Whole Foods Workers Banned From Speaking Spanish At Work Say Employees

Two Whole Foods Market workers in Albuquerque are accusing their store managers of discriminating against Spanish speakers.   

The two employees say their manager forbade them from speaking Spanish at work, and when they questioned it, they were suspended. However, Whole Foods denies these claims and argues that it suspended the workers because of rude behavior, not the language they used.

Bryan Baldizan, one of the Whole Foods employees, told the Associated Press that he and a female employee were suspended for a day after they wrote a letter following a meeting with a manager who told them that Spanish was not allowed during work hours.

"I couldn't believe it," Baldizan told the AP. "All we did was say we didn't believe the policy was fair. We only talk Spanish to each other about personal stuff, not work."

"I almost fell off my chair," the state director of the New Mexico League of United Latin American Citizens, Ralph Arellanes, told KRQE News 13.

He added that he is offended by allegations that a Whole Foods department leader told her employees, "No Spanish on the clock."

On the other hand, Whole Foods spokeswoman Libba Letton insists that the employees were suspended "Due to their rude and disrespectful behavior both in an office and in the store in front of customers, they were suspended with pay," she says. "Their suspension was due to their behavior alone."

Furthermore, Letton says, the store launched an investigation into the claims, and 17 employees who attended the same meeting agree that the employees were never told not to speak Spanish.

Nonetheless, ProgressNow New Mexico says it is organizing a boycott against the supermarket chain and collecting signatures for an online petition asking people not to shop at Whole Foods until it changes its language policy.

"We want Whole foods to rescind its English-only policy," said Pat Davis, executive director of ProgressNow New Mexico, to the Associated Press. "We don't think it's appropriate in a state as diverse as New Mexico."