Local business owners lead protest after facing alleged racial discrimination
JACKSON, Tenn. — On Friday June 14, Lamar Hobson and Reggie Carrick both took it upon themselves to protest outside of the American Job Center.
They allege that funds have been misplaced to their business based on their race.
“When it pertains to discrimination, he and I have been dealing with this,” said Reggie Carrick, owner of All Star Training Academy LLC.
Carrick has a forklifting school in Jackson and Memphis, he shares that he has no problem in Memphis, however, in Jackson it is harder for his students to receive their funds.
The same is for Hobson’s barber school. However, the two say this will not stop them.
“What they’ll do is starve them out, I don’t understand what’s going on, and then what happens is those students or those institutions are no longer here. He and I are not going anywhere. We’re gonna stand for change, we’re demanding change. We’re not asking for change, we’re demanding change,” said Carrick.
The two sat in the Northwest and Southwest TN Workforce budgeting meeting to learn how funds were being distributed and since that moment has continued their research.
Carrick shares that he asked a worker from the American Job Center in Jackson why their potential students were facing a harder time when their schools are essential learning.
“Why are he and I having these issues when we know there’s a high demand for what I do and what he do? Amazon is on the way. The new BlueOval is there, you have everywhere I look, a manufacture or a warehouse that need forklift drivers,” said Carrick.
In a response to Carrick and Hobson’s complaints, we received the following statement:
The State Equal Opportunity Officer for the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development (TDLWD) conducted an exhaustive review of a complaint made by All-Star Training Academy, LLC.
In reviewing this matter, the State EO Officer reviewed demographic information for the areas involved and job data information for the current year and program year that ended June 30, 2023.
The data reviewed showed that there is not a high demand for the forklift operator occupation currently. Additionally, the list of in-demand Occupations through 2026 for Southwest Tennessee showed the same.
TDLWD also reviewed internal Jobs4TN job orders and external job orders reports for forklift and other occupations for Southwest Tennessee for the past twelve (12) months, which did not show a high demand. Therefore, there were limited funds allotted for forklift operator training due to prevailing job market conditions.
Reports showed 34 new jobs projected over the next five years, which we estimated to be about 7 per year. Although the report showed overall an estimated 82 openings per year, data available expresses a saturation of candidates for forklift drivers already exists.
At the conclusion of the review, the EO Officer determined, based on the research of statistics and data, that TDLWD acted without discrimination or bias when determining how to allocate training dollars to local providers.
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