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Whole Foods Charged With Discrimination
The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico has filed discrimination charges against the Whole Foods grocery store in Albuquerque.
According to the complaint made to the New Mexico Human Rights Bureau, Whole Foods may have singled out Spanish-speaking employees for violating the store's language policy, but not employees who spoke other languages.
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A Whole Foods Store
In May, a Whole Foods manager in Albuquerque announced that an "English Only" policy was to be implemented in the store.
The manager allegedly chastised two employees for speaking Spanish on the job, but did not admonish other employees, two of which spoke Tibetan. The two Spanish speakers were eventually suspended.
“We don't believe that companies like Whole Foods should be discriminating strictly against Spanish-speaking employees,” said Peter Simonson with ACLU New Mexico. “If they're going to implement a policy it has to be done in a fair and even-handed way and shouldn't target anybody based on their race, ethnicity, origin or language.”
Simonson said in the future, he hopes Whole Foods will implement language policies more equally instead of targeting Spanish speakers.
