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Walmart is facing problems as staff are forced to leave across its US locations and a lawsuit alleging racially discriminatory hiring practices tied to criminal background checks.
The retailer, which employs more than 1.6 million people in the US, has seen a wave of sudden employee reductions following a Supreme Court decision in May that ended a program shielding over half a million migrants from deportation and allowing them to work legally. Since then, store managers in Florida and Texas have reportedly been instructed to reverify work eligibility files for employees affected by the ruling.
“Employers like Walmart have no choice but to stop employing workers who lack US work authorization,” said immigration attorney Loren Locke. “But it is tricky to comply when they have a large number of current employees whose work permits are getting cancelled prematurely.”
Work permit ruling triggers mass staffing changes
Multiple Walmart employees have used social media to report mass staff disappearances, in some cases describing 10 to 40 workers vanishing from schedules overnight. One Reddit user cited the loss of 10 employees at a single location due to visa issues, while another claimed 40 departures from a 400-person store.
“Most of our older floor associates are constantly asking for help,” one user wrote. “It’s not really ideal.”
The company has not publicly addressed the staffing cuts, though reports suggest the visa category affected overlaps with other legal classifications, making it difficult to identify workers whose status changed.
Los Angeles attorney Jamie E. Wright commented: “We're not talking about people trying to bend the rules. These are employees who’ve done everything right.”
Lawsuit revives race bias claims in criminal screenings
Meanwhile, a class action lawsuit filed by Mark Balentine, a former employee of a Walmart distribution center once operated by Schneider Logistics, revives allegations that Walmart’s criminal background check policy disproportionately harms Black workers. Balentine, who is Black, was one of many workers laid off after Walmart acquired the facility.
The complaint builds on a 2019 filing with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Illinois Department of Human Rights, in which attorney Chris Williams estimated that 100 to 200 Black workers had been negatively impacted.
“They told me to ‘roll the dice and try again,’” Balentine said. “And I was like, ‘this is my life.’”
Walmart responded in a statement, saying: “Retaining as many existing employees as possible has always been the goal of our transition at the Elwood distribution center, and we hired hundreds of those workers. We understand the importance of providing second chances, and our background checks include a thoughtful and transparent review process to help ensure everyone is treated fairly.”
According to Lundberg, some candidates “were offered a position after a personalized review of their offense,” though the company did not clarify what that review entailed.
Balentine said his efforts are about more than his own job loss. “I’m looking out for the person behind me, the 17-year-old that’s getting in trouble today, and who sees what happens to me, and then he decides, ‘What’s the point in changing?’”
