Niko Mann
Mon, October 2, 2023
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit against Asphalt Paving Systems on Sept. 26, alleging the company created a hostile environment for Black employees in Zephyrhills, Florida.
The EEOC alleges that Asphalt Paving Systems violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 1991 by subjecting 12 Black now-former employees — Michael Cheaves, Anthony Clemons, David Cooper, Freddrick Cooper, Broderick Curney, Olusoga Davis, Kendall Gadson, Joseph Haynes, Alvin Matooram, Willie Moore III, David Whipper, and Jack Cornell Youmans to racial harassment in the workplace.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit against Asphalt Paving Systems, citing racial harassment against Black employees. (Photo: asphaltpavingsystems.com screenshot)
The EEOC claim lays out a litany of allegations against APS, many of which are enumerated below.
According to the lawsuit, the employees were repeatedly called the “N-word” and “boy” by other employees and management. They were also subjected to demeaning working conditions, such as being forced to work in heavy rain while white employees watched. The Black employees were also forced to relieve themselves outside, while white employees were allowed to use the bathrooms indoors.
“Throughout the course of Charging Parties’ employment with APS, they were subjected to racial epithets and racially-charged verbal abuse from white supervisors and co-workers, threatening conduct by white supervisors and co-workers, and being forced to work in demeaning and humiliating working conditions,” the complaint says.
A white foreman named Anthony Buchholz was one of the supervisors who often used racial slurs to refer to Black employees, according to the EEOC.
“Buchholz would use the N-word frequently in front of Curney,” reads the lawsuit. “Curney objected to Buchholz’s use of the N-word directly, but Buchholz continued to use it. After Curney’s objections, Buchholz then came to a job site with a friend and yelled ‘I ain’t gonna ever run from a Black N—r’ at Curney.”
The lawsuit also noted that a foreman named Douglas Henry often called Black employees “boy” and that the company prevented a paving crew from finding other employment by calling a potential employer and telling them not to hire the men. The men were also called “Black boy,” “monkey,” and “Black motherf-cker” by Asphalt Paving System employees.
Supervisor Dennis Williams was overheard saying the Black paving crew “were looking like a bunch of monkeys,” and another employee, Mike Whitson, called Freddrick Cooper a monkey directly to his face “on a frequent basis.” Whitson also called the men “sissies” and “f—ggots” and referred to David Cooper as a “dumb N—r.”
The company’s mechanic, referred to in the lawsuit as “Jackie,” made comments to Black employees such as, “Black is beautiful, tan is grand, but white is the color of the big boss man” and that he was “Black from the waist down.”
By March 2022, every one of the Black employees had either resigned from APS or been fired.
EEOC Regional Attorney Robert E. Weisberg called the racial discrimination the employees faced “toxic.”
“The allegations in this case are deeply disturbing and illustrate the unfortunate reality that, 60 years after Title VII was enacted, toxic racial discrimination still plagues many workplaces in Florida,” said Weisberg. “The EEOC will continue to vigorously fight for the rights of Black employees and applicants to be free from workplace discrimination.”
The lawsuit asks Asphalt Paving Systems to “institute and carry out” policies, practices, and programs that provide Black employees with equal employment opportunities that “eradicate” their unlawful employment practices as well as provide the plaintiffs with compensation “in amounts to be determined at trial.”
The lawsuit also requests the plaintiffs be compensated for “the unlawful employment practices described herein, including emotional pain, suffering, inconvenience, loss of enjoyment of life, and humiliation,” as well as their legal costs.
‘Shameful’: Black Tesla Employee Claims White Co-Workers, Supervisor’s ‘Preferred Pronoun’ to Use Was the N-word In Startling Federal Racial Harassment Lawsuit
Yasmeen Freightman
Mon, October 2, 2023 at 7:00 AM MDT·3 min read
A new and damning civil rights lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleges that automotive giant Tesla did nothing to stop widespread racial harassment aimed at Black employees working at a California plant.
The EEOC states that some Black workers at a plant in Fremont, California, were often called racial slurs, including variations of the N-word, and even witnessed graffiti depicting nooses, swastikas and more racist images drawn across the facility’s high-traffic work areas and even on production lines.
Former Black workers said they were routinely called the N-word by fellow workers. (Image courtesy of AP Photos).
The plant’s supervisors and managers were also witnesses to this conduct but refused to intervene, the suit obtained by Atlanta Black Star details. To make matters worse, human resources employees and managerial personnel who were approached by workers about the “slurs, insults, graffiti, and misconduct” made no effort to address the behavior or penalize the workers responsible. Some of these employees were even terminated, transferred, or experienced a shift in their job duties for reporting the conduct.
The suit accuses the electric carmaker of violating “federal law by tolerating widespread and ongoing racial harassment of its Black employees and by subjecting some of these workers to retaliation for opposing the harassment.”
Tesla has yet to respond to requests for comment from several major outlets nor has the company released a statement on the lawsuit at this time.
This suit is just the latest in a series of civil actions taken against Musk companies over the past few years.
The Justice Department sued SpaceX for allegedly discriminating against refugees and asylum seekers in its hiring process. In 2021, the carmaker was also the target of a lawsuit filed by half a dozen women who alleged the company fostered an environment of sexual harassment. Just this year, a jury ordered Tesla to pay Owen Diaz — a Black former employee — nearly $3.2 million in damages after finding he faced racial discrimination on the job in 2015. Diaz was initially granted $137 million in 2021, but a judge tossed out that award, ruling it as excessive.
Diaz worked as an elevator operator at the Fremont facility and he sued his former employer after regularly hearing racial slurs on the factory floor and seeing racist graffiti in bathrooms.
The EEOC’s lawsuit details staggering similarities to Diaz’s case, alleging that since 2015, Black workers at the Fremont plant “have routinely endured racial abuse, pervasive stereotyping, and hostility as well as epithets such as variations of the N-word, ‘monkey,’ ‘boy,’ and ‘black b—-.’”
Managers, supervisors, line leads, and production associates engaged in this conduct, according to the legal complaint. One employee even reported that white co-workers and one supervisor’s “preferred pronoun” was the N-word.
“Every employee deserves to have their civil rights respected, and no worker should endure the kind of çracial bigotry our investigation revealed,” EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows said. “Today’s lawsuit makes clear that no company is above the law, and the EEOC will vigorously enforce federal civil rights protections to help ensure American workplaces are free from unlawful harassment and retaliation.”
The EEOC is seeking “compensatory and punitive damages, and back pay for the affected workers, as well as injunctive relief designed to reform Tesla’s employment practices to prevent such discrimination in the future.”
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