Just as I finished reading the good news that Wal-Mart has joined a pro-universal health care coalition including the SEIU, AT&T, Intel, and my employer, the Center for American Progress, I clicked to another screen and learned that an immense class-action lawsuit alleging widespread sex discrmination at Wal-Mart stores moved forward yesterday. Over 2 million female Wal-Mart workers are elligible to join the suit, making it the largest sex discrimination suit ever filed in the United States. The lead plaintiff, 56-year old Betty Dukes, claims pay and promotion discrimination. It took Dukes three years to advance from cashier to customer service representative, even though men hired after her were promoted in as little as 90 days. Two-thirds of Wal-Mart workers are women, but only one-third of managers.

All of which begs the question: How should progressives engage with a corporation with so many widely-publicized labor abuses (including locking workers inside stores and denying them overtime), an arguably disasterous footprint on the American urban and suburban landscape, and yet a realistic, even pathbreaking, attitude about the health care crisis? When I interviewed SEIU president Andy Stern in November, he said, "We applaud good behavior and we hold people accountable for bad behavior."

It seems like public relations fiascos are just about the only criticisms Wal-Mart responds to. It's good news that they've joined the SEIU and CAP to make progress on health care, but it can't cover up Wal-Mart's despicable record on labor. I hope that as Wal-Mart works in the new coalition, they find themselves embarassed enough by their labor abuses to make some serious changes. Because how can you support a worker's right to health insurance but deny them time off to visit the doctor? How can you want to insure a single mother's child, but "mommy track" that worker, cheating her out of raises and promotions? We should expect better from the nation's largest employer.