Lockheed Sued In Harassment Of Black Worker
EEOC Says Defense Contractor Ignored Complaints, Retaliated
By Renae Merle and Amy Joyce
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 3, 2005; D01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/02/AR2005080201974_pf.html
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Lockheed Martin Corp.
yesterday, accusing the Pentagon's largest contractor of ignoring a black
employee's complaints of racial harassment and retaliating after he complained.
Charles Daniels, an electrician who worked on the P-3 Orion surveillance
plane at several Lockheed facilities, was subject to racist jokes, slurs
and threats by white co-workers and a Latino supervisor daily for about a
year, according the EEOC and Daniels's lawyer. They said Daniels was also
told that the country would be better off if the South had won the Civil
War, and that co-workers talked about lynching and slavery.
A spokesman for Bethesda-based Lockheed declined to comment on the lawsuit
because it had not been reviewed but said the company has "strong policies"
against discrimination.
Daniels, while working on a project in Washington state, complained to a
supervisor who did nothing about the harassment, according to the EEOC.
Daniels was transferred in 2001 to Hawaii with the same team of workers and
subjected to the same harassment there, the EEOC said. When Daniels
complained, a supervisor threatened to fire him, said William R. Tamayo, an
EEOC regional attorney based in San Francisco.
Daniels, 43, said in an interview yesterday that he was laid off later in
2001 when he refused to rejoin the team that included the workers who
harassed him. "In a way I feel vindicated" that the EEOC sued, Daniels
said. "Hopefully justice will be served."
The agency files about 400 lawsuits a year against all employers, based on
about 80,000 complaints. About one-third of the lawsuits are filed on
behalf of more than one person.
"Unfortunately, 40 years after the Civil Rights Act was passed, this is
still going on," Tamayo said of the Daniels case, which was filed in
federal court in Hawaii. "This is straight-up harassment."
Company spokesman Craig Quigley said in a written statement that "Lockheed
Martin has strong programs and policies in place to prevent all forms of
discrimination."
"We strive to create a professional atmosphere in which everyone has the
opportunity to contribute and to succeed," he said.
Lockheed has faced other issues regarding race discrimination. Last July,
the EEOC alleged that the company permitted a racially hostile work
environment for black employees "to grow in intensity" at its Meridian,
Miss., plant until a white employee shot 14 workers -- 12 of them black --
there. The EEOC said it found during its investigation that Lockheed's
reaction to racially motivated threats by the gunman, Doug Williams, was
inadequate. Williams killed himself at the scene.
"We disagree with the EEOC findings" in the Mississippi case, Quigley said.
"These acts of violence were the acts of a single man, and as we have said
previously no one could have anticipated these tragic acts."
The Mississippi case could help Daniels, said his personal lawyer, Carl M.
Varady. "Apparently there is a culture at Lockheed Martin that tolerates
this kind of racial abuse and threats to health and safety of co-workers,"
Varady said.
Daniels now works in Maryland for another defense contractor, DynCorp. He
said it took him a year to find a job.
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
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