The timing couldn’t have been worse for Wal-Mart. The country’s dominant retailer was drawing negative headlines across the country once again for racial discrimination in hiring — right in the middle of its expensive public relations campaign to “soften” its image as the employer from hell. On top of its own workers suing it for work hour violations and sexual discrimination, on top of the federal probe of its use of illegal workers to clean its stores — this week the media ran a story out of the little town of Coldwater, Mississippi, where Daryal T. Nelson, a black man who wanted to drive trucks for Wal-Mart, has filed a federal lawsuit, with the help of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, against the retailer. Nelson’s lawsuit charges that Wal-Mart discourages and rejects applications from black Americans seeking truck driver jobs, thus narrowing their opportunities to work for the corporation. The lawsuit affects Wal-Mart distribution centers in 12 Dixie states (Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Virginia.) More importantly, the plaintiff is asking the courts to give his case class action status, meaning it could affect a large number of job applicants who were similarly treated. According to Nelson, he had the qualifications Wal-Mart sought in an applicant: experience driving a truck, a commercial driver’s license, a clean driving record, and a solid work history. But Nelson was informed by Wal-Mart officials that he also needed to have a good credit rating in order to work as a truck driver for Wal-Mart. Nelson’s action asserts that this credit rating requirement amounts to an “unwritten work requirement” that is “selectively applied” to favor white applicants. Nelson notes that he applied several times to work for Wal-Mart, and in 2002 he was interviewed, and had a road test. He says he was told that he would be hired as a driver based out of a D.C. in Searcy, Arkansas. But when he met with a Wal-Mart human resource director, Nelson was told he could work as a laborer inside the distribution center, not as a driver. Nelson says he was “racially stereotyped” by the company, and that Wal-Mart implied that he had submitted false credit and driving records. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has backed Nelson’s account, saying the agency found “there is reasonable cause to believe that a violation has occurred.” The EEOC pointed out that Nelson has 22 years of driving experience, a good safety record, and that Wal-Mart has hired white drivers who had far less experience, and inferior driving records than Nelson. The EEOC complaint seeks to restrain Wal-Mart from continuing its pattern of racial discrimination against African American job seekers. A spokesman for Wal-Mart told the Associated Press, “We do not discriminate in our hiring practices.”
The sour joke about Wal-Mart is that it has one of the largest selections of suits of any retailer in America — lawsuits. Wal-Mart collects them in all sizes and styles. The retailer is considered to be the most sued corporation in America, and seems to be constantly fighting off one charge or another. This kind of backdrop, like the Nelson racial case, makes it increasingly hard for Wal-Mart to continue to advertise itself as the company that boasts “our people make the difference” and “respect for the individual” as a watchword. Current and former Wal-Mart employees have repeatedly made the case that Wal-Mart is not a supportive place to work, that it has forced them to work off the clock without pay, locked them in the store, and sexually discriminated in hiring and promotion. When Fortune magazine polled workers across the country to nominate the Best Place To Work, Wal-Mart, which was the magazine’s Most Admired Retailer, didn’t even make it into the Top 100 Best Places To Work. Considered the darling of Wall Street executives, the company doesn’t appear to even register on the charts with its own workers. An estimated 600,000 people quit Wal-Mart annually. For similar stories, search this database by “discrimination.”
