In this week, the students are to analyze The Shoe Store Incident and discuss the legal and ethical issues arise in the case. The case of The Shoe Store presented explains that “the store’s best customer, Imelda, walked in and asked Bob if an employee could help her get the proper fitting for her shoes. Bob explained that Tom, a sales employee, would be happy to help her. Imelda, however, said she would prefer to work with a female employee, and that if a female employee helped her, she would probably buy five pairs of shoes” (University of Phoenix, 2015).
Now, is this customer attitude considering discrimination? What is discrimination? According to the guide on laws against discrimination at work in the US, “discrimination means when an employer treats in a different or unfair way an employee due to race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age or disability”. Discrimination can occur before you get the job, while you work or at the conclusion of your work.
When looking in to the different laws of discrimination that exist, such as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Law No. 69 of July 6, 1985, and Law No. 100 June 30, 1959, all are related to the action taken by the employer against their employee; none of them is related to the treatment that a customer can take against the employees of a certain company. With this in mind, it can be understand that there is no legal issue in the scenario.
When analyzing the case, it does explain that the company does have a company policy that “each day, two employees work in the store: one working the front, and one working the back. They rotate on a daily basis because the person working the front gets the commissions for the day; so there is no chance to split the commission” (University of Phoenix, 2015). So, there are company policies as well to be taken in consideration in this scenario, not only the laws stated by federal and government institutions.
There is a saying on the