Black workers racially abused, subjected to nooses and denied promotions at Tennessee energy company

Three black employees who filed separate federal civil rights lawsuits accusing the Nashville Electric Service (NES). racism in their employment, including managers who allegedly hurled racial slurs at black workers and denied them promotions in favor of white workers, entered into a confidential settlement with the utility, The Tennessean reports.

Electrician Walter E. Clark III was a 22-year employee of NES when he sued company in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee in January 2023, describing a racially hostile work environment where black employees routinely called “lazy p-ger”, “boy”, and were constantly harassed and bullied by supervisors and co-workers because of their race.

His complaint cites an episode in June 2020 in which a white foreman allegedly told him, “I’ll tell you how to teach this h-ba … put a white sheet over your head and go beat the shit out of him until he hates all the white people.”

Clark also regularly heard or learned about other racist epithets and slurs from co-workers, including that “we need to have slaves again to make America great again,” he claims, none of which were addressed by management when black workers complained.

He and plaintiff Jimmy Hunt described their disgust when they found out loops found at your workplace twice during working hours. Black workers were “deeply shocked and disturbed” by the racist hate speech, according to Hunt, who was once tasked with removing a noose from an employee-only smoking area on the NES grounds.

NES is one of the nation’s 11 largest utilities and distributes power to nearly 430,000 customers in Nashville, Davidson County and parts of six surrounding counties, covering 700 square miles. according to its website.

NES management failed to take corrective action in response to the looping episodes, and also failed to respond adequately in January 2023 when operations manager Ty Jones “changed his email profile to the ‘Not equal’ symbol ‘≠,'” the use of which, Hunt’s complaint was adopted by some white racists and which Anti-Defamation League describes “as an attempt to argue that different races are not equal to each other and to imply that whites are superior to (B)flaws”.

All three plaintiffs allege in their lawsuits that black workers are routinely and systematically passed over for promotions and raises because of their race.

Clark was denied promotions in positions he applied for, which he claims were repeatedly given to less experienced and less qualified white workers.

In 2021, when applying for a foreman position, he said his white supervisors manipulated the performance evaluation system to give a new white employee in his department a higher grade.

Hunt, 58, who had worked at NES for 25 years when he filed his complaint earlier this year, described a similar pattern of unfair and discriminatory practices to prevent black workers from getting raises and promotions.

According to him, among the discriminatory tactics used by NSZ leaders in the past was changing the tests administered to black applicants and job descriptions in such a way as to deliberately exclude black applicants.

Hunt, a foreman who was the only black safety inspector at the company, applied five times for a promotion to manager of safety and employee development, but was never hired. Less skilled white workers have repeatedly been given the job, he claims.

Hunt claims the job description for the position was changed to require an engineering degree to prevent him from getting the job. He was found to be ineligible for the position, even though he performed additional duties in the position for two years without additional compensation before it was transferred to a white employee, his complaint alleges.

“It’s almost like they’re just dictating who they want to cast,” Hunt said The Tennessean last year “It felt like … they were trying to eliminate all minorities from promotion.”

Clark, Hunt and a third plaintiff, Tim Jones, all allege that the utility’s hiring and promotion process was discriminatory, that they were subjected to ongoing racial harassment in a hostile work environment, and that NES repeatedly failed to take corrective action despite they were aware of the grievances of their black workers.

In their legal answers In response to the complaints, Nashville Electric Service vehemently denies all allegations of racial discrimination, harassment and racially hostile workplace conditions. This attributed the alleged disparate treatment of black workers who lost out on promotions to white candidates to the fact that “more qualified candidates” were selected.

NES acknowledged “that the noose is a disturbing symbol to most people and that NES prohibits the display of such symbols in the workplace.”

The company said its actions are always “based on legitimate, non-discriminatory, business-related reasons and are used in good faith.”

President and General Director of NSZU Teresa Briolis-Aplin in a statement last year it said that “NES does not condone or tolerate discrimination of any kind,” adding that “NES supports diversity, equity and inclusion, and our goal is to create a work environment where all our employees feel welcome and safe . and evaluated.”

The three plaintiffs sought a jury trial for unspecified compensatory damages, as well as back pay, back pay and legal costs for their economic loss, humiliation, emotional pain and suffering.

The terms of their settlement with RNS are not publicly disclosed. Attorneys for the parties did not immediately respond to Atlanta Black Star’s requests for comment. Hunt told The Tennessean that the protective order prevents him from discussing the settlement.

Each party pays its own court costs in accordance with the judge’s decisions on closing cases.