In my opinion, collective bargaining rights are extremely important to the citizens of the United States. One "real-world" example of exercising bargaining rights is Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes. Specifically, this case involved apparent gender discrimination against women at various Wal-Mart stores. Per various Federal Equal Employment Opportunity laws, no employer can discriminate based on our appearance, gender, race, religion, etc. This case came down to a small group of women who claimed that female workers at Wal-Mart all over the country, including themselves, were being discriminated against through lower wages and longer promotional delays compared to other men working the same jobs. One woman, Betty Dukes, claims she was denied …show more content…
They argued that they deserved to receive equal pay as men as they all worked the same jobs and completed the same tasks. Furthermore, this group of women fought for monetary damages and petitioned for the money they believed they were owed. Initially, the court ruled in favor of Dukes and the millions of women lined up to the receive their "missing paycheck." Wal-Mart appealed this decision all the way up to the Supreme Court. The four judges for the case, three who were female, ruled in Wal-Mart's favor. They said that the women would have to find a discriminatory policy belonged to Wal-Mart. The judges further said that the lower courts did not use correct standards in approving this nationwide class. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that these 1.5+ million women "wish to sue about literally millions of employment decisions at once." Most experts believed that this loss would affect many future, large discrimination class action suits. I tend to agree with what these experts said. This Supreme Court decision destroyed the path for any large groups of people (especially women) to come together and create a class- action suit against their