Dillahea made it clear that, while I was welcome to stay in the region, he
would not promote me. Mr. Schuetts asked
me to move temporarily to Raleigh Durham, North Carolina (outside of Mr.
Dillahea’s region) to once again clean up a group of troubled stores
there. Recognizing I had no future
under RVP Dillehea, I once again acquiesced to the move. I stayed five weeks in a hotel while working
without days off to complete a remodel on the store. I had planned to attend my 10-year high
school reunion and had paid for reservations and a plane ticket for the
event. I could not attend because of the
assignment in North Carolina.
27. I was then assigned as a co-manager to a
supercenter in Virginia Beach, Virginia which Schuetts told me was “the best
store in the division.” He told me that
every co-manager in that store had been promoted within six months. After the first of the year, Divisional
Vice President Leroy Schuetts told me that he would call me and tell me which
store to post for: “sit tight and we’ll
find you the right fit.”
28. In January 2000, Schuetts called and told me
to post for a store in South Boston, VA.
I understood by the RPM Josh Ramsey that it was a “difficult ethnic
store” but I went ahead and posted. At
approximately the same time, I learned of a store manager opening at a store
only two miles from the Virginia Beach store (Store 1688). While the store had also had some problems,
I felt that I had a good chance of obtaining this store because I was known to
and respected by both my District Manager Chad Madison and the Regional Vice
President Dave Norman. I applied on MCS
for the position in Virginia Beach.
29. I once again received an
“exceeds expectations” ranking on my February 2000 evaluation. I had become, however, extremely frustrated
with the continuously shifting requirements and obstacles to my promotion. For so many years, I had done whatever
Wal-Mart asked of me without complaint – whether it be to work 80 hours a week
or months without a day off. I finally
began speaking up for myself to senior management and objecting to the unfair
treatment that I received. My store
manager and district manager criticized me for being “too impatient” and “too
emotional.” I feel that, had I been a
man, I would have been seen as aggressive and hard-driving. Instead, the expectation that was
communicated to me was that I should sit quietly, be patient and not question
even if the most egregiously discriminatory treatment.
30. On March 15, 2000, Regional
Vice President Norman called to tell me that I had not been selected for the
Store 1688 position in Virginia Beach.
He told me that, while I was “more qualified” than the male who was
selected for the position, the employees in the store wanted this individual
who was a current co-manager there. It
is unheard of at Wal-Mart that the employees in a poorly performing store would
be allowed to select their manager.
Since the employees in that store had never met me, I had no chance to
compete for their endorsement. I
responded: “so, I lost the popularity contest?”
I told Mr. Norman that I had been waiting for four years for a store
manager position and I would no longer do what was the easy thing for
Wal-Mart. I would no longer pick up and
move to yet another troubled store based on some vague promise of future
advancement. At that point, I concluded
that I would never receive fair treatment at Wal-Mart nor could I expect to
advance further.
31. Shortly thereafter, I
accepted a position as the District Manager of Shoes and Jewelry in
Indianapolis. Based on observation and
knowledge, this position is held almost exclusively by women. My salary was
$55,000, far less than I would have made as a store manager. Moreover, the Shoes and Jewelry DM position
was subject to a salary cap while there was no such limit for store manager
compensation. I held that position until
recently, when I decided that I wanted to go become a school teacher. I am now back in school full-time and work as
an hourly employee for Wal-Mart in Store 1141 as a training coordinator.
32. I have never been involved in a lawsuit
before. I decided to become a witness in
this case after I heard Wal-Mart’s CEO Lee Scott give a speech shortly after
this lawsuit was filed. He claimed that
the “Open Door” policy could handle any discrimination problems at
Wal-Mart. I honestly did not understand
how Mr. Scott could stand in front of us and make this statement that he surely
knew was untrue. Based on my own
experience, I disagreed with Mr. Scott.
As my declaration makes clear, I had used the open door many times, but
I was unable to get a promotion to store manager.
33. As an assistant manager and
co-manager, I worked with other store management to identify candidates for the
Management in Training program. In
deciding which individuals to recommend, we always discussed whether the
candidate was “relocatable.” If they
were not relocatable, they would not be recommended for the training program.
34. As an Assistant Manager, I
was frequently moved from one store to another on short notice. It took very little time to assimilate into
the new store because every Wal-Mart store operates with the same set of
policies, equipment, staff and procedures.
35. During my career, I worked in both Division 1
stores and supercenters. The difference between them is that the
supercenters have additional departments for grocery, dairy, bakery and meat,
which are not in Division 1 stores. However, I was trained to use the
same Wal-Mart personnel policies and practices in the supercenters, whether hiring,
promoting or disciplining employees, as were used in the Division 1
stores. The responsibilities of
Assistant Managers in both stores are the same.
Since 1996, the company has made a conscious and concerted effort to
eliminate any organizational differences between Division 1 stores and
supercenters. Management level employees
regularly transfer between them and local districts include both kinds of
stores. Finally, there was one Wal-Mart
culture that we consistently taught to associates, regardless of the kind of
store that they worked in.
I declare under penalty of perjury of the laws of the State of Indiana that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed this __ day of March, 2003 in McCordsville, Indiana.
______________________________
Anna
Stumpf