A federal court’s ruling clears the way for a huge class-ac­tion sex-discrimi­na­­tion lawsuit to proceed against Walmart.

The decision deals the com­p­any a legal blow and exposes it to bil­­l­ions of dollars in potential damages.

More than a million women currently and previously employed by Walmart could be included in the lawsuit, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on April 26.

“This ruling is a victory for workers in every industry in America,” UFCW Local 99 President Jim McLaughlin said. “Now the na­tion’s largest com­­pany will have to answer to its female employees who have lost oppor­tuni­ties as a result of their employer’s discriminatory policies.”

McLaughlin said that Walmart’s em­ployment practices are too influen­tial to let them remain unexamined and unchallenged in court.

“On behalf of working people everywhere, we congratulate the brave wo­men who are participating in this com­plaint,” he said.

Walmart launched another assault on living and working standards in communities across the country yesterday, by laying off more than ten thousand Sam’s Club employees. The company is outsourcing jobs, many of them part-time, to a company based in Arkansas.

Workers report that Walmart called them into mass meetings where they were offered boxes of tissues and told they were no longer needed by the nation’s largest private employer.

The mass layoffs raise serious questions such as whether or not older and more senior workers were targeted for lay off. Why hasn’t Walmart made a clearer path to employment with Shopper Events for these 11,000 associates – which they clearly have the power to do? And for workers hired by the outsourced company, what kind of jobs will Shoppers Events provide to the new applicants? Why is Walmart telling workers they must agree not to pursue age discrimination claims in order to qualify for severance pay?

Walmart and Sams Club workers seeking additional assistance and answers are encouraged to contact Walmart Workers for Change at 866-587-2299 or log on to http://www.walmartworkersforchange.org/.

Wal-Mart now owns 58 percent of Distribucion y Servicio (D&S), the largest food chain in Chile. The company now controls 180 stores, 10 shopping centers and 85 financial service branches in the South American country.

In another development, Wal-Mart has been trying to enter the Russian market. Wal-Mart is hoping that the economic crisis will help it find a struggling operator to take over.

Wal-Mart has agreed to settle 63 lawsuits in 42 states for off-the-clock violations. The action has been described as the largest-ever lawsuit settlement over wage violations.

The settlement calls for at least $352 million, but it could go as high as $640 million, depending on how many current and former employees submit claims.

The lawsuits involve hundreds of thousands of workers.

Wage violations included forced off-the-clock work, the company erasing hours from the employees’ time cards, and not allowing guaranteed lunches and breaks.

Wal-Mart opened its first four 15,000-sq. ft. stores in Phoenix in October. These stores, called Marketside, are the first small-format stores for Wal-Mart nationally and are expected to be a direct competitor to Tesco’s Fresh & Easy stores.

Tesco is the largest retailer in the U.K. and a major competitor of Wal-Mart. Fresh & Easy has 25 stores in the Phoenix area, with more planned. These stores carry many ready-to-eat meals.

Labor groups have asked the Federal Election Commission to determine whether Wal-Mart made “prohibited corporate expenditures” when it organized compulsory politically-themed meetings across the country. At the meetings, employees were warned that a Democratic president would back the Employee Free Choice Act and other pro-union legislation that the company opposes.

The groups say the meetings illegally pressured employees to vote against Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, and other Democrats in the November election.

The complaint cites a report in The Wall Street Journal that department managers, many of whom are paid by the hour, were among those summoned to the compulsory meetings. Federal election law prohibits companies from telling hourly employees how they should vote.

Eight auto repair workers in Gatineau, Quebec, became the only Wal-Mart employees in North America with a union contract when an arbitrator forced the company to accept its terms. As a result, the members of Local 486 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada will see their wages rise to a minimum of $11.54 an hour from their previous $8.50 an hour.

“The 50-page agreement represents 98 percent of what the union asked for,” Local 486 President Guy Chenier said. The workers who install tires, change oil and fill propane tanks also made gains on their wages for working on statutory holidays, have more generous vacations and will see their wages increase periodically.

The workers were organized under terms of Canadian law that allow for “card-check” certification of unions. If and when it becomes law, the proposed Employee Free Choice Act would give American workers a similar option.