Black and Hispanic workers at a Florida construction company who endured racial and ethnic slurs and were given “degrading” assignments were awarded $1.6 million in a settlement of a civil rights lawsuit filed on their behalf by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
J.A. Croson, a Sorrento, Florida-based plumbing and HVAC contractor, agreed last month to pay $850,000 to three Black employees who sued for racial discrimination and retaliation after they were fired or forced to quit. The company must also set up a $750,000 fund to compensate other former Black and Hispanic employees who said they suffered harassment and discrimination in a hostile work environment.
According to the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in 2022, several managers who supervised plumbers and plumber’s helpers working in an apprenticeship program at the company’s construction projects regularly called Black employees “n***er,” “boy,” and “biscuit lips,” and referred to Hispanic workers as “wetbacks,” “stupid Mexicans,” and “f-cking Puerto Ricans.”
Some managers openly displayed Confederate flags on their personal vehicles and held team meetings in workplace parking lots “in view of the Confederate flags,” the complaint alleged.
Black and Hispanic employees were disproportionately assigned manual labor assignments that didn’t count as credit towards the company’s apprenticeship program, the complaint said.
White employees were generally assigned favorable tasks, such as plumbing and pipework, while Black and Hispanic employees performed more laborious work, such as digging deep ditches with a shovel and using a jackhammer for days at a time.
Joseph Hollis, one of the lead plaintiffs, reported in an amended complaint filed in March 2023 that he heard one supervisor say, “Let the n***ers dig,” in reference to Black workers being given such assignments, the lawsuit said.
Hollis also said he was ordered to haul hundreds of toilets on his own “with no motorized tools of any kind from the roof of a building to the first floor” and that managers “spewed racist comments to employees” in and outside of the workplace.
White employees also got regular access to company trailers, while Black and Hispanic workers did not, the complaint said.
When two Black employees, Ernest Hankerson and Cyrus Hawthorne, complained in December of 2020 to management about the ongoing racial harassment and unfair workload, they were initially given “less desirable work assignments” and then fired.
Hollis, who had worked at J.A. Croson since 2013, complained to supervisors about his grueling workload and also about a manager’s display of the Confederate flag in the workplace. He quit in 2021 due to the ongoing harassment and inequitable work practices.
The EEOC alleged that the conduct reported by J.A. Croson’s Black and Hispanic employees violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits racial harassment and retaliation and requires employers to promptly investigate and stop misconduct after they become aware of it, the commission noted in a press release .
In its answer to the EEOC complaint in November of 2022, J.A. Croson categorically denied all of the allegations by its employees and said that all of its employment decisions were “based on legitimate, non-discriminatory and non-retaliatory reasons” unrelated to the plaintiff’s race or national origin.
The company said it “took affirmative measures to provide a workplace free from unlawful discrimination, harassment and retaliation” and that “any adverse employment action” suffered by the plaintiffs was “the direct and proximate result of their own misconduct in the workplace.”
In the consent decree settling the case in July, the company again denied the allegations in the lawsuit and that it had violated Title VII.
“It is J.A. Croson’s position that settlements are favored over continued, costly and uncertain litigation,” the agreement stated.
Besides paying $1.6 million to compensate 17 Black and Hispanic former employees, the three-year consent decree requires J.A.Croson to set up an employee relations hotline for employees to submit complaints, assign an investigator to address harassment and retaliation complaints and provide training to its employees on recognizing workplace harassment. The EEOC will monitor the company’s compliance with these new equal opportunity employment policies and practices over the next three years.
The consent decree says J.A. Croson’s employees and managers are forbidden to use racial or ethnic slurs referring to the race or national origin of its workers and specifically prohibits the use of the N-word. The company is also barred from making work assignments on the basis of race or national origin.
U.S. District Court Judge Marcia Morales Howard ordered J.A. Croson to pay a total sum of $850,000 in back pay and compensatory damages to Hankerson, Hawthorne, and Hollis, who are free to reapply for jobs at the company and to talk about their complaints.
Howard also ordered the company to deposit $750,000 in a qualified settlement fund, which the company’s other Black and Hispanic employees can make claims on. The EEOC will evaluate their claims of discrimination and harassment and determine if and how much those employees will be compensated based on the severity and duration of their experiences and the alleged emotional harm they suffered.
Miami employment lawyer Gary A. Costales, who represented three former employees in the case, told McClatchy News on Aug. 28 that his clients “are hard-working people who had never been involved in a matter as this one. … We were fortunate to have the EEOC spring into action in the public interest. We are gratified to have achieved this result,” the Bellingham Herald reported .
“Unfortunately, the reality is that race and national origin harassment continues to pervade the construction industry,” said EEOC Miami Regional Attorney Kristen Foslid. “This consent decree sends a message that employers must ensure that workers at construction sites are free from harassment and receive fair work assignments.”
‘Let the N***ers Dig’: Florida Construction Company That Allegedly Made Black Workers Do More ‘Degrading’ Tasks Compared to White Peers To Pay Up $1.6M to Settle Lawsuit
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