By Chuck Bartels
The Associated Press

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Wal-Mart Stores Inc., facing lawsuits for alleged gender bias and unfair treatment of workers, pledged Friday to work harder to promote women to management and announced a new pay system that would be more fair for hourly workers.

Chief executive Lee Scott told employees and shareholders at the company's annual meeting here that executives' bonuses, including his own, would be cut up to 7.5 percent this year and 15 percent next year if the company does not promote women and minorities in proportion to the number that apply for management positions.

"If 50 percent of the people applying for the job of store manager are women, we will work to make sure that 50 percent of the people receiving those jobs are women," Scott said.

The planned changes in job classifications and pay structure for hourly workers would help keep pay fair and enable the company to remain competitive in wages, Scott said. He said the changes came after the company commissioned a study of its hourly positions, and local and national market conditions.

Wal-Mart's pay and benefits have been criticized by labor unions, workers and competitors, which struggle to come close to the company's low costs.

Wal-Mart is a target of an investigation by federal prosecutors, charging that it knowingly hired contract cleaning services that use low-paid illegal workers.

Critics were skeptical of Wal-Mart's planned changes in work conditions and pay scales.

"None of it sounds like huge improvement in the lives of Wal-Mart workers," said Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank in Washington.

However, Eisenbrey credited the company for acknowledging a shortcoming.

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, is being sued for allegedly not paying employees for overtime and for alleged gender bias.

One sexual discrimination lawsuit in San Francisco seeks to represent 1.6 million current and former women workers. The suit filed by six women working in Wal-Mart's California stores alleges that Wal-Mart set up a system that frequently pays its female workers less than their male counterparts.