Walmart Continues Fighting Laid Off Workers with Criminal Backgrounds Despite Contradictory Racial Equity Pledge
Walmart, where around 22 percent of employees are Black, pledged $100 million to fight systemic racism in response to the George Floyd protests around the US, but workers are criticizing the company for failing to act on their pledge and publicized statements when it comes to addressing its record of racism toward employees.
Despite Walmart CEO Doug McMillan claiming the company’s philanthropy initiatives will focus partly on “criminal justice reform with an emphasis on examining barriers to opportunity faced by those exiting the system,” Walmart is refusing to remedy an ongoing complaint regarding racist hiring practices of workers with criminal backgrounds.
“This is another way companies like Walmart have their knee on our necks,” said Mark Balentine, who worked for a contractor at a warehouse in Elwood, Illinois handling Walmart products for three years before Walmart brought the warehouse employees in-house, but fired Balentine and around 100 other employees in April 2019 due to decades-old criminal records on their background checks. Balentine is currently organizing with Warehouse Workers for Justice to continue fighting for his rights and those of other warehouse workers. “We were discriminated against and fired after background checks for felonies twenty years old, but they’ll hire us with criminal backgrounds through temp services at lower pay with no benefits.”
Laseant Sardin was terminated after working at the warehouse for two years due to a felony theft conviction on his background check from 1985.
“They said we could come back in 30 days to be rehired as temp workers with the same background,” said Sardin. “I wasn’t going to go for it, I wasn’t going to lose my benefits.”
Balentine, Sardin and other terminated warehouse workers filed racial discrimination complaints over Walmart’s hiring practices in April 2019, which are still under investigation at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In 2009, Walmart settled a separate racial hiring discrimination lawsuit for $17.5 million.
A Walmart spokesperson said in an email, “The claims raised to the EEOC are continuing through that process which is confidential. While we will not get into detail, Walmart disputes the claims of both individuals. We don’t have anything else to add.”