Fort Worth company must pay $525K over allegations of racist behavior at work
A Texas-based crane company will pay $525,000 to settle allegations that it allowed racist behavior towards Black employees, according to an agreement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Supervisors and coworkers at TNT Crane and Rigging targeted four Black employees with racial slurs and openly displayed white supremacist symbols — including nooses and lightning-bolt stickers — at work, according to an EEOC lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Worth. When the employees complained to human resources and upper-level management, the company “failed to take action to stop the harassment,” the EEOC said in a statement.
A white employee also reported the incidents, which occurred at the company’s Fort Worth plant, according to the lawsuit. The company retaliated by reducing that employee’s work hours and failing to stop harassment from other white employees, forcing the employee to quit his job, the EEOC said.
Shortly after the white employee reported the harassment, his tires were flattened while parked at work and he was confronted by a coworker who shoved him and called him slurs, according to the lawsuit.
In addition to paying the settlement money to the five workers, TNT Crane is required to implement a written anti-harassment policy, provide non-discrimination training to employees, and report all future employee complaints of racial harassment and discrimination or related retaliation to the EEOC, according to the statement.
“It has been more 60 years since the passage of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, yet racial harassment, such as the use of racial epithets and the display of white supremacist symbols, continues to be a recurring problem in the American workplace,” EEOC trial attorney Brian Hawthorne said. “Employers must act forcefully to protect their workers from such behavior, both to comply with Title VII and to ensure every employee is treated with dignity and respect.”
Neither the crane company nor its attorneys could immediately be reached for comment Friday.
