By Molly Parker
mparker@scbiznews.com
Published Aug. 17, 2009

A federal appeals court has granted class action status in a discrimination suit that seven black employees originally brought against Nucor Steel’s Huger plant in 2003.

On Aug. 7, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., reversed a previous decision of the U.S. District Court in Charleston to deny the class action status.

The employees that filed the lawsuit claimed that there was a plantwide atmosphere of racial hostility at Nucor Steel Berkeley, and that white managers discriminated against black employees when making promotions.

The lawsuit covers discrimination charges dating back to 1999.

Attorneys from the firm representing the employees, Wiggins, Childs, Quinn & Pantazis LLC, based in Birmingham, Ala., along with the Dot Scott, president of the Charleston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, have called a news conference for Tuesday morning to discuss the case. It is scheduled for 10 a.m. at the International Longshoremen’s Association Hall on Morrison Drive.

Wiggins, Childs, Quinn & Pantazis is best known for representing Lilly Ledbetter in her 10-year pay discrimination battle against Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. The first significant piece of legislation that President Barack Obama signed into law was named after her. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 extends the amount of time an employee has to bring suit against an employer on the basis of discriminatory pay under the Civil Rights Act.

“We obviously think the appeals court got it right” in the Nucor case, said Bob Wiggins, a partner with the Alabama firm and the lead attorney on the case. “When you have problems at a plant like this, it obviously impacts everyone.”

All seven employees also have filed individual discrimination suits against Nucor; those cases are still pending, Wiggins said. The importance of class action status, Wiggins said, is that it “refocuses the case” from just seeking monetary damages to overhauling the working conditions at the plant.

Nucor Steel Berkeley currently employs 900 workers, making it among the area’s largest employers. Parent company Nucor Steel is headquartered in Charlotte and is the nation’s largest steel producer.

Giff Daughtridge, plant manager at Nucor Steel Berkeley, said Nucor is seeking a rehearing on the decision.

“A plaintiff’s lawyer can make any claim they want, whether it’s incorrect, misleading or exaggerated,” Daughtridge told the Business Journal on Monday. “They refer to allegations, and they are just that. We very clearly know that these allegations did not happen.”

Daughtridge has been with the plant since October 2007. He said Nucor investigated the claims when they were originally brought to management’s attention, starting in 1999, and found “no pattern of that behavior, and never at any time was that behavior condoned or allowed to go on.”

Three of the seven employees who brought suit against Nucor still work at the plant, he said.

In the suit, Brown v. Nucor Corp., the plaintiffs claim, among other allegations, that white co-workers frequently referred to their black colleagues using racial epithets and that racial slurs were broadcast over the plantwide radio system, along with the songs Dixie and High Cotton.

“Monkey noises were also broadcast over the radio system in response to the communications of black employees,” the lawsuit states.

The Confederate flag was pervasive throughout the plant and was displayed on items containing Nucor’s logo that were sold in the plant’s gift shop, the suit claims. The suit additionally alleges that various employees circulated several e-mails depicting black people in racially offensive ways, including showing them with nooses around their necks.

“Once, an employee held up a noose and told a black co-worker that it was for him,” the lawsuit states.

The seven black employees at the Huger plant, along with employee plaintiffs at a Nucor plant in Arkansas, filed the original lawsuit against Nucor in December 2003, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas. The cases were split, and the Huger employees’ case was relegated to the U.S. District Court in Charleston.

The suit was brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and under the Civil Rights Act of 1866 on behalf of the seven employees and about 100 other past and present black employees at the S.C. plant. At the time of the filing, the plant had 611 employees, of whom 71 were black, the lawsuit says.

On May 7, 2007, the employees filed a motion for class certification alleging the following:

• A pattern or practice of disparate treatment against black employees with respect to promotion opportunities at the plant.
• Nucor’s promotion procedures, which allowed white managers to use subjective criteria to promote employees, had a disparate impact on black employees for promotions.
• Nucor required black employees to work in a plantwide hostile environment.

In August 2007, the district court denied class action certification.

Derfner Altman & Wilborn of Charleston is assisting the Birmingham firm on the case. That firm is best known for its representation of the ILA dockworkers who later became widely known as the “Charleston Five.”

The men were charged with felony riot and assault after a dockworkers protest turned violent in 2000. The protest was over Danish shipping line Nordana’s use of nonunion workers along Charleston’s waterfront. A plea bargain between the state and the workers allowed the Charleston Five to plead guilty to a misdemeanor in exchange for the state’s dropping of felony charges. The workers had the choice of serving 30 days in jail or paying $100 in fines.

Nucor is represented nationally by Alaniz & Schraeder LLC, and locally by Turner Padget Graham & Laney P.A.

Reach Molly Parker at 843-849-3144.