The Wal-Mart Supreme Court Decison & How We Should Deal With It.......

[global1]

My understanding is that 1.5 million female employees were effected today as a result of the Supreme Court 5-4 decision that ruled in favor of Wal-Mart. I've seen calls here on DU to boycott Wal-Mart but I believe that there is something more effective that can be done than just boycotting Wal-Mart. Here me out.

Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is quoted as saying that "an activist majority of the Supreme Court is making it more and more difficult for any American to have their day in court."

Think about it - the women of Wal-Mart, like those employed by other giant corporations, work primarily in low-paying retail jobs. We need to organize women in the U.S. and use them to help assure change to the composition of the Supreme Court and we do this by voting.

One and a half million women are a lot of women and a lot of votes. Take them and add their extended families and friends and the numbers add up quite fast. Lets say on average that each of these women had 3 to 4 people that they can influence and we now have 4.5 to 6.0 million additional people that can be organized to vote.

Bottom line the Supreme Court just dissed women in general. Now if we can just get half the rest of the women in this country to be pissed enough to rise up against this - that's a whole lot of voters.

Think back on Leahy's quote above - he cited "an activist majority of the Supreme Court". Think about which party put that activist majority into the Supreme Court. Yes - the Repugs.

Now lets connect the dots. There is a presidential election coming up in 2012. It is important to us that the Dems keep power because the composition of the Supreme Court is at stake. We need to have a Dem President in power through 2016 so that they can be ready to appoint a more liberal justice and even out or change the composition of the Supreme Court when given the chance. This is what is at stake in 2012 - our future to take on the corporations and take back control of our country.

We need to make this next election about this. We need to shout out loud and clear and constantly that if a Repug gets elected in 2012 - there will be more and more of the same and perhaps worse Supreme Court decisions. We need to stress the importance of re-electing President Obama and how important it is for him to have the ability to appoint a more liberal Supreme Court Justice if given a chance.

We can use the women of Wal-Mart that were crushed today as a start and build on that with their families and friends and further build on that by gaining the support of all women to stand behind the Dems and re-elect President Obama - to give us all a fighting chance to fairness in the future.

I'd be curious to get Bachman's and Palin's take on this decision today - seeing they are women that appear to be in contention for the 2012 Repug nomination for the presidency. How can they not support their gender in this and take a side against this Supreme Court decision today.

We can't let the Repugs steal the message and say that this upcoming election is about the economy.

We need to use this decision today to change the direction of this country. If you want you can still boycott Wal-Mart - but if you really want to change things - we need to use the power of the ballot box to do it.

Now the question is how do we organize to get this message out and get this campaign going?

[Sherman A1]

1. I would start by not shopping at Wal Mart

however, I already have taken that step

I agree with your sentiments and would suggest such pages as GOP Hypocrisy on FB and WalMart Watch which is on the web.

[CarmanK]

2. Won't shop WALMART or TARGET for that matter!

We need to come up with better verbiage. We cannot say we want to keep Obama to "appoint" a more liberal friendly judge to the court. We need to say, we need to get rid of Clarence Thomas who is a crook and an embarassement. His is intelectually challenged and does nothing to advance justice in the country. We need to say, that we want a FAIR legal system that respects the US constitution and adheres to its first principle that this is a gov't of, by and for people and that corporations are not persons. We want the federal courts properly manned, so that justice is available. After all, the Senate is blocking numerous nominees to the federal court system and something has to be done.

[FreeJoe]

3. 5-4? It was 8-0

[badtoworse]

4. Unrecc'd for being factually incorrect. The decision was unanimous.

Unanimous decisions are unusual on the SCOTUS. Maybe you should consider the possibility that this group of women really didn't meet the legal requirements to form a class.

Judges don't make laws; they interpret them.

[COLGATE4]

11. You are exactly right. As satisfying it would have been to have

the USSCt deny cert thus letting this large class be certified, the fact of the matter is that there were way too many differences among the class plaintiffs (different supervisiors, different locations, lack of a discriminatory company policy) to have ever let this be certified as a class action. That's why the unusual unanimous decision to reject the 9th Circuit's decision.

[wellst0nev0ter]

12. ...

Read this first before making those claims.

[liberal N proud]

5. Boycotting Wal-Mart will accomplish nothing, this decision effects all workplace discrimination

What the SCOTUS did was make it nearly impossible for women to stand up against discrimination, because they will have to fight each case one at a time, individually. The corporations will be able to fight each case one by one and kill each case individually.

The class action suit was the only way all these women could fight against the big corporation with an array of lawyers working for them. The corporations can afford to have a fleet of lawyers dedicated to putting down any discrimination case.

Boycotts will only make you feel good, your upset about something this company did or is doing, but in has little effect on large companies like Wal-Mart. I say, if you don't want to shop at Wal-Mart, good for you for standing on your principles. That is why I don't buy gas from certain companies.

The SCOTUS and their pro-business relationship is the real culprit here, we must remember that!

[Atman]

6. Did the SCOTUS actually say there could be NO class action suits ever?

I don't believe so. I, for one, am waiting for a more thorough analysis of the decision before I jerk my knees. There must be a reason the decision was unanimous instead of the usual 5-4 split between the corporatist wing and the more reasonable side. From what I hear so far, this particular class action was flawed and had become so large and it's scope so sweeping that it was not manageable, or something along those lines.

Far be it from me to defend Wal Mart -- I'm not, I can't stand them and refuse to shop there -- but the hysteria surrounding the unusual unanimous decision just might be a little misplaced.

[Imajika]

7. Did 1.5 million women even want to join this suit?

Or were there just 1.5 million working at Walmart during the dates the company is accused of discriminating against them?

I'm sorry, but I don't think this issue is going to get much traction. The women who are directly involved are certainly angry, but I don't see any evidence that 1.5 million women who were Walmart employers are ready to organize and fight over it. I have my doubts that most of these 1.5 million women even know about this issue.

Part of this ruling was also unanimous which means the 4 sane Supreme Court justices concurred that the case couldn't go forward as is.

I think it's just done. Individual and smaller class action suits (against specific Walmart stores) can go forward and I'm sure they will.

[Somawas]

8. Organizing is a great idea. Can you spell U.N.I.O.N?

[Brickbat]

9. Are all these women going to file singly and simultaneously? Because that would be awesome.

[Better Believe It]

10. Elections among Wal-Mart workers to organize a union. That ballot box can change things!

Workers empowerment by organizing from the distribution centers to the individual stores.