Home » Press Room » Archived Press Releases » Press Releases 2002 » Former Wal-Mart Manager Gretchen Adams (4/16)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 16, 2002

Rally for Equal Pay
Statement of Gretchen Adams Former Wal-Mart Manager

My name is Gretchen Adams. I worked for the largest employer, and the largest employer of women, in the United States---Wal-Mart. When we look at job opportunities for women and when we look at economic security for women in the future, we have to look at Wal-Mart. As the largest corporation in the world, Wal-Mart can open or close the door on equal pay and opportunity, and it will set a standard for the rest of the corporate world.

Right now, Wal-Mart has closed the door on women, and has lowered the standard for all other employers.

I can give you the numbers.

  • Seventy-two percent of hourly employees at Wal-Mart are women.

  • Two-thirds of managers are men--and, ninety percent of top managers are men.

  • Women are confined are to the lowest rungs of management, usually as department managers who have the title of manager but not the pay.

Before I knew the numbers, I had the experience of being routinely and consistently paid less than my male counterparts. Early in my career, I was a Deli manger. I trained newly hired male employees. The men I trained came on board making more money than I did.

In fact, the men I trained made about $3,500 more. I asked about why men made more, and I did get a $1,500---but, not a $3,500---raise.

As Wal-Mart expanded and began opening more and more Supercenters, I become a co-manager of a store. Again, I found out that I was making about $3,500 less than male co-managers.

I looked around and saw that women across the board were tracked into the lowest positions.

As a manager, I found out why nobody was able to effectively complain and change the way women were treated. Wal-Mart rates associates according to their potential interest in unions. Ask too many questions or raise an issue like equal pay, you will be identified as having high union potential---a troublemaker---and, you are probably are not going to last too long.

I left Wal-Mart because of some of the things they asked me to do, such as I was told I could not hire someone who had been a member of a union in the past. That's illegal and it's wrong.

I am now supporting a lawsuit to get equal pay for women at Wal-Mart. Thanks to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, women are finding out about their rights and are being given an opportunity to take action to make things right.

Congress and the White House must act now to guarantee equal pay by passing the Paycheck Fairness Act. Some may think that sex discrimination has gone away---but, it is going on everyday, even at the nation's largest employer of women.
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