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EXCERPT:
COTTON: “Mr. McMullen, I want to address Kroger's workforce practices and specifically how you accommodate or how you treat requests for accommodation. Let's suppose hypothetically that Kroger had a vegan worker with strong ethical beliefs about animal welfare. If you requested to work outside, say the butcher department, instead in the produce department, would Kroger accommodate that request?”
MCMULLEN: “Thank you, senator for the question. And it's one of the nice things about one of our retail stores, there's many different areas, and we routinely have people transferring between departments. Some of that is just personal interest, some of that is to grow in their own personal career. And if you look at our store directors, 70 percent of our store directors started out as an hourly associate. So it's easy to accommodate somebody, and that accommodation is really based on their own desires and their own interests.”
COTTON: “Would you make such accommodations based on their Christian beliefs as well?”
MCMULLEN: “We would not get involved in terms of religious beliefs.”
COTTON: “OK. The reason I ask is that you recently agreed to pay $180,000 to settle a religious discrimination case in Conway, Arkansas. In that case two Kroger employees, Brenda Lawson, age 72, and Trudy Rickerd, age 57, declined the directive to begin wearing a new store apron with a multicolored heart symbol on it. They, like many other of your employees, felt uncomfortable with the new aprons because they thought the heart resembled a gay pride symbol. Rather than make accommodations Kroger fired these two employees. One employee simply asked to cover the symbol with a nametag, but Kroger refused even that reasonable accommodation. Are you aware of these terminations, Mr. McMullen?”
MCMULLEN: “Senator, I am -- I am not.”
COTTON: “This is not a private lawsuit either by two disgruntled employees, Mr. Mullen, this was brought by the EEOC. So are you not aware when your company is sued for religious discrimination by the United States government?”
MCMULLEN: “No, sir, I'm not. Not always.”