MedicCook
12-08-2006, 12:10 PM
Super Steel to settle bias claims
Workers at Glenville locomotive maker alleged harassment and discrimination in civil rights lawsuit
The parties in a $175 million civil rights lawsuit against a Glenville manufacturer have reached a settlement and will file it with the judge within the next two weeks, attorneys involved in the case confirmed.
Details of the agreement were not revealed Thursday, but it will likely end the litigation against Super Steel Inc., a locomotive manufacturer whose employees accused supervisors and co-workers there of heinous, racially motivated harassment against black workers.
In April, former worker Criss Murphy and eight other plaintiffs said their rights were violated on numerous occasions by supervisors and co-workers. Supervisors addressed black workers with racial epithets and routinely likened them to slaves, the complaint said. In one incident, a supervisor allegedly threatened a black employee with a "nigger whipping."
The suit also said the company, located in a business park in Glenville on Route 5, had a racially segregated break room, and that anonymous threats of racial violence and graffiti praising the Ku Klux Klan were common.
The class-action suit said harassment and racial discrimination were "deeply embedded in the Super Steel culture and work climate." It sought $25 million in compensatory damages and $150 million in punitive damages, as well as sensitivity training for the firm's 200 workers.
Attorneys from both sides first alerted U.S. District Court Judge David Homer of the settlement in October. The settlement came out of mediation talks that occurred in September.
One plaintiff, Norman Jordan, 39, a former sandblaster, said he suffered religious as well as racial discrimination. Jordan, who is black and a practicing Muslim, said he lived in constant fear during his six months as a contract worker at Super Steel and that he endured racial graffiti directed at him and name-calling as well as threats of violence.
Most of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit were temporary workers who did skilled labor like painting and sandblasting. They worked for several months at a time, and then a placement firm moved them to other locales.
The threats of racial violence at Super Steel first came to light in September 2005, when worker Murphy, who is black, reported finding his locker had been vandalized. Murphy found a toy monkey hanging from a noose inside his locker, and the locker had been defaced with a threat and an allusion to the KKK.
No one was arrested in that incident, and Glenville police said Murphy soon became uncooperative in the investigation. His attorney denied that.
Super Steel, which has corporate headquarters in Milwaukee, Wis., offered a $25,000 reward to find the culprit in that incident and set up a hot line for people to report tips on the alleged crime. That incident was never solved. However, in July eight workers were fired for violating the company's harassment policies. Company officials never linked the firings to the locker incident or the accusations in the lawsuit. Some of those workers who spoke to the media afterward said they were being treated as scapegoats for the company's publicity problems.
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=542777&category=SCHENECTADY&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=12/8/2006
Workers at Glenville locomotive maker alleged harassment and discrimination in civil rights lawsuit
The parties in a $175 million civil rights lawsuit against a Glenville manufacturer have reached a settlement and will file it with the judge within the next two weeks, attorneys involved in the case confirmed.
Details of the agreement were not revealed Thursday, but it will likely end the litigation against Super Steel Inc., a locomotive manufacturer whose employees accused supervisors and co-workers there of heinous, racially motivated harassment against black workers.
In April, former worker Criss Murphy and eight other plaintiffs said their rights were violated on numerous occasions by supervisors and co-workers. Supervisors addressed black workers with racial epithets and routinely likened them to slaves, the complaint said. In one incident, a supervisor allegedly threatened a black employee with a "nigger whipping."
The suit also said the company, located in a business park in Glenville on Route 5, had a racially segregated break room, and that anonymous threats of racial violence and graffiti praising the Ku Klux Klan were common.
The class-action suit said harassment and racial discrimination were "deeply embedded in the Super Steel culture and work climate." It sought $25 million in compensatory damages and $150 million in punitive damages, as well as sensitivity training for the firm's 200 workers.
Attorneys from both sides first alerted U.S. District Court Judge David Homer of the settlement in October. The settlement came out of mediation talks that occurred in September.
One plaintiff, Norman Jordan, 39, a former sandblaster, said he suffered religious as well as racial discrimination. Jordan, who is black and a practicing Muslim, said he lived in constant fear during his six months as a contract worker at Super Steel and that he endured racial graffiti directed at him and name-calling as well as threats of violence.
Most of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit were temporary workers who did skilled labor like painting and sandblasting. They worked for several months at a time, and then a placement firm moved them to other locales.
The threats of racial violence at Super Steel first came to light in September 2005, when worker Murphy, who is black, reported finding his locker had been vandalized. Murphy found a toy monkey hanging from a noose inside his locker, and the locker had been defaced with a threat and an allusion to the KKK.
No one was arrested in that incident, and Glenville police said Murphy soon became uncooperative in the investigation. His attorney denied that.
Super Steel, which has corporate headquarters in Milwaukee, Wis., offered a $25,000 reward to find the culprit in that incident and set up a hot line for people to report tips on the alleged crime. That incident was never solved. However, in July eight workers were fired for violating the company's harassment policies. Company officials never linked the firings to the locker incident or the accusations in the lawsuit. Some of those workers who spoke to the media afterward said they were being treated as scapegoats for the company's publicity problems.
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=542777&category=SCHENECTADY&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=12/8/2006