Hey there dopers. Long time reader. Never contributed because with a board so full of bright like minded people, anything I could add would just seem redundant and poorly worded. But since I finally do have a question I’d like to hear your opinions on, I think I’ll try jumping into a bit from now on.
I work part time sales in a retail electronics store. After a change in supervisors, the part time team went from getting 25 hours per week to nill. We don’t get any scheduled hours. Instead the supervisor seems to call us in when the store gets too busy. Well, ‘us’ was the wrong word. When the store gets too busy, calls in his favorite workers, excluding me and another fellow. This smelled a little fishy to me, but hey, I guess you can work the part timers any way you want, that’s why they’re part time. But then I remembered hey, I’m the only spanish speaking employee in that department. The store is located in a largely hispanic area (60%) and of that, I’d say (in my anecdotal and non-scientific experience) 40% of the sales I’ve made were to people who could only speak spanish. Assuming all the workers performe equally at their job and recieve equal pay, Are they still allowed to pick favorites with the part timers even though one is clearly more qualified than the other?
Allowed to? Hell yeah. They’re allowed to sack you all and employ their 16yo high school dropout nephews if they so choose. There’s nothing illegal or even immoral about nepotism in private industry. However…
IANAL but it sounds like you might have a case for workplace discrimination if you can demonstrate that you are being treated unfairly precisley because you are Hispanic. The trouble I can see is that sales work is so subjective. All the manager has to say is that based on his extensive experience you don’t have the customer skills required to generate return sales or something equally nebulous and he can justify almost anything.
Even if your sales are identical ther are too many other factors that make a good sales person that can’t be measured to make much of case out of one person. Now if there were two Hispanics in the store and you both got shafted you would probably be in a stringer position. But one perosn on one occasion? I can’t see it.
California is an at-will employment state. You can be hired or fired at any time for any or no reason as long as it is not illegal discrimination such as race, gender, or national origin. So you can try to make a case for discrimination, but it’s gonna be tough unless you have strong evidence and want to spend the time and money.
On a positive note, you might try sellling the new supervisor on your ability to serve the Hispanic customer base. Presumably you have a lot to offer in helping the store run smoothly and generating some business that might otherwise go to competitors. In a job situation like yours, maintaining a good relationship with the supervisor is key. Assuming he’ll meet you half way on that, it might even be possible.
The basic answer is yes, an employer is allowed to make employment-related decisions for any reason, good, bad or indifferent, unless the decision is made for a legally prohibited reason or in violation of a contract. Legally prohibited reasons include discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, or other protected classes. Contracts could include both privately negotiated agreements between employer and employee, or collectively bargained union contracts.
Being the “most qualified” is a subjective thing, so your stance on that is probably different than your boss’s. He may need the qualifications that the other part-time employees have.
If you want more hours, find out what’s important to your boss and deliver that. Does he want an independent person who just does his job? Does he want someone who checks in every 30 minutes to give status? Does he want to delegate tasks and not be bothered anymore? Does he want to delegate and then get continual updates? Does he want someone to laugh at his jokes? Your customer is your boss. Make him happy and you’ll get lots of business.
