Union to pay $1.65M for race discrimination settlement — and the case goes on
A labor union and its apprenticeship program will pay $1.65 million to settle part of a race discrimination suit that was first filed in 1971 — and will continue.
Local 25 of the Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association and its associated apprenticeship school have settled race discrimination claims made by the EEOC. Price tag: a combined $1.65 million, along with “substantial remedial relief.”
EEOC’s decades-old lawsuit continues to address allegations that Local 25, which is the trade union for sheet metal journeypersons in northern New Jersey, together with Local 25 Joint Apprenticeship Committee, discriminated against black and Hispanic journeypersons in hiring and assignments.
The settlement covers violations from April 1991 through December 2002. Analysis of hours and wages showed African-American and Hispanic workers received fewer hours of work than their white co-workers for most of the 10-year period. Prior court actions in the lawsuit resolved violations before April 1991.
The case will continue.
The lawsuit underlying this settlement (EEOC, et al., v. Local 638) was filed in 1971 by the U.S. Department of Justice in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. EEOC replaced the Department of Justice as prosecuting counsel in 1974. The case was originally filed against Local 25’s predecessors, Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association Local Union No. 10 and the Local 10 Joint Apprenticeship Committee. In 1981, Local 10 merged with other unions into Local 28 of the Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association and the Local 28 JAC of Northern New Jersey. Local 25 demerged from Local 28 in 1991.
The settlement of claims for the April 1991 through December 2002 period has been approved by U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan. Besides the $1.65 million in damages to workers who were the victims of discrimination, Local 25 agreed to an injunction against discrimination on the basis of race and national origin with regard to hiring, termination and the assignment of hours and wages.
Local 25 also agreed to an injunction against thwarting, frustrating, impairing, or otherwise impeding the goals of the court’s anti-discrimination orders.
