Tag: work

By Tyana Williams – bio | email
BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) – O
ver 200 African-American employees at Turner Industries in Baton Rouge say for years, they’ve been discriminated against and harassed while on the job.
According to lawyers for the employees, documents show last March, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found Turner Industries violated the rights of several black workers. Attorneys say they filed suit because the company failed to address the EEOC’s findings.
For two years, Turner employees say they’ve been keeping track of what they call discrimination and harassment at work.  Tuesday at a rally, attorney James Vagnini showed racially-charged photos he says came from those employees who work in Paris, Texas to Lake Charles, Louisiana and here in Baton Rouge.
“I have a woman standing behind me that came back to her workplace, her slick suit had been stuffed with plastic and they hung it from a noose and sprayed her name across front of it,” said Vagnini.
Vagnini filed the lawsuit in Texas on behalf of 230 Turner employees from Texas and Louisiana.
The 300 page lawsuit alleges black employees witnessed hangman’s nooses at work, faced segregation in the workplace and during the 2008 presidential election were told they could have November 5 off to go vote, even though the election was November 4.
The suit also alleges some workers were bussed to another plant for work, where a white supervisor separated them by race.  The suit says the supervisor hired the white workers and told the black employees to leave.
“I work hard all my life and I can say I know I didn’t deserve that,” said Ethel Jones.  Jones says she was one of 13 black workers told to leave.
She says several times she was told if the racial graffiti in the bathrooms offended her, paint over it.
“Draw pictures of black ladies and say this is a black woman with your legs spread open,” Jones said.
Vagnini says Turner owes its black employees more than an apology.  But he says now the court will decide.
“It is the sentiment this company has toward minorities and it must change,” Vagnini said.
In a written statement, Turner Industries denies it has unlawfully harassed or discriminated against employees because of race.  They say some workers named in the lawsuit have never or no longer work for the company.
Turner Industries released the following statement:
Turner Industries denies that it has unlawfully harassed or discriminated against any employees because of their race or any other criteria.
Roland Toups, Turner Industries’ Chairman and CEO stated, “Make no mistake, Turner Industries stands for diversity and inclusion for all. Our record supports that.  We intend to defend our company and the jobs of our 15,000 employees who are employed in various divisions of the company.  We also assure our customers that our 50 years in the business and our commitments to them shall remain strong and true.”
This suit was filed following a lengthy campaign by plaintiffs’ attorneys from New York and Texas to encourage individuals to file claims against the company.   Some of the individuals named in the suit have never worked for Turner Industries.  Most are no longer employed with the company.  Furthermore, many of the claimants who had filed charges raised claims during periods in which they were not even employed with the company.   Many have also returned to work for Turner Industries several times.   Records show that relatively few actually reported complaints of discrimination or harassment to the company.
Toups continued: “We have asked every Turner Industries employee to stay focused on safely performing their jobs. We also have asked them to support the company by making sure that our workplace is compliant with the company’s equal employment opportunity and anti-harassment policies. If there is a problem, we want to know about it so that it can be addressed.”
Last year, Turner Industries addressed racial claims arising at its Paris, Texas pipe fabrication facility.  Most of the named plaintiffs in the current lawsuit never worked in Paris.
Turner Industries intends to aggressively defend the allegations in this suit as well as its record of providing excellent employment opportunities for residents nation-wide.  We will remain committed to providing excellent jobs and employment opportunities for all qualified applicants without regard to race.   That will never change.
Original Article: https://www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=13951136

Officials at Turner Industries deny racial bias

By LINDSAY WISE
HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Jan. 31, 2011, 8:05PM

Current, former and potential employees of Turner Industries alleging racial discrimination are seeking salary compensation, court costs and an overhaul of company policies to discourage workplace harassment, according to a federal discrimination lawsuit filed in Texas against Turner Industries LLC.
The lawsuit represents more than 230 black plaintiffs from Turner facilities in Lake Charles, Port Allen and Monroe, as well as locations in Paris, Texas, and Port Arthur, Texas, who say they have been routinely harassed with racial slurs, graffiti and overtly public displays of racial intolerance like hangmen’s nooses.
“The folks that stand behind me should be able to work in a peaceful environment without hangmen’s nooses, without swastikas and things of that nature,” said Earnest L. Johnson, president of the Louisiana chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, at a news conference Tuesday from the rotunda of the Old State Capitol.
The event, which attracted about 20 current and former Turner employees from south Louisiana and Texas, as well as local civil rights leaders, was held to draw attention to the federal lawsuit. Turner Industries is a privately held Baton Rouge industrial services company.
The lawsuit claims Turner violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits workplace discrimination. The 379-page lawsuit was filed Sunday in U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas.
It follows a March Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigation after eight Turner employees in Texas filed a complaint citing discriminatory treatment.
“I have considered all the evidence disclosed during the investigation and find that there is reasonable cause to believe that Title VII violations occurred,” wrote Michael Fetzer, Dallas District director of the EEOC.
Attempts at mediation with Turner Industries proved unsuccessful, said James Vagnini, an attorney for Valli Kane and Vagnini in Garden City, N.Y., who represented workers in the EEOC case and now in the lawsuit filed Sunday.
Turner officials denied any wrongdoing and said that name-calling and other incendiary displays are not tolerated.
“Make no mistake, Turner Industries stands for diversity and inclusion for all,” Roland Toups, Turner Industries’ chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement. “Our record supports that. We intend to defend our company and the jobs of our 15,000 employees who are employed in various divisions of the company. We also assure our customers that our 50 years in the business and our commitments to them shall remain strong and true.”
Turner officials contend that a number of the claimants on the lawsuit have never worked for the company, while some of the others are no longer employed.
Records show that relatively few actually reported complaints of discrimination or harassment to the company, said John Fenner, general counsel for Turner.
“They want nothing to do with the complaints,” Vagnini said of Turner Industries. “They don’t believe in any of my clients and what they’re saying.”
Some of those claimants are people like Calvin Stewart, a Turner welder at the Port Allen facility, where he worked for nearly 20 years until being laid off in August.
Stewart, 48, said the reason given was “reduction of force.” However, he added complaints regarding racial slurs and other harassment were routinely ignored by management.
“Most of the time when you went to a supervisor, they treated you with a bad attitude, as a troublemaker,” Stewart said Tuesday.