[Vision2020] Walmart racism suit in Lewiston

[Mark Solomon]

	Friday, February 9, 2007

Wal-Mart settles race suit
Black worker fired by Lewiston store receives back wages, damages
				Editor's note: 
Story contains strong racial language.

Becky Kramer
Staff writer
February 9, 2007

For more than two years, Travis Woods encountered 
racial graffiti and slurs at work, according to 
an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 
lawsuit filed against the Lewiston Wal-Mart store.

Racial epithets appeared on bathroom walls and in 
and near the closet where Woods - a night 
maintenance supervisor who is black - kept 
equipment, according to the suit.

But Wal-Mart managers failed to investigate who 
was behind the graffiti, or discipline an 
employee who yelled racial slurs at Woods, the 
suit said. It alleges that Woods was fired in 
2003 in retaliation for reporting the incidents.

On Thursday, Wal-Mart agreed to pay Woods $125,000 in back pay and damages.

"I don't wish what I went through on anyone," 
Woods said in a phone interview. "No one should 
ever have to put up with the racist remarks and 
graffiti that waited for me at work."

As part of the settlement, the Lewiston Wal-Mart 
will also train its managers and employees about 
federal law prohibiting racial harassment and 
retaliation. In addition, the store will report 
its handling of racial discrimination complaints 
to the EEOC for a two-year period.

Wal-Mart did not admit guilt in the case, which 
was first reported on spokesmanreview.com. "The 
facts as they're described by EEOC are not 
correct," said John Simley, a spokesman for the 
Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer. "We do not 
tolerate any type of discrimination, at all, 
anywhere in our operations." He declined further 
comment.

After managers failed to take action on his 
complaints, Woods said he began documenting 
pictures of the graffiti on his disposable Kodak 
camera, whose images are part of a sealed court 
file. He said he was pleased that training was 
included as part of Wal-Mart's settlement, and he 
hopes that it will help change the store's work 
culture.

Woods, 36, was one of the Lewiston store's few 
black employees. After working for Wal-Mart in 
California, Woods moved to Idaho in 1996 to study 
business administration at Lewis-Clark State 
College and transferred to the Lewiston store. 
When he was fired in 2003, he was earning $13.55 
per hour as a night maintenance supervisor.

Around 2001, racial graffiti started appearing in 
the store, according to the suit. When a 
threatening racial slur and a drawing of a 
gallows appeared, Woods showed the drawing to an 
assistant manager, the suit said.

According to court documents, the manager erased 
the graffiti and said words to the effect, 
"There, now it's gone."

Two assistant managers responded to graffiti 
incidents by cleaning up the graffiti or ordering 
Woods to do so, the suit said. "I concluded that 
any other complaints about racial graffiti were 
probably pointless," Woods said in court 
documents. "I also started to think that no one 
would believe me."

He documented the derogatory graffiti - which 
averaged one per month - with his own camera over 
an 18-month period, the suit said. Store managers 
didn't investigate or attempt to discipline the 
person responsible, according to court records.

In another incident, a white associate tracked 
dirt into a bathroom that Woods had just cleaned 
and said something like "he would make my 'black 
ass' clean it up again," Woods said in court 
documents.

When Woods sent another employee home for having 
alcohol on his breath, the man shouted 
obscenities and racial slurs as he left the 
store, the suit said. When Woods reported the 
incident, an assistant manager told him he'd 
probably have to work with the employee again, 
and he should work the employee very hard until 
the employee quit, court documents said.

Woods was fired in March, 2003. He had missed 
about 1 1Ž2 weeks of work because of an 
off-the-job injury and asthma troubles but had 
provided a note from his doctor, the suit said.

Wal-Mart retaliated against Woods for reporting 
the racial incidents by holding him to a higher 
standard for work absences than other workers, 
said Damien Lee, an EEOC senior trial attorney in 
Seattle.

Woods had trouble finding other work that paid as 
well as his Wal-Mart job, Lee said. No one wanted 
to hire him because he was fired by his employer 
of seven years, and he had filed an EEOC 
complaint, Lee said.

Woods eventually went into business with his 
mother, who runs a court record search and 
retrieval company in Lewiston. In August, 2003, 
he filed the EEOC complaint that led to the 
lawsuit against Wal-Mart

"It was a long hard fight," Woods said, and an 
emotionally draining time. But he encouraged 
others to speak up when discrimination occurs in 
the workplace.

"If anyone feels that something is not right - 
that something has gone wrong in their employment 
- they need to fight," he said. "You need to 
follow up, or nothing is going to happen; nothing 
will change."
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