Walmart Stores Inc. has recently come under fire on charges of gender discrimination. According to an employee, Jon Wunderlin, he “took a demotion from his assistant manager position and transferred from one Palmdale store to another to get away from a female boss who told him that women were much better managers.” The lawsuit itself was filed against Wunderlin’s former boss, Heather Rodriguez, and Walmart Stores Inc. in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Walmart Stores Inc. has recently come under fire on charges of gender discrimination. According to an employee, Jon Wunderlin, he “took a demotion from his assistant manager position and transferred from one Palmdale store to another to get away from a female boss who told him that women were much better managers.” The lawsuit itself was filed against Wunderlin’s former boss, Heather Rodriguez, and Walmart Stores Inc. in Los Angeles Superior Court.
In addition to the alleged gender discrimination and harassment, the lawsuit also alleges “failure to prevent discrimination, fraud and deceit and negligent infliction of emotional distress.” On top of that, Wunderlin accused Walmart of using his “managerial designation to deny him overtime, even though less than half of his work hours are spent on administrative duties.” He also accused the retailer of failing to “properly supervise Rodriguez and stop her harassment and discriminatory behavior toward him.”
So when did the alleged gender discrimination occur? How long has Wunderlin been working for Walmart Stores, Inc? For starters, he began working for the large retailer back in May 2010. At the time he was working as an assistant manager at one of the Palmdale stores. The harassment didn’t start until about four years later. According to the lawsuit, “from June 2015 until March 2016, Rodriguez told Wunderlin about 10 times that he didn’t stack up against the women working with him and that the women were so much better managers than he was.”
On other occasions, Rodriguez also told Wunderlin that “woman power is my goal here at Walmart, so suck it up,” according to the lawsuit. She also allegedly told him that “he did not know what he was doing while doing his job.” On top of that, Wunderlin alleges that Rodriguez also “accused him on three occasions of lying, an allegation she never made against female employees.”
Eventually, the harassment became so unbearable that Wunderlin ended up transferring to a different Palmdale store in early 2016. As a result of the transfer, he ended up taking a demotion, all to “avoid further alleged mistreatment by Rodriguez.”
So far, Rodriguez has yet to address the allegations against her. However, Walmart issued a statement and said it would review and investigate the incident and respond in court. The statement said:
“We take claims like this seriously. We have not had an opportunity to review the allegations. We will do so once we have been served with the complaint and will respond appropriately to the court.”
Sources:
He’s fed up! Walmart employee alleges gender discrimination
Employee suing Walmart for gender harassment, discrimination
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