EEOC: Union firings were discriminatory

Suit alleges two black officials let go over race, a charge director disputes

A local union that organizes school employees fired two black officials because of their race, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has alleged in a lawsuit.

The suit filed last week charges that United Labor Unions Local 100 fired Maurice Roberts and Rosalind Holt from their union organizer positions in 2014. While union leaders said the two were fired for failing to recruit five new members during their first two weeks on the job, at least one white employee who failed to recruit any new members was allowed to keep his job, the suit alleges.

Orell Fitzsimmons, the Local 100 field director who hired and fired Roberts and Holt, said Monday that the white employee quit before Fitzsimmons could fire him for poor performance.

“I brought him into my office to fire him, but he quit before I could,” Fitzsimmons said. “It’s not founded in fact. (The two employees mentioned in the suit) didn’t produce the numbers they were supposed to produce, so they were terminated.”

Local 100 represents about 800 employees across private schools, public schools and local Head Start preschool programs, and it currently employs six organizers.

Holt and Roberts were among seven new employees hired in May 2014 to help the union grow its membership and to help folks and small businesses explore health insurance options under the Affordable Care Act. Holt recruited two new members during her first two weeks, while Roberts recruited three.

Fitzsimmons fired the pair because they did not each recruit five new members during their first two weeks, although several employees told EEOC investigators the recruitment quota was not known to them.

Fitzsimmons said the white employee quit as the union was preparing to fire him; the EEOC said the white employee quit over a reimbursement dispute.

The suit contends that Holt’s and Roberts’ race — not the quota — was the real reason why they were fired by Fitzsimmons and Local 100. The EEOC is seeking lost wages, as well as compensatory and punitive damages on behalf of Roberts and Holt, but did not specify the amounts.

The agency also petitioned for an injunction that would require Local 100 to develop policies to protect employees against racial discrimination.

“This action sends the message that the EEOC will continue to prosecute employers, including unions, who subject their employees to adverse treatment because of their race,” said Rayford O. Irvin, director of the EEOC’s Houston District Office. “Union employers must make concerted efforts to prevent race discrimination in their labor organizations.”

Fitzsimmons said he’s proud of the work that Local 100 did in 2014 with regard to the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

“It was heartwarming to be part of that,” Fitzsimmons said, “and we hired all kinds of people to do it — people who reflected the communities we were trying to reach.”