Union to pay $800,000 to settle discrimination allegations
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- May
- 8
A New York-based iron workers union will pay $800,000 to settle allegations that it violated a court order by discriminating against minority workers in Westchester County and New York City when it came to referring them to jobs.
The money will provide back pay for 45 workers. It will also pay for training and tools workers need to perform work in the city and Westchester, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said yesterday.
The case stretches back to the civil rights era. Johnnie Louis Johnson III, a senior trial attorney for the EEOC, said the U.S. Justice Department sued Local 580 of the Ornamental Ironworkers and other trade unions in the New York area in 1971, alleging they discriminated against minority workers. Those actions resulted in a number of court orders intended to put a halt to the discrimination, he said.
The EEOC charged in June 2001 that Local 580 violated that order starting in 1992 and should be held in contempt. The EEOC said the union’s actions resulted in a “substantial disparity� between the number of hours worked by whites and minorities.
The union provided few opportunities for the minority workers because of both their race and national origin, the EEOC said.
The settlement announced today does not settle all of the issues the EEOC has with Local 580, Johnson said. The sides are still in court over questions relating to the number of apprentices the union places on jobs and the racial makeup of the groups of apprentices.
Dennis Lusardi, the business manager for the local, could not be reached at the offices in New York yesterday. A lawyer for the union did not return a phone call.
The settlement was approved by U.S. District Court Judge Robert L. Carter in lower Manhattan.
In 2003, the union agreed to a $4.5 million settlement with the EEOC after failing to keep required numbers of apprentices on job sites.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, May 8th, 2007 at 4:53 pm by Allan Drury.
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Category: In the courts, Uncategorized
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