Federal Sex-Discrimination Lawsuit Filed Against Costco

[Nambe]

By Ann Zimmerman, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

DALLAS -- An assistant manager of Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) sued the retailer in federal court in

San Francisco, charging it discriminates against women in promotions to top managerial posts at its stores.

The suit alleges the Issaquah, Wash., membership-warehouse chain fails to provide job-posting and application procedures for assistant-manager and general-manager positions and doesn't have any written promotion criteria for those jobs.

As a result, the suit says, women make up one-half of the company's hourly workers but only one in six of its stores' assistant-manager and general-manager positions are held by women. Companywide, women make up 26% of the managerial ranks. In comparison, women on average hold more than 33% of managerial positions in similar retail chains, according to 2000 Department of Labor statistics cited in the suit.

The suit seeks class-action status, potentially on behalf of as many as 600 women who work or once worked for Costco's more than 320 U.S. warehouse clubs in the last three years. ..

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[prolesunited]

1. I would hate for this to be true

They are a progressive model for the retail industry in so many ways. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in court.

[kwolf68]

2. Yes it is

The CEO of Costco is a Democrat donating money to our side.

[pmbryant]

5. On the surface, sounds like a sadly typical case of sex discrimination

From the article:

Shirley "Rae" Ellis, a 48-year-old assistant manager at Costco's Douglas County, Colo., warehouse, filed suit after being passed over for promotion for six years. A former general manager at a Wal-Mart Sam's Club until 1998, Ms. Ellis says when she was hired, Costco told her it didn't hire general managers from the outside, but promised to promote her within the year, according to the lawsuit.

She says she received excellent performance reviews and repeatedly told her superiors she was interested in becoming a club manager anywhere in the country, especially in California, where almost a third of the company's stores are based. But a promotion was never forthcoming. In October 2002, Ms. Ellis filed a charge of discrimination against Costco with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing.

Ms. Ellis also claimed Costco retaliated against her two years after she filed charges with the EEOC by moving her from a warehouse in Aurora, Colo., to her present store, requiring her to commute more than an hour and a half each way.

At least there is one unusual aspect to this case:

... unlike the case against Wal-Mart, the Costco suit doesn't allege pay disparities between male and female workers.

EDIT: Here's another article that has a little more detail on this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8646-2004Aug17?language=printer

--Peter

[Ducks In A Row]

3. well since walmart gives tons of money to the gop

and the gop is the federals, and they hate costco with a passion before they don't use slave workers, I'd wait to find out the real facts.

[Robbien]

4. Almost every company gets sued, but only Democratic companies

get the case written up in the newspaper.

[Lori Price CLG]

6. Amazing, isn't it? Wal-Sh*t-Mart can lock its employees in their buildings

where is the lawsuit?

Lori Price
http://www.legitgov.org/

[pmbryant]

7. There's a sex discrimination case against Wal-Mart too

And it's been moderately widely reported on. Though not as widely as I would like.

I would love to hear all such cases get a lot more publicity than they do, whether the defendant is Costco, Wal-Mart, Boeing, Merrill-Lynch (all recent cases) or whoever.

--Peter