Lockheed Martin Pays $2.5 Million for Harassment

January 7th, 2008 Posted by Amelia

Defense contractor Lockheed Martin recently settled a suit for racial harassment and discrimination, paying $2.5 million to a single victim. According to the EEOC, this is one of the largest payments to a single person in the agency’s history.

Charles Daniels, an African-American Navy veteran and avionics technician, discussed the settlement on January 3 at a news conference in Hawaii.  According to Daniels, he was repeatedly subjected to racial slurs including the “N-word,” and physical threats.

Daniels was part of a traveling field service team with airline behemoth Lockheed Martin.  The team moved across the country working on military aircraft for 4 to 6 weeks at each location, including Jacksonville, Florida, Whidbey Island, Washington and Oahu, Hawaii.  Daniels was the only African-American on the team.

According to the complaint filed with the EEOC, the harassment started shortly after Daniels was hired in September 1999, with racist graffiti in the restrooms and weekly Ku Klux Klan meetings in the employee break room. There were also racist “newsletters” in the break room, similar to a previous EEOC case.

Daniels initially hoped that when the team left Florida, the harassment would stop. Instead, it continued as the team traveled to Whidbey Island in 2000 and Oahu in 2001. Daniels soon realized that two members of his own team were the harassers.

According to EEOC Regional Attorney William R. Tamayo, “Before 1965, this type of behavior was legal. The civil rights laws we have are so valuable. They provide protections for individuals like Mr. Daniels.” Tamayo added that this settlement sends “a powerful message that racism cannot and must not be tolerated.”

When asked why he thought he was targeted for harassment, Daniels said, “I think individuals were a little upset that I was progressing within the company and doing my job, and doing it well. I think their main goal was to chase me out of that job.”

Daniels and a white coworker went to the Lockheed Martin HR department to complain about the harassment. The HR department distributed the complaint to other team members. Two additional team members joined the group of harassers.

After Daniels filed the complaint, the illegal acts escalated, with severe retaliation and threats of violence against both Daniels and his white coworker. Daniels was threatened with lynching and told how easy it would be for him to be killed and the body hidden, on Whidbey Island. When he saw coworkers circling his block in the early hours of the morning, he decided to move off the island, to Seattle, and commute to work.

Lockheed Martin refused to reassign Daniels to another team. The company had a written antidiscrimination policy, but refused to take action against the harassers, according to the EEOC. Instead, it allowed the harassment to continue.

Daniels continued to report the harassment, but it only grew worse. Finally, in 2001, Daniels finished the assignment on Oahu and was given a new assignment in Maine with the same harassers. By this time, one of the harassers had been promoted and Daniels would report directly to him.

On his last day in Oahu, Daniels filed a complaint with the EEOC.

Traveling to Maine, he stopped off at the Lockheed Martin headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland and met with the Human Resources person who was familiar with his complaints. Daniels says that he “begged” the HR person not to send him to Maine. The HR person replied that Daniels would be terminated if he did not join the team in Maine.

Daniels informed the Lockheed Martin HR person that he had filed a complaint with the EEOC. The reply was a textbook lesson in how not to handle an HR complaint. The HR professional became enraged and allegedly told Daniels, “You did what? I could have given you a job. We have 130,000 employees. I could create a job [for you] if I wanted to. You see that file cabinet behind you? It’s filled with thousands of complaints just like yours. We’re Lockheed Martin. We never lose. You can take your chances with the EEOC.”

The HR person immediately terminated Daniels. 

The suit, filed in August 2005, was settled out of court in January, 2008. Lockheed Martin agreed to pay Daniels $2.5 million. In addition, the company agreed to conduct annual antidiscrimination training for all employees, including managers. It also agreed to file annual reports of any internal discrimination complaints with the EEOC, detailing how those complaints were handled.

Lockheed Martin also agreed to fire Daniel’s harassers, and to bar them from employment at the company for life.

Despite the unprecedented settlement, Lockheed Martin continues to deny all charges. “The conduct in question involved a small number of first-line employees in a small, single operating unit of the company. When management became aware of the allegations, it conducted investigations and took the appropriate remedial actions based on the facts presented at that time. At no time was the operating unit aware of or did it ignore any unlawful conduct. All individuals involved in this matter have either left the company or are being terminated. Additionally, as a result, we’ve barred the individuals allegedly involved in this matter from future work with the company.”

While this was one of the highest profile cases of racial harassment in 2007, it certainly wasn’t the only one. The EEOC reports that charges of racial harassment have more than doubled since the early 1990s. They rose from 3,075 in 1991 to 7,000 in 2007. Overall, complaints of race discrimination account for more than 36% of all EEOC complaints – by far the most common type.

That’s why EEOC leader Naomi C. Earp launched the nationwide E-RACE Initiative. E-RACE stands for Eradicating Racism and Colorism from Employment.

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