Best Buy Workers File Bias Lawsuit
Citing what they called a “corporate culture of discrimination,” six current and former employees sued Best Buy Co. on Thursday, claiming that the retailer violated civil rights laws by discriminating against female and minority workers.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, claims that Best Buy enforces stereotypes that steer women, Latinos and African Americans into lower-paying jobs as cashiers and warehouse workers.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs, including Bill Lann Lee, former U.S. assistant attorney general for civil rights, also portrayed the alleged discrimination as part of a company ethic that focuses on serving white customers. They cited a company policy requiring salespeople to target buyers matching four hypothetical models -- all white.
But Best Buy spokeswoman Dawn Bryant said the plaintiffs had misunderstood the company’s “customer-centric” way of doing business.
“We vigorously deny the discrimination claims,” Bryant said. “The behaviors alleged are inconsistent with our policies, our values and our culture.”
Bryant said the customer models resulted from market research and were used strictly to help the chain better serve buyers by, for example, adding personal shoppers and lowering the volume of music in stores.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs, however, contended that the customer profiles were part of an environment in which white males were systematically favored for choice sales jobs, more likely to get raises and promotions and disproportionately represented in management.
Even when women and minorities have been hired for sales floor jobs, according to the complaint, they are “segregated” in departments with smaller appliances rather than such big-ticket items as televisions, stereos and computers.
The plaintiffs are asking the court to certify the suit as a national class action including all current and former women and minority employees. They are seeking back pay and changes in Best Buy’s hiring practices.
The Richfield, Minn.-based consumer electronics giant operates 731 Best Buy retail stores in the United States and has more than 100,000 employees. Best Buy made a profit of $984 million on sales of $27.4 billion in the fiscal year ended Feb. 26.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs said they did not know yet the size of the potential class or the monetary value of the claims.
Among plaintiffs who joined a news conference called by the lawyers was Vallejo, Calif., resident Jasmen Holloway, 22. She worked in Best Buy’s Marin City store from 2001 to August, starting as a cashier and later becoming a saleswoman for car audio and wireless equipment. At the news conference Thursday, the African American woman said that she interviewed for a management job when she had reached the salary cap for her position but that the post went to a white man with less experience. Soon after she complained about discriminatory treatment, Holloway said, she was fired.
Another plaintiff is Cheryl Chappel, an administrator at the Mira Mesa, Calif., store. Chappel, an African American woman who says she is in her 40s, claimed she was passed over for a management promotion in favor of a white man with less tenure and no experience in her department. She said that Best Buy managers told her she was not promoted because “it was a man thing” and that there were few women on the sales floor because “girls can’t sell.”
The Best Buy case is similar to a pending national class action brought against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. by current and former female employees who allege discrimination in pay and promotion.
These discrimination suits against mega-retailers reflect, in part, the lack of union grievance procedures that would have provided another channel for employee discontent, said Harley Shaiken, a UC Berkeley professor who studies labor issues.
“Now that discontent translates into court cases,” he said, “and once you have an example set like the Wal-Mart case, employees in other firms may say, ‘Wait a minute, that happened to me too.’ ”
Best Buy has faced other discrimination claims. Last year, 60 former information systems employees at its Minnesota headquarters sued the retailer for $50 million, alleging they were laid off because of their ages. That suit is still pending.
In recent years, the company has settled other discrimination cases, including those of a black employee who claimed harassment, a man who claimed Best Buy refused to hire him because of burn scarring on his face and hands, and job seekers who claimed the company’s automated telephone hiring system was inaccessible to people with hearing or speech impairments.
Investors did not appear fazed by the lawsuit Thursday; Best Buy stock rose $1.05 to $50.
