Wal-Mart favors male workers, suit says

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is being sued again by a group of women who say they faced gender discrimination while working for the world’s biggest retailer.

In the complaint filed Monday in federal court in Florida, the defendants say they were denied opportunities for promotion and weren’t paid on a par with male colleagues in both hourly retail store positions and certain salaried management positions. Many of the women started working at the retailer in the 1990s. They seek class-action status.

The case is part of the legacy of Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., a 2001 suit representing 1.6 million female employees that claimed the company had a pattern of discriminating against women in promotion, pay, training and job assignment.

In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the decision to grant class certification and imposed revised guidelines for class actions related to employment discrimination.

“The class the plaintiffs now allege is no more appropriate than the nationwide class the Supreme Court has already rejected,” Randy Hargrove, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said.

The seven plaintiffs in the latest case, Forbes v. WalMart Stores Inc., were members of the national class originally certified in Dukes. Addressing the Supreme Court’s revised guidelines, the complaint focuses on allegations of workers in the southeastern U.S.