Home Depot has more to worry about these days than rising interest rates and falling stock value. It has these external issues to grapple with, but it also has internal problems on its front door as well. The orange company has a “color” problem. The company that likes to brag about its “Most Admired Company” label (bestowed on it by Fortune magazine insiders, not the public) has the very unadmirable problem of racial discrimination lawsuits dogging it. According to the May 22nd issue of the National Home Center News, Home Depot has been required to monitor human resource issues in its Detroit, MI stores for two years at the insistence of the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, but now former employees in Deerfield Beach and Pompano Beach, Florida have filed a lawsuit seeking $1.5 million in damages, charging The Orange Hammer with racial discrimination. This is on top of a lawsuit filed by employees of a Home Depot store in Austell, Georgia who are pursuing a discrimination lawsuit since last February alleging discrimination in pay, promotions, and performance evalutions. In the Michigan case, 12 Home Depot employees at a Southfield, MI store have filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking $2 billion in compensatory and punitive damages.
Home Depot operates 981 stores in North and South America, and employs over 201,000 people. So, sure, a few workers in Georgia, Florida, and Michigan are upset. Is it fair to hammer Home Depot over a few racial lawsuits? When you get to be as big as Home Depot, you are not only most admired, maybe you become the “most sued” also. The company reportedly denies all these charges of discrimination, and says its policies are not discriminatory. But the lawsuits in three states are all proceeding, so you be the judge.
