<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
<html><head><style type="text/css"><!--
blockquote, dl, ul, ol, li { padding-top: 0 ; padding-bottom: 0 }
--></style><title>Walmart racism suit in
Lewiston</title></head><body>
<div><tt><font
color="#000000"><x-tab>
</x-tab>Friday, February 9, 2007<br>
<br>
Wal-Mart settles race suit<br>
Black worker fired by Lewiston store receives back wages,
damages</font></tt></div>
<div><tt><font
color="#000000"><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab>Editor's note: Story contains strong racial
language.</font></tt></div>
<div><tt><font color="#000000"><br>
Becky Kramer<br>
Staff writer<br>
February 9, 2007<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
On Thursday, Wal-Mart agreed to pay Woods $125,000 in back pay and
damages.<br>
<br>
"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."<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
According to court documents, the manager erased the graffiti and said
words to the effect, "There, now it's gone."<br>
<br>
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."<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.</font></tt></div>
<div><tt><font color="#000000"><br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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<br>
<br>
"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.</font></tt><br>
<tt><font color="#000000"></font></tt></div>
<div><tt><font color="#000000">"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."</font></tt></div>
</body>
</html>