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The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries has received four more civil-rights complaints from workers at Daimler Trucks North America, bringing the total allegations of racial harassment at the Portland manufacturer to nine.
The new complaints, released today by state workplace regulators, add to allegations previously reported by WW that workers at the Swan Island plant and corporate offices called minority co-workers racial slurs, threatened violence, and physically attacked them.
One of the new complaints says the harassment has continued as recently as last month.
The Oct. 3 complaint, from the Daimler factory floor, says a worker Sept. 18 threw a tool at an African-American co-worker, saying, "I hate working with stupid ass niggers."
When the employee reported being attacked to his supervisor, he says his boss replied, "You're not going to work here forever, are you?"
Another new complainant, who filed Sept. 26, is a Native American former employee in Daimler's paint shop. He says his team leader forced him to do work other employees weren't asked to do. "When I went to get a drink of water [the team leader] pushed me against the hood of a truck," he writes.
The employee says working conditions left him no choice but to resign.
In a third complaint, also filed Sept. 26, a former Daimler engineer says that starting last year, his manager "regularly made comments about my age and race/national origin, including asking me if I was going to retire because I am so old, pointing out that I was 20 years old before he was even born, and stating on several occasions that African employees are far slower than others."
The employee, who is black and from Egypt, says he was fired in September, a month after Daimler eliminated his manager's job.
The fourth complaint, filed Oct. 3, describes racial slurs and graffiti at the Daimler plant. "I and other black employees are given the most difficult jobs and are ridiculed and yelled at if we request assistance," the complainant says.
The employee says that when he reported that a co-worker was tampering with truck parts in the plant, he was given a drug test by managers in retaliation for complaining. "No other employees are subjected to drug tests," he writes.
As WW previously reported, Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian last month filed his own civil rights complaint on behalf of Daimler's minority employees, alleging the company ignored years of racial intimidation at the Portland manufacturing plant.
Daimler spokesman David Giroux tells WW the company is cooperating with the state investigation, and has made efforts to diversity its workforce.
"Our diversity and inclusion initiatives over the last several years," Giroux says, including the growing number of company-endorsed Employee Resource Groups (ERGS), have been well-received and supported by employees."
Daimler has begun construction of a new $150 million North American headquarters on Swan Island with $20 million in state and city subsidies. Portland Mayor Charlie Hales released a statement early this month saying he is "very concerned" by the allegations.
WWeek 2015