The manager of a struggling American Apparel store in Malibu, Calif., was told by CEO Dov Charney to "get some [expletive] girls to stand on PCH and have them waive [sic] a [expletive] American flag" to drum up sales, according to a lawsuit filed by a former employee. (The Pacific Coast Highway is the main street that runs through Malibu.)
The suit is the latest in a long chain of complaints filed against Charney by former employees. Most of the suits have been dismissed, settled or moved into employment arbitration. American Apparel believes the lawsuit is based on allegations that are "contrived and untrue," according to Peter Schey, an attorney for Charney.
The suit, brought by former store manager Michael Bumblis, alleges Charney used racial and homophobic slurs against Bumblis after Charney allegedly discovered Bumblis working for a different company at a Las Vegas convention.
Charney then visited Bumblis's store and allegedly discovered the manager had removed an item from the sales floor that Charney believed was a hot seller. He flew into a rage, and ultimately shoved some dirt into Bumblis' face, the suit alleges.
Before doing so, however, Charney gave Bumblis a long lecture about store sales. Bumblis' sales were declining, the suit alleges, which is why Charney was mad that certain items weren't available.(Declining sales have bedeviled AA for the last few years until this year, when sales began to go up again.)
Charney said he's give Bumblis $10,000 if he could get his annual sales to go from $1.4 million to $1.6 million. His promotional solution to meet that goal consisted of girls in bikinis:
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