Robotics Manager Sues Walmart for Gender Discrimination and Harassment
The Walmart employee alleges that her supervisor told her to “not be so emotional,” called her while drunk and sent text messages saying “I love you."
August 13, 2019 at 07:45 PM
3 minute read
A former senior robotics manager at Walmart Inc. is suing the retailer claiming she was passed over for promotions based on her gender—pointing in particular to a department head who told her to “not be so emotional,” called her while drunk, and sent text messages saying “I love you.”
The complaint, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, seeks to sue the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retail giant for gender discrimination and sexual harassment. Kantor & Kantor in Northridge, California, and Carey & Associates of Southport, Connecticut, represent the employee, Alicia Lomas.
Lomas’ attorneys did not immediately respond to a request to comment at the time of publication.
Lomas claims that her male supervisor had treated her unfairly compared to her male colleagues and engaged in inappropriate behavior while she worked as senior manager of controls and robotics in Walmart’s Chino, California, fulfillment center. When she was hired in April 2018, Walmart told Lomas she would supervise the controls department and work closely with the engineering team at the company’s e-commerce brand Jet, according to the complaint. She was the only female employee in the department at the time.
After her supervisor joined her team in July 2018, he began calling her the “senior controls engineer,” since she did not manage any direct reports and relegated her to maintenance support, the complaint alleges.
Lomas asserts that the supervisor relied on her for robotics and technological expertise, and Walmart vendors would mention his apparent lack of automation expertise. However, Lomas claims her supervisor ”also relied on Ms. Lomas in a way that was inappropriately personal,” Lomas’ lawyers write in the complaint. “He routinely told her that he loved her, and would even send her texts saying, ‘I love you.’”
The lawsuit alleges that the supervisor recruited several of his male friends, who had at least 10 fewer years of experience compared to Lomas, to fill positions in the department.
After several instances where the supervisor handed promotions and opportunities to work on the new technology or controls management to male counterparts, Lomas told him that she was interested in joining Walmart’s design and projects team, according to the complaint. Afterward, Lomas claims the supervisor retaliated against her by ignoring her in meetings about projects she led, singling her out or giving away her responsibilities to other team members.
Lomas claims she reported the supervisor to Walmart’s human resources department, disclosing his alleged pattern of inappropriate behavior that included drunk calling and texting her, taking employees to strip clubs, and making gay jokes in front of vendors. A week after, the HR department began an investigation into Lomas’ complaints, which resulted in the supervisor’s termination a week later.
Following the supervisor’s departure, Lomas texted a coworker saying “Well you shouldn’t fuck with Alicia :),” which her lawyers claim is a reference to her courage to complain about discrimination and harassment. The text made its way around her team, and Lomas was terminated due to a vague “conflict of interest,” according to the complaint. Lomas’ lawyers claim she “was summarily terminated based only upon one male coworker’s reporting of a single innocuous text she had sent him.”
LeMia Jenkins, director of national media relations for Walmart, said the company does not “tolerate discrimination of any kind.”
“Ms. Lomas was terminated for legitimate reasons,” Jenkins said. “We are reviewing the complaint and will respond as appropriate with the Court.”
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