Managers displaying Confederate flags gave non-white workers ‘degrading’ tasks, feds say
Managers at a central Florida plumbing company openly displayed Confederate flags on their cars — similar to how they brazenly used racial slurs at work and were hostile to employees who weren’t white, according to a federal lawsuit that has been settled for $1.6 million.
The same managers at J.A. Croson, a plumbing and HVAC company headquartered in Sorrento, regularly hosted team meetings in their workplace’s parking lot “in view of the Confederate flags,” a complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida says.
They often gave “favorable” tasks to white employees, including plumbing and pipe work, while assigning Black and Hispanic employees hard manual labor, such as digging deep ditches with a shovel, according to the complaint.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which sued J.A. Croson, said the “distribution of humiliating and degrading assignments” were “based on race and national origin” in an Aug. 27 news release.
One employee, who had objected to a manager’s display of a Confederate flag, was once “ordered to haul literally hundreds of toilets on his own with no assistance and no motorized tools of any kind from the roof of a building to the first floor,” an intervenor complaint says.
This worker quit in 2021 due to ongoing harassment, according to the complaint.
Now, J.A. Croson will pay $1.6 million to compensate 17 Black and Hispanic former employees — settling accusations that the company allowed racial harassment and retaliated against two employees who complained of the treatment and were fired as a result, the EEOC announced.
One manager was accused of commenting that J.A. Croson “decided to ‘get rid of the cancer’” after “people were complaining,” according to the complaint.
J.A. Croson and attorneys who represented the company didn’t immediately respond to McClatchy News’ requests for comment on Aug. 28.
Miami-based employment attorney Gary A. Costales, who represented three former J.A. Croson 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,” Costales said.
Two of Costales’ clients prompted the case by filing separate charges of discrimination.
“Unfortunately, the reality is that race and national origin harassment continues to pervade the construction industry,” EEOC Miami Regional Attorney Kristen Foslid said in a statement.
J.A. Croson was established in 1959 in Columbus, Ohio, before the company created its Florida division 20 years later. It also serves Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.
The company will pay the settlement as part of a three-year consent decree and has agreed to establish an employee relations hotline to submit complaints, have an investigator to look into complaints about harassment and retaliation, and will train employees on recognizing harassment at work, according to the EEOC.
J.A. Croson will also evaluate its work environment through surveys and audits “to ensure race and national origin do not play a role in the delegation of work assignments,” the EEOC said.
Racial harassment and retaliation at work violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“This consent decree sends a message that employers must ensure that workers at construction sites are free from harassment and receive fair work assignments,” Foslid said.
This story was originally published August 28, 2024 at 10:10 AM with the headline "Managers displaying Confederate flags gave non-white workers ‘degrading’ tasks, feds say."
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