Mother Jones
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With Republicans trying to avoid a repeat of 2012’s Todd Akin disaster and retake the Senate, the Georgia GOP establishment was happy to see David Perdue, a self-funded businessman, leading in the polls ahead of Tuesday’s Senate primary. Compared to gaffe machines such as Rep. Paul Broun, who has pushed personhood for zygotes, and Rep. Phil Gingrey, who defended Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment, the former Dollar General CEO seemed unlikely to introduce fraught gender issues into the general election—where Michelle Nunn, the likely Democratic nominee, is polling well against the GOP field.
But Perdue’s record on women’s issues—specifically, whether women are entitled to equal pay for equal work—is far from clean. In 2006, three years into Perdue’s four-plus years as Dollar General’s CEO, federal investigators at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that female store managers who worked for the company he ran “were discriminated against,” and “generally were paid less than similarly situated male managers performing duties requiring equal skill, effort, and responsibility.” A year later, separate from that investigation, thousands of female managers who were paid less than their male counterparts joined a class action suit against the company—which Dollar General eventually settled, paying the women more than $15 million.
“Dollar General has set up a pay system which permits stereotypes about men and women to be used in judging their pay, performance, and salary needs,” female Dollar General managers claimed in sworn statements. “This includes stereotypes about men being the breadwinner, head of the household, or just more deserving because they are men.”
The case began on March 7, 2006, when Janet Calvert, the former manager of a Dollar General in Alabama, sued the company for paying her less than male managers. Dollar General, which was still under Perdue’s leadership, tried and failed to prevent other female employees from joining Calvert and suing as a class. By 2008, more than 2,100 current and former employees had joined a certified a class open to women who worked as store managers for Dollar General between November 30, 2004 and November 30, 2007. (Perdue was CEO from April 2003 to summer 2007.)
Read the article:
This GOP Senate Candidate’s Company Paid Millions to Women in Discrimination Cases
