Avis discriminates refuses to rent cars to Israelis

morah

Mon, Nov 23 2015, 11:25 am

I've been following as well. It's unclear if the employees were discriminating against his nationality or if they were genuinely unaware of corporate policy and didn't like being called on it. Either way, they behaved badly and should be disciplined (if it was the latter) or terminated (if it was the former).

Talya

Mon, Nov 23 2015, 11:37 am

morah wrote:

A manager should be well aware of company policy. Particularly if he rented there two days prior. I think they will likely try to prove that point but I doubt it's true. They should be fired. Imagine they were white and refusing service to a black person. No one would question whether or not they should be fired.

morah

Mon, Nov 23 2015, 11:48 am

Talya wrote:

Sometimes, with major national companies that have hundreds of franchises, managers don't always know what they should. There could have been a different manager on shift two days earlier. We don't know if this manager specifically had an issue with his Israeli ID or if she would have done the same had he showed up with, say, a Chilean license and passport. She obviously doesn't know how to do her job properly. The question is, was it a matter of not understanding that international documentation is acceptable, in which case she needs more training and some disciplinary action for being rude to a customer, or if she specifically wanted to discriminate against an Israeli, in which case she should be fired. Either way, Avis is handling this very poorly. They should not be siding with the employees, they should be promising a full investigation, appropriate action pending the outcome etc.

morah

Mon, Nov 23 2015, 2:01 pm

The issue is not Avis. This issue is the behavior of two employees of an Avis franchise. The policy of the company is that ID need not be American nor even in English. The question is, when the employees mistakenly refused to honor the provided documentation, what was their motive? Were they mistaken about the company policy (and would have given him issues no matter what foreign country his license was from)? Or were they discriminating against an Israeli? As the incident is described, it's hard to tell. They were rude and standoffish, but that could just be because they were embarrassed about being wrong. Nobody said "get out of this store, you land-stealing occupier!" so it's not so clear cut that that was the motive.

Rubber Ducky

Mon, Nov 23 2015, 6:51 pm

Avis has apologized: Manhattan, NY - UPDATE: Avis Apologizes, Says Documentation Policies Had Been Applied Inconsistently
Nothing in the article to tell us what, if anything, has happened to the 2 employees.