Racism, sexism, harassment, and retaliation. Those are the details included in New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin’s lawsuit against Ironworkers Local 11 and its business manager. He has charged them with systematic violations of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, alleging that during a fourteen-month period in 2018 and 2019, the union violated its own internal system for assigning jobs to union members. This resulted in white workers getting jobs that should have gone to black workers.
The attorney general’s lawsuit explains that the organization ran a hiring hall for which it had created a referral book. Union members were asked to sign the book, and then as job opportunities came in, the leadership was supposed to refer the assignments to members in order of their signatures within the book. This first-come, first-served procedure was akin to the workers standing in line and waiting their turn as jobs came in, but in reality, the union leadership made a regular practice of skipping over Black members and assigning the jobs to non-Blacks who had signed up for jobs later.
The lawsuit against the union states that this practice led to “lost income,” and that those whose names had been skipped over missed out on hundreds of hours of work. It claims that Black members “were denied significant professional opportunities and experienced emotional distress.”
The suit against the union called the practice of bypassing Black members in favor of non-Blacks systematic: It cites 54 out of 348 times that Black members’ names were skipped over to give job assignments to non-Black members, and calculates that this resulted in some Black members missing nearly a month’s worth of work opportunities. “Black union members collectively lost out on almost a year’s worth of work within those 14 months because of Local 11’s discriminatory employment referral practices.”
Though the referral system described in the lawsuit is no longer in use, the state claims that the new system does nothing to prevent Black workers from being passed over because of their identity or race or to correct and protect against these or other discriminatory practices.
The state began its investigation of Local 11 after the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights received a complaint from a former union member — a black female ironworker who had left the organization in 2017. The complainant, identified in the state’s lawsuit by the initials J.G., reported having frequently been called the N-word, being smacked on the backside, and being locked in bathrooms for hours, repeatedly. Though she reported this conduct to union leadership at least six times, no corrective action was taken.
Upon further investigation, the state found that racial slurs, homophobic language, and sexist language were the norm within the union’s workers and its leadership, and that complaints from other members were ignored or led to retaliation.
J.G., who left the union as a result of the racist and sexist harassment she was subjected to, indicated that she took appropriate action and reported the behaviors to the union’s business manager. The result was that she was yelled at and received one-day job assignments instead of more favorable, long-term assignments.
J.G. was not the only victim cited in the attorney general’s report. A man who worked as a business agent for the union also reported harassment and subsequent retaliation for having complained. He reportedly told leadership about having been subjected to homophobic slurs and having pornographic photos placed on his desk and in his work bag. In response, the union brought in a law firm to investigate his claims, but rather than look into the harassment he’d reported, the attorney focused on claims that he had failed to perform his work assignments.
In a news release, the Attorney General stated, “No one should be subjected to racism, discrimination, or harassment in the workplace, and we are committed to rooting out such despicable conduct. If you violate our laws, we will hold you accountable. We do not tolerate discrimination in New Jersey.”
The state’s actions in this case are a strong demonstration that the state of New Jersey does not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on race, gender, age, or being a member of any other protected class. If you have been a victim of an adverse employment action in violation of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination and you’d like to discuss your rights under the law, contact our experienced employment discrimination attorneys today.