Campbell\u2019s has fired an executive accused of making racist comments and mocking its products and customers, the company announced on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The termination follows a lawsuit filed in Michigan by former employee Robert Garza against Campbell\u2019s, the company\u2019s then-vice president of information technology Martin Bally and another manager.<\/p>\n
The complaint alleges retaliation and a hostile work environment, citing a November 2024 meeting between Bally and Garza to discuss salary, according to the lawsuit. <\/p>\n
Garza allegedly recorded the conversation, and the audio \u2014 obtained by NBC News \u2014 is more than 90 minutes long.<\/p>\n
During the interaction, the lawsuit alleges that Bally described Campbell\u2019s as \u201chighly process(ed) food\u201d and said it was for \u201cpoor people.\u201d He also allegedly made racist remarks about Indian workers, calling them \u201cidiots.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018After a review, we believe the voice on the recording is in fact Martin Bally,\u2019 Campbell\u2019s said Wednesday. \u2018The comments were vulgar, offensive and false, and we apologize for the hurt they have caused.\u2019<\/p>\n
The company said it does not tolerate the language used in the audio recording and the behavior \u201cdoes not reflect\u201d its values.<\/p>\n
Campbell\u2019s said it learned of the litigation and first heard segments of the audio on Nov. 20. <\/p>\n
Bally\u2019s termination was effective Tuesday, the company said.<\/p>\n
According to the lawsuit, Garza told his manager, J.D. Aupperle \u2014 who is also named as a defendant, about Bally\u2019s behavior in January 2025 and wanted to report the comments to the human resources department. He was not encouraged to report the comments, the lawsuit claims, and was then \u2018abruptly terminated from employment\u2019 later that month.<\/p>\n
\u2018This situation has been very hard on Robert,\u2019 Garza\u2019s attorney, Zachary Runyan, said in a statement to NBC News on Tuesday. \u2018He thought Campbell\u2019s would be thankful that he reported Martin\u2019s behavior, but instead he was abruptly fired.\u2019<\/p>\n
Garza is seeking monetary damages from the company. <\/p>\n
Bally and Aupperle did not immediately return requests for comment on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Campbell\u2019s said it is \u2018proud of the food we make\u2019 and \u2018the comments heard on the recording about our food are not only inaccurate \u2014 they are patently absurd.\u2019<\/p>\n\n
Campbell\u2019s has fired an executive accused of making racist comments and mocking its products and customers, the company announced on Wednesday. The termination follows a lawsuit filed in Michigan by former employee Robert Garza against Campbell\u2019s, the company\u2019s then-vice president of information technology Martin Bally and another manager. The complaint alleges retaliation and a hostile <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":36726,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-36725","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanfinancecore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanfinancecore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanfinancecore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanfinancecore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/americanfinancecore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanfinancecore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/americanfinancecore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanfinancecore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/americanfinancecore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}