Did Whole Foods fire workers for speaking Spanish?

The organic grocery chain says two employees were suspended for being rude, not for refusing to speak English

Whole Foods policy is one of uniform communication.
(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Latino activists in New Mexico have launched a boycott against Whole Foods over what they say is an English-only language policy for workers on the job. The spat started when two employees in one of the organic grocery chain's stores, in Albuquerque, said they had been suspended after they wrote a letter complaining about a supervisor who demanded that they speak English.

"All we did was say we didn't believe the policy was fair," one of the employees, Bryan Baldizan, told the Associated Press. "We only talk Spanish to each other about personal stuff, not work."

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.