2,000 file Walmart sex bias complaints

WASHINGTON, June 6 (UPI) -- Nearly 2,000 current and former employees of Walmart have filed sex discrimination complaints against the U.S. retail giant in the last year, attorneys said.

The complaints were filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the wake of the June 2011 U.S. Supreme Court decision that reversed a lower court ruling certifying the national class action lawsuit, Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the attorneys said.

There was no immediate comment from Walmart.

Co-lead counsel for the women, Brad Seligman of the California-based Impact Fund and Joseph Sellers of Washington-based Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, said the 1,975 EEOC complaints were filed in all but two states, and represent every Walmart retail region in the United States.

Seligman and Sellers represented the huge class action broken up by the Supreme Court.

"The fact that EEOC charges were filed in every single Wal-Mart region in the nation demonstrates the widespread and pervasive nature of Wal-Mart's pay and promotion discrimination against its women employees," Seligman said.

The EEOC enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. Women with complaints against Walmart and its subsidiary Sam's Club dating back to Dec. 26, 1998, protect their right to sue over pay and promotion discrimination even though the Supreme Court barred the class certification, the attorneys said.