Former and current employees of Lousiana-based Turner Industries Group have charged the Gulf Coast contractor with widespread racial discrimination in hiring, pay, promotions and on-the-job treatment.
The lawsuit caught some observers by surprise, the Wall St. Journal suggested today, since the company settled similar allegations of discrimination in an agreement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last July. That followed a finding by the EEOC in March of “reasonable cause to believe” that discrimination had occurred.
However, that settlement seems only to have encouraged other alleged victims of racial discrimination to come forward.
In an unusual twist, the former and current employees are suing individually and not as a class. Perhaps their attorneys are awaiting the U.S. Supreme Court’s forthcoming ruling in the Wal-Mart sexual harassment class action, which is expected to clarify the legal requirements for combining individual claims of discrimination into one class claim.
Turner is a large contractor that does work for oil refineries across the Gulf Coast. So this lawsuit, if it goes to verdict, has the potential to inflict far-reaching monetary pain on the company. This may be one if wants to settle, depending on the strength of the plaintiffs’ case and on how the Supreme Court rules on class action issues in Wal-Mart.