Employee called Black co-worker racial slurs and fired gunshots near him in PA, feds say
Racial slurs, offensive stereotypes and veiled threats of violence were commonplace at a quarry outside Philadelphia where only one Black person worked, federal agents said.
Now the company is on the hook for $58,000.
An employee at Eureka Stone Quarry Inc. is accused of using racial slurs and making derogatory statements to the Black employee — such as calling him a monkey when he was seen eating a banana — according to a federal complaint.
Court filings show Eureka Stone agreed to pay its former employee back pay and damages after he lodged a complaint of racial discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is the federal agency tasked with safeguarding and enforcing anti-discrimination laws in the workplace.
The quarry also agreed to revise its policies on workplace harassment and hire someone to investigate future complaints. By signing the agreement, however, it did not admit to any of the allegations.
A representative from Eureka Stone and its lawyer did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment on March 1.
Debra M. Lawrence, a regional attorney with the EEOC’s Philadelphia office, called the settlement a “smart business decision” in a Feb. 23 news release.
“In addition to providing monetary compensation to the aggrieved worker, the extensive policies, procedures and training that Eureka Stone agreed to implement are designed to promote a fair and inclusive workplace free from racist harassment and retaliatory conduct,” Lawrence said.
According to federal court filings, the employee who lodged the complaint was hired as an operator at the Pocono Quarry near Chalfont, Pennsylvania, in 2016. He quit in July 2020, citing work conditions that were “sufficiently intolerable.”
The employee later filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC, which determined in February 2021 that there was reasonable cause to believe he had been discriminated against. The EEOC then tried to resolve the matter outside of court. When that failed, it filed a civil lawsuit in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on Sept. 13.
According to the complaint, one of the employee’s co-workers at Eureka Stone frequently referred to Black people using racial slurs and other derogatory language.
The same co-worker broadcast a show over their shared radio channel that made references to Black people eating “chicken and watermelon” while Hispanic people ate “rice and beans,” the EEOC said. He also reportedly suggested the Black employee go to a Halloween party wearing a KKK Grand Wizard costume and joked the party-goers would hang him.
One day when the employee was seen eating a banana in his car, the co-worker compared him to a monkey over the CB radio, the lawsuit states.
He is also accused of saying that if Eureka Stone hired another Black worker, the two could communicate using “clicking sounds.”
Many of those comments were routinely made on the shared radio channel, the employee said.
The EEOC said the same co-worker also carried a handgun at work, which he reportedly used to make vague, threatening gestures — such as slamming it down on a table in the break room, putting it back in his waistband, leaving the room and turning around to smile at everyone who was present.
When the employee complained about the alleged harassment to his supervisor, he was told to provide proof.
According to the lawsuit, the harassment escalated in 2020 when much of the nation was rocked by civil unrest following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who died when a Minnesota police officer pressed a knee into his neck for more than 9 minutes.
During that summer, the EEOC said, the co-worker at Eureka Stone “made highly threatening comments about the Black Lives Matter movement” — including mention of the guns he and his wife owned and discussions of an impending “race war.” He also reportedly referred to Floyd as a racial slur who “deserved it.”
Around the same time, the co-worker dropped a large boulder near where the Black employee was working and, on another day, used his rifle to fire “four or five rounds in rapid succession” on work property, according to the complaint.
The EEOC said those shots were fired “several hundred feet” from him, and he “found that act to be highly threatening.”
According to the suit, the co-worker was not fired for the shooting incident but was eventually terminated for “making sexual comments about a co-worker’s spouse.”
The EEOC said Eureka Stone violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by failing to put preventative policies in place, failing to provide a complaint process and failing to adequately train management as to handling those complaints.
In order to settle the case, Eureka Stone said it will pay the Black employee $7,300 in back pay, $1,450 in damages for past losses and $49,250 in damages for emotional distress.
The company will also hire an equal employment opportunity officer, update its anti-discrimination policies and complaint procedures, provide training on Title VII discrimination and submit regular reports to the EEOC. The agreement is slated to remain in place for at least three years.
This story was originally published March 1, 2022 at 4:52 PM with the headline "Employee called Black co-worker racial slurs and fired gunshots near him in PA, feds say."
