VivirLatino

The San Francisco Bay Area is probably the last place one would think of when qualifying traditionally racist or homophobic regions. But according to some employees, E-Loan, a well-known lending company based here in the Bay is not living up to that reputation of acceptance and plurality. In fact, just the opposite. Employees are suing for harrassment on the basis of sexual orientation, gender and race:

According to the complaint, filed by attorneys at Kerr and Wagstaffe, Jonni Guelde, a supervisor in the underwriting department of E-Loan, regularly made offensive slurs against African American, Latino, and LGBT employees. The complaint also says Guelde bragged about how, at a prior job, she ridiculed a transgender employee to the point that the employee eventually committed suicide.

While some of the complaints have stated that management made derogatory comments towards Latino employees, the BAR newspaper quotes the plaintiffs’ attorney as saying:

“The irony is that it’s a Latino-based company. They’re really well-known as an employer-friendly company,” Labar said.

Apparently E-Loan recently merged with a Puerto Rican financial services company, Popular Inc.

This doesn’t make them a “Latino-based company” and even if it were managed by a Latino executive team, why would that even matter? Racism and homophobia exist in the Latino community as much as they do in any other. To imply that a Latino business would be inequivocally above this type of behavior is to simplify the matter. What’s shocking to me is that in this day and age (and in this part of the country) employers still believe that they can get away with creating a hostile work environment for employees. If these allegations are found to be true, E-Loan, a publicly-traded company, will pay big for their misdeeds. Sometimes that’s the only way people learn.

Via / The BAR and Google News