Wal-Mart's 'Wetback' Problem

The Wal-Mart corporation has been carefully nurturing its image as a strong supporter of the Latino community in America, opening stores designed for Latino shoppers, and hosting economic summits for Latino businesses. So it was especially embarrassing for the corporation to find itself in the national headlines late last week as the target of a lawsuit filed on behalf of its own Latino workers.

On May 7, 2009, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), representing Hispanic employees at a Sam's Club in Fresno, California, filed a lawsuit against Wal-Mart, charging that the workers had been subjected to a hostile work environment. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court, alleging that Sam's Club managers allowed their Latino workers to be verbally harassed repeatedly, including the use of derogatory words against workers of Mexican origin, like 'wetback.'

The EEOC does not file a suit unless it has given up trying to work out a voluntary agreement with a company. The lawsuit was brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which makes discrimination against workers based on their national origin illegal. In this case, the EEOC is seeking compensatory and punitive damages from Wal-Mart, and they want the company to put in place a written complaint procedure to process complaints of worker discrimination.

Wal-Mart, which already has a large collection of worker discrimination lawsuits filed by the EEOC, tried to put its best face on the new charges. "We work hard to make sure (workers) feel respected and valued in the workplace," a company spokesman said. In 2005, a jury forced Wal-Mart to pay $7.5 million to a worker with cerebral palsy over job discrimination. In the same year, the EEOC in Florida sued Wal-Mart over the sexual harassment of one of its workers. In 2004, the EEOC in Mississippi charged that Wal-Mart discouraged and rejected applications from African Americans seeking truck driver jobs at distribution centers in 12 states. In 2001, a judge in California approved a $6.8 million settlement over an EEOC lawsuit against Wal-Mart, which charged that the company violated the Americans With Disabilities Act by using a job questionnaire that asked applicants to indicate if they needed any "accomodations" to perform required duties. Also in 2001, the EEOC asked a federal judge in Tucson, Arizona to find Wal-Mart in contempt of court over a case brought against the Arkansas retailer by two deaf men the company had refused to hire.

The most recent Fresno litigation comes at a particularly awkward time for Wal-Mart, which recently opened up a small Supermercado de Wal-Mart in the Houston, Texas area touted as the company's first superstore targeted to Latino shoppers. The store serves tacos, and displays signs in Spanish and English. This summer the retailer plans to open up a "Mas Club," their Latino version of Sam's Club. A second Supermercado is slated to open in Phoenix.

"I think it's about being more relevant to the community you serve," Wal-Mart vice president of business development told the Houston Chronicle. "Especially in Houston, the demand for Hispanic products has been growing for us. I think this is a natural evolution of what we've been doing for years." The Chronicle noted that lower-income shoppers, including Hispanics, are the nation's fastest-growing income group and will generate $84 billion in incremental spending during the next decade. Wal-Mart said it has learned how to serve Hispanic shoppers from operating more than 2,346 stores in Latin America---roughly half of them in Mexico---where Wal-Mart is now the largest grocery in that country. But apparently some officials in the Sam's Club Division have not learned yet how to treat their Latino workers with dignity.

Wal-Mart is putting a lot of public relations time into the Latino market. The giant retailer, with the support of Latino Magazine and Impacto, recently assembled nearly 200 prominent Latino businesses and leaders from the Administration of President Barack Obama, like Gene Sperling, Counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, to discuss "issues of greatest importance" to the Latino business community. Wal-Mart says it sponsored this first ever "Latino Economic Summit" on March 31, 2009 to extend its commitment to support the growth of Hispanic-owned businesses and Wal-Mart's Hispanic suppliers throughout the United States. The Latino Summit was designed to "reveal opportunities for Latino businesses to thrive in the midst of the ongoing economic turmoil."

But five weeks later, it is Wal-Mart's Latino policy that is in turmoil. The federal lawsuit, EEOC v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., dba Sam's Club, et al, claims that Hispanic employees at the Sam's Club were repeatedly called 'wetbacks.' EEOC's Fresno director told the media, "It is appalling that an employer, after becoming aware of the harassment, allowed this type of behavior to continue without taking appropriate and corrective action. The EEOC will continue to expand its presence in the Central Valley to ensure that its employers understand the magnitude of their duty to protect employees from discrimination."

Apparently Wal-Mart is happy to take Latino dollars in its cash registers, but hasn't learned how to properly treat the Latino workers who operate those cash registers. This case will no doubt end in a settlement, much like the recent Valley Stream, New York trampling death case, in which Wal-Mart paid its way out of further prosecution. The EEOC exposure will pressure Wal-Mart to get this story out of the headlines as soon as possible, and to compensate its workers for the "low everyday" treatment they confronted on the job.

Latinos throughout the Americas have a right to expect 'mas' from the Wal-Mart corporation---or to find some other place to shop.

Al Norman is the founder of Sprawl-Busters, and has been helping communities fight big box stores for nearly 16 years. His website is http://www.sprawl-busters.com

Comments

[rabiddog6708]

Wal Mart $tinks. They pay their employees low wages with mostly part time hours and no benefits. They have been sued (and lost) for making their employees work off the clock and through mandatory (by law) lunch breaks. They were caught locking illegal workers (cleaning crew) in some of the stores overnight.­...in violation of numerous fire and safety laws.

[lvdragonlady]

They need to hire people that SPEAK English and know their job instead of cheap labor to stock their shelves.

[petphotos]

i'll have to side with the writer of the article. I think that the labor issue at Walmart varies from store to store. I worked for a very short time at a "regular" store and our store manager was one of the best I have ever encountered. When they upgraded this store to a "supercenter", they added a layer of management and lost the team like feel that was present in the old store. I recently moved from the Houston area and our local Walmart was predomimently latino, as was the town. I didn't see or hear of problems for the workers, other than the national problems all Walmart workers have.

I did not stay because of the terrible pay and that I was doing my managers job since he was not capable and I had much more experience.

[BobLablah]

Most democrats are in favor of the concept of "innocent until proven guilty". You appear to favor the exact opposite with statements like:

"Apparently Wal-Mart is happy to take Latino dollars in its cash registers, but hasn't learned how to properly treat the Latino workers who operate those cash registers.­"

That's like saying all democratic presidential candidates in the last election hooked up with felons to get an unethical sweetheart deal on their Chicago mansion.

[gavrielle]

The EEOC does not file litigation on anything but actionable causes. Actionable, meaning winnable. And if you'd ever had occasion to deal with them, you'd also know they will take up to a year or longer to investigate all charges and then negotiate a settlement between the employer and employees in question before taking that step. It's a safe bet that Wal-Mart is guilty as charged.

Of course, your comment is more about snarking on Democrats than it is about Mr. Norman's editorializing in his post (it's not a legal document, you know). But then, most neocon Republicans can't see the forest for the trees anyway, so what can one expect? Generalizations and slurs cut both ways, Bob.

[BobLablah]

"The EEOC does not file litigation on anything but actionable causes. Actionable, meaning winnable."

So you're saying the EEOC wins 100% of their cases. A quick google search of the phrase "EEOC loses" proves that theory to be 100% incorrect.

It's called research people and it's fast and easy. But I guess this is where I slide in my quick snark about Dems preferring not to do research, for obvious reasons. Like Rosie saying fire has never melted metal.

[Archontruth]

Because as everyone knows, organizations like the EEOC and ACLU never file cases of dubious legal merit just to grab headlines and try to convince people of their continuing relevance.