Lawsuit Against Super Steel Claims Racial Abuse; Black workers Seek $175 Million in Damages

From the Times Union on 4/19/2006 [HERE]
By DAN HIGGINS, Staff writer

GLENVILLE -- Nine current and former employees of Super Steel Inc. are seeking $175 million in a federal discrimination lawsuit filed against the Glenville manufacturing company.

The men, who are all black, say racial harassment and intimidation at the company included a segregated break room, a white colleague openly threatening a black worker with a "nigger whipping," anonymous threats of racial violence and racist, pro-Ku Klux Klan graffiti in a restroom.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Albany, also cites a widely publicized incident in January in which an employee reported finding a threatening, racist message and stuffed monkey hanging from a noose inside his locker.

Officials at Super Steel, which makes train locomotives and is based in Milwaukee, said they have not yet seen the complaint. The company said it takes all allegations of harassment and violence seriously.

The class-action suit says racial harassment and discrimination are "deeply embedded in the Super Steel culture and work climate."

It seeks $25 million in compensatory damages and $150 million in punitive damages, and sensitivity training for the company's 200 employees.

David Sanford, the Washington, D.C.-based attorney representing the men, one of whom still works at Super Steel, said the company has turned a blind eye to insults and threats against black and Muslim workers.

Sanford gave a news conference to talk about the suit this morning at the offices of the Schenectady chapter of the NAACP. He was joined by Norman Jordan, 39, a former sandblaster at Super Steel.

Jordan said he lived in fear for most of his six months at the company and endured racial graffiti directed at him and name-calling. He was also singled out, he said, for being a practicing Muslim.

In the suit, Jordan claims that one day after he finished praying at work, one supervisor said to another, "What does this nigger Muslim think he's doing?" The other supervisor allegedly replied, "We know how to get rid of niggers like this." He said the taunt was overheard by three other employees.

Super Steel spokeswoman Melissa Schumer said the company has strongly worded policies prohibiting harassment and discrimination. She added the company has been cooperating with authorities, the NAACP and the Schenectady Human Rights Commission in the investigation of January's hate crime, in which former welder Criss Murphy found a decapitated stuffed monkey in his locker. No one has been accused in that incident.

Glenville Police Sgt. Stephen Janik said the investigation into the Jan. 3 incident has slowed because Murphy stopped cooperating. Janik said the police want to ask more questions of Murphy, who has since moved to Georgia. But Murphy apparently has deferred questions to his attorney, who has not responded to police.

Fred Clark, vice president of the NAACP's Schenectady chapter, said black leaders have been waiting for Super Steel to follow through on promises made in January by Keith Trafton, the company's CEO.

Trafton came to Glenville from Milwaukee on Jan. 18 to meet with civil rights leaders and promised to resolve racial harassment incidents at his firm.

"But we haven't seen anything," Clarke said.

The lawsuit cites several incidents of graffiti that uses the name "KKK," or shows hooded Klansmen lynching black men.

But Mark Potock, who heads a hate-group intelligence project for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said it's unlikely actual Klan members are involved.

"I suspect that the Klan is used simply because it's intimidating to black people," Potock said. He said there are three known Klan groups in New York state, and they likely have very small memberships. He said it's unusual for the Klan to publicly claim responsibility for its actions.

• Pictured above: Norman Jordan, former worker at Super Steel, took this photo of his locker that was defaced with a pictogram showing a hanged man and the monogram "KKK." A group of more...