Three former Target employees are suing the company for racial discrimination and harassment, but their case is garnering special attention for the disclosure of a training memo that advised employees that not all Latinos wear sombreros and eat tacos.
Robert Gonzalez, Bulmaro Fabian and Pedro Garcia-Ayala, all Mexican immigrants, have filed a lawsuit against Target in the Yolo County Court in Woodland, Calif. The three men say they suffered crude harassment, discrimination and retaliation.
In addition, Gonzalez and Fabian say they endured age discrimination. Both men are 58 years old. Garcia-Ayala is 36.
According to the Courthouse News Service, the complaint specifically identifies a controversial document, “Organization Effectiveness, Employee and Labor Relations Multi-Cultural Tips,” and highlights portions of the document the men found to be particularly offensive:
This document instructs managers to note differences among Hispanic employees, and states the following:
“a. Food: not everyone eats tacos and burritos;
“b. Music: not everyone dances to salsa;
“c. Dress: not everyone wears a sombrero;
“d. Mexicans (lower education level, some may be undocumented);
“e. Cubans (Political refugees, legal status, higher education level); and
“f. They may say ‘OK, OK’ and pretend to understand, when they do not, just to save face.”
The document also reportedly said that “for Hispanics, family is the highest priority,” and so managers should “look for ways to take advantage of these strong familial tendencies as a source of motivation in the workplace.”
Ilija Cvetich, the attorney representing the three men, said that they felt their supervisors were treating them differently than other employees.
“So when we saw the multicultural tips, we look at that document as potential evidence as, in fact, how the management considered our clients,” Cvetich told Fox News Latino.
Cultural insensitivity
Gonzalez, Fabian and Garcia-Ayala say the managers at the Target store where they worked were almost all White and not of Hispanic or Latino descent, and that they regularly used racial slurs while speaking to Hispanic employees. The lawsuit gave examples like “Only a ‘wet-back’ can work this hard” and “What the hell, I’m already sweating like a Mexican.”
Gonzalez said he complained to human resources about the mistreatment of Hispanic employees, but his supervisors retaliated against him. Gonzalez says his store manager, Terry McCafee, “began using more racial epithets when instructing Gonzalez on his work and would purposefully throw boxes on the ground and then order Gonzalez to pick them up in an attempt to humiliate Gonzalez amongst his colleagues.”
After news of the lawsuit began to spread, Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder released the following statement to the Huffington Post:
“It is never Target’s intent to offend our team members or guests and we apologize. The content of the document referenced is not representative of who Target is. We strive at all times to be a place where our team and guests feel welcome, valued and respected. This document, which was used during conversations at one distribution center, was never part of any formal or company-wide training. We take accountability for its contents and are truly sorry.”
Snyder said that the company is “firmly committed” to diversity in the workplace and to respecting and “valuing the diverse backgrounds of our more than 361,000 team members worldwide.”
The leak of the document also comes as Target begins a new advertising campaign targeting Latino consumers, with ads written in Spanish and bilingual signage in stores.
Does corporate America value all races?
However, not everyone is convinced that corporate America, including Target, really values cultural diversity.
In a blog post, the national nonprofit organization Latinos in Social Media wrote that if Gonzalez, Fabian and Garcia-Ayala are all able to prove they were fired for “protesting what they saw as racially motivated abuse and one of their pieces of proof is an alleged corporate document that is more incriminating than any corporation might like to see come to light,” it will paint a “grim picture of corporate America.”
“It’s very disturbing to think that a company which has a pretty good public persona might have such an ugly private face,” the post said.
While Target does not receive as much attention for maltreatment of employees as retail giant Wal-Mart, there is significant room for improvement in how Target treats its employees, according to Think Progress.
The group reported that in May 2012, the National Labor Relations Board found Target guilty of intimidating workers who tried to form a union. The report said the company was cited last year “for maintaining illegal work rules designed to keep workers from speaking out.”