Women Recount Pervasive Inequality at Wal-Mart

That dream died fast. She said she was passed over for promotion time and again -- usually in favor of men with less store experience.

Dukes, an ordained Baptist minister, said she was convinced that what was happening to her was wrong, and illegal. So she fought back.

Now she is the lead plaintiff in a historic lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. that, under a ruling issued Tuesday, will proceed as the largest class action ever certified in a civil rights employment case.

"I felt I was being victimized by the system, and I couldn't let it happen," Dukes said Tuesday from her attorneys' offices in Berkeley. "I've always said if you do nothing, you can expect nothing."

She still works at the Wal-Mart in Pittsburg, though now as a greeter, waving customers into the store with a smile. Dukes sees no contradiction: She still believes in the promise of a Wal-Mart career. In fact, sometimes she sounds more like a publicist for the company than one of its most famous detractors.

"I'm hoping to be there till my days of retirement," said Dukes, 54. "Wal-Mart is the largest company in the world. It's huge in my community. It employs people from all walks of life. It allows me to have an honest and forthright living and to stay active in my spiritual life. I never have to work on Sundays."

Dukes is among six named plaintiffs -- five from California -- and one of more than 1.5 million women who attorneys allege were injured to some degree by Wal-Mart policies.

More than 100 of the women have signed sworn statements filed in conjunction with the suit that describe an atmosphere of pervasive sexism, in which male managers didn't think twice of holding staff meetings at Hooters restaurants, or of justifying higher pay for men because they had to support families.

One was a college graduate who was so stunned by allegedly discriminatory treatment that she wrote a note to Wal-Mart Chief Executive H. Lee Scott Jr., who never responded, she said in her statement. Another was a mid-level supervisor in Tennessee who said she had to train a man to take the higher-level job she had actively sought.