Wyeth race discrimination trial to start
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- January
- 28
A trial to determine whether Wyeth Pharmaceutials Inc.’s Rockland County’s largest employer, discriminated against a former employee because of the employee’s race is scheduled to begin next Monday in federal court in White Plains.
Jury selection in the case was completed today.
U.S. District Court Judge William C. Conner will preside over a trial to determine whether Howard Henry of Ramapo, who was a Wyeth chemist and production engineer, was denied promotions in favor of less qualified white employees.
Henry, who is black, also alleges in his September 2005 lawsuit that he was demoted to packaging supervisor, a job he claims does not require a college degree and entails just standing at an assembly line.
Henry says that when he complained about the treatment, the company retaliated against him by denying him another promotion and by giving him negative performance evaluations.
Wyeth, which employs approximately 3,200 people at its campus in Pearl River, has denied the allegations by Henry and six additional current and former employees who have filed lawsuits alleging race discrimination. Henry’s lawsuit is the only one for which a trial date has been set.
Henry, 39, left the company in 2006 after 13 years.
Conner last month refused to dismiss the case. Judge Colleen McMahon had previously dismissed allegations of discrimination Henry made against a pair of Wyeth supervisors, but the company remains a defendant.
The company asked Conner to review McMahon’s decision and to dismiss the entire case.
This entry was posted
on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 5:19 pm by Allan Drury.
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