Black employees of #GM said they endured workplace racism at an Ohio plant where nooses and ‘whites only’ signs were hung. And this was just in 2018.
Now eight employees have filed a lawsuit against GM claiming their managers at the Toledo Powertrain plant did little or nothing to stop racism, @CNN reports.
The hostile work environment that employee Marcus Boyd and others have described include a workplace where people declared bathrooms were for “whites only,” where black supervisors were denounced as “boy” and ignored by their subordinates and where black employees were told to “go back to Africa.”
Boyd also said white workers wore shirts with #Nazi symbols underneath their coveralls. For Boyd, it began on his first day. He felt all other supervisors, who were white, received training before their jobs while he, an experienced supervisor albeit in a different industry, was given a clipboard and told to start.
He tried to dismiss the feeling that he was being discriminated against until he realized some of his juniors were straight up ignoring him and refused to follow his directions and called him the N-word.
Boyd said when he reported the insubordination to upper management, he said he was told to deal with it himself, to counsel his workers who’d used the slur, though he never saw who it was.
“The message he said he took from his leaders at the plant: Be happy you’re here. Deal with it.” But it got harder to ignore especially when one of the employees he oversaw told him: “Back in the day, you would have been buried with a shovel.”
He said even more violent situations were brushed off.
“Every day, everyone at General Motors is expected to uphold a set of values that are integral to the fabric of our culture,” GM said in the statement. “Discrimination and harassment are not acceptable and [are] in stark contrast to how we expect people to show up at work. We treat any reported incident with sensitivity and urgency, and are committed to providing an environment that is safe, open and inclusive. General Motors is taking this matter seriously and addressing it through the appropriate court process.”
Lawyers for the men suing GM say there continue to be hateful and racist remarks at the plant to this day, which they plan to include in the lawsuit.
We will follow this story and keep you updated on the latest!
TSR STAFF: Christina C! @cdelafresh
