'Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price' (2005) Full Length Documentary
Producer/Director Robert Greenwald
'Wal-Mart Wins. Workers Lose'
'Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price' is the documentary film sensation that's changing the largest company on Earth. The film features the deeply personal stories and everyday lives of families and communities struggling to survive in a Wal-Mart world. It's an emotional journey that will challenge the way you think, feel...and shop.
Released simultaneously in theaters and DVD in November 2005, the film has been seen by millions worldwide. Families, churches, schools, and small businesses owners have screened the film over 10,000 times and the world is taking notice. See the film, share it, and become part of the movement forcing companies to act responsibly.
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'Wal-Mart Wins. Workers Lose'
New York Times Editorial
June 20, 2011
Wal-Mart Stores asked the Supreme Court to make a million or more of the company’s current and former female employees fend for themselves in individual lawsuits instead of seeking billions of dollars for discrimination in a class-action lawsuit. Wal-Mart got what it wanted from the court — unanimous dismissal of the suit as the plaintiffs presented it — and more from the five conservative justices, who went further in restricting class actions in general.
The majority opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia will make it substantially more difficult for class-action suits in all manner of cases to move forward. For 45 years, since Congress approved the criteria for class actions, the threshold for certification of a class has been low, with good reason because certification is merely the first step in a suit. Members of a potential class have had to show that they were numerous, had questions of law or fact in common and had representatives with typical claims who would protect the interests of the class.
Justice Scalia significantly raised the threshold of certification, writing that there must be “glue” holding together the claims of a would-be class. Now, without saying what the actual standard of proof is, the majority requires that potential members of a class show that they are likely to prevail at trial when they seek initial certification. In this change, the court has made fact-finding a major part of certification, increasing the cost and the stakes of starting a class action.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the four moderates on the court, dissented from Justice Scalia’s broader analysis and sought a much narrower holding. The minority found that the plaintiffs had cleared the bar for certification with evidence suggesting that “gender bias suffused Wal-Mart’s company culture” but would have sent the case back to the trial court to consider whether the class action should have gone forward in a different form.
The plaintiffs in this case sought three forms of relief: to stop Wal-Mart’s employment practices that allegedly discriminated against women, to have the company adopt equitable ones and to recover wages lost as a result of unfair practices. The justices have all but ended this mix of remedies under one part of the main class-action rule — even though Congress and most courts of appeals have allowed it for decades.
Without a class action, it will be very difficult for most of the women potentially affected to pursue individual claims. The average wages lost per year for a member of the rejected Wal-Mart class are around $1,100 — too little to give lawyers an incentive to represent such an individual. For the plaintiffs, for groups seeking back pay in class actions, and for class actions in general, it was a bad day in court.
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Sources
www.walmartmovie.com/
www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/opinion/21tue1.html
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