Wal-Mart will pay $17.5 million to settle a class-action suit by Black truck drivers who claimed the world’s larger retailer discriminated against them.
Wal-Mart denied in the settlement that it engaged in any unlawful discrimination.
“Resolving this litigation is in the best interest of our company, our shareholders and our associates,” Daphne Moore, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., said in a statement.
"Encouraging diversity is an important part of the hiring process for all areas of our company. We are implementing improvements to our transportation division's recruitment, selection and personnel systems and believe they will be an integral part of our commitment to diversity.”
The Associated Press said the company's logistics division has agreed to provide priority job placements to 23 drivers who submitted claims of discrimination. Also, Wal-Mart will provide direct notice of all future job opportunities to all interested drivers who took part in the suit, establish benchmark hiring goals so that new hires accurately reflect the racial makeup of the pool of applicants, and enhance recruitment efforts targeting Blacks.
In a 2007 ruling granting the suit class-action status, U.S. District Judge William R. Wilson Jr. cited American Trucking Association figures showing 15 percent of truckers were Black from Jan. 1, 2000, through Sept. 29, 2005. In the same period, 4 percent to 6 percent of Wal-Mart's 8,000 truckers were Black.
Wilson also said drivers at Wal-Mart were recruited largely through word-of-mouth and applicants would be screened by a committee of drivers, some of which had no Blacks, despite a company rule that the panels be 50 percent diverse.
No comments:
Post a Comment