Boss Watch: 3/28 – 4/4

Jacob Morrison

Illegal activities of Southern Bosses for the weeks between Friday, March 28, and Friday, April 4

North Carolina Discriminators

From the EEOC: 

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is inviting male job applicants who were not hired by Kickback Jack’s restaurants in North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia to contact the federal agency for possible inclusion in a sex discrimination case, the federal agency announced today.

On Sept. 25, 2024, the EEOC filed a lawsuit in federal court in Greensboro, N.C. against Battleground Restaurants, Inc., and Battleground Restaurant Group, Inc., doing business as Kickback Jack’s, for failing or refusing to hire male applicants who applied to non-managerial front-of-house positions, including server, bartender and host/hostess positions, since December 2019. These alleged employment practices violate federal civil rights laws.

Male applicants who sought employment as a server, host and/or bartender with any of the defendants’ Kickback Jack’s restaurants in North Carolina, Tennessee or Virginia, but were not hired, or who were hired into a different position, may be claimants in this lawsuit and are encouraged to contact the EEOC at the phone number or email address listed below.

Now this is interesting for a few reasons. For one, I’ve read a lot of these EEOC press releases. They usually have specific behavior related to at least one individual, even if they use it as an illustration of what is happening to a broader class of folks. This… doesn’t seem to be the case here? Secondly, I read this and immediately wondered if this is a sort of Hooters knock off. I googled them and couldn’t find conclusively, although I did find a couple of staff pictures where it looks like the servers are all women. If anyone is in North Carolina I’d be interested in hearing if this place does try to be a Hooters knock off. In which case, is the position of the Trump administration going to be that the Hooters business model is illegal because it discriminates against men?

Georgia Discriminators

C.W. Inc. (doing business as CPG Staffing) and Executive Personnel Group, LLC, sister staffing companies that assign employees to construction industry clients, agreed to pay $60,000 and furnish other relief to settle a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) disability discrimination lawsuit, the federal agency announced today.

The EEOC suit alleged that CPG Staffing and Executive Personnel rescinded a welding applicant’s job offer after learning from a post-offer medical questionnaire that he had injured his knee on a job two years earlier. Before disclosing the prior injury, from which he had completely recovered, the applicant successfully passed a welding test. The welding test involved climbing ladders and crouching and crawling on beams. The applicant indicated he could perform the essential duties of the welder job, did not require a reasonable accommodation, and provided a letter from his physician clearing him to work. Yet, Executive Personnel’s risk manager instructed CPG Staffing not to hire the applicant because of his prior injury. CPG Staffing, in turn, rescinded the applicant’s job offer.

Such alleged conduct violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which prohibits disability discrimination. The EEOC filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process.

In addition to the $60,000 in monetary relief, the two-year decree settling the suit requires CPG Staffing and Executive Personnel Group to provide their employees with specialized training on the ADA’s prohibition against disability discrimination. The companies are also required to remove a question about prior work-related injuries from their post-offer medical questionnaire and to add ADA anti-discrimination language to the questionnaire. Additionally, the decree requires the companies to post a notice that sets forth the general requirements of the ADA at each of their facilities.

Crushed, Burned, and Crushed

So far under the Trump administration, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is not being as public with its investigations. Even so, workers are still dying on the job – typically 100 workers every week in the US. Even though OSHA is even more hamstrung than before, there is often a small news story whenever someone dies at work because it’s such a terrible thing to happen in a community. 

On the Confined Space Newsletter – set up by Jordan Barab, a former OSHA official – they compile as many news stories on worker deaths as he can find every week. In addition to this newsletter, they regularly host commentary and analysis pieces about labor and workplace safety. 

This week, they found 22 stories, including 11 from the South. A few lowlights: 

  • Georgetown, SC — Emergency workers were dispatched to Santee Cooper’s Winyah Generating Station in Georgetown after a worker was killed in an accident involving his work truck. Georgetown County Coroner Chase Ridgeway – after proper family notification – identified the worker as Billy Whitnauer. According to the SC Highway Patrol, Whitnaer left his truck unattended and in drive when he got out to go use the portable toilet. The truck then rolled forward and collided with the restroom. Ridgeway said an autopsy will be performed. Santee Cooper Safety and OSHA will be investigating. In a statement confirming the accident, a Santee Cooper spokesperson said Whitnauuer was a truck driver working for a contracted firm. He was engaged to get married in April.
  • Springfield, MO — A city of Springfield employee died in an accident at the Noble Hill Sanitary Landfill. Larry Flett, 62, was killed when a dump truck he was driving turned over and caught fire, according to a news release. Flett worked as a solid waste operations associate at the landfill for nearly two years and as an officer for the Springfield Police Department 1989-1998. Flett also was memorialized at Monday night’s Springfield City Council meeting. The Noble Hill Sanitary Landfill, 3545 W. Farm Road 34, was temporarily shut down after the accident on Monday morning and is expected to remain closed through Wednesday, according to the release. The city’s Department of Environmental Services, which oversees the landfill, intends to conduct an internal review of the accident.
  • Bryan County, GA – A worker was killed in a forklift accident at LG Energy Solution and Hyundai Motor’s joint battery plant in Georgia. The incident occurred at 4:45 p.m. Friday at the plant in Bryan County after a forklift struck the worker. The case is still under investigation. It’s the second casualty at Hyundai’s Georgia plant after a 34-year-old died after falling from a structure at the site in April 2023.

Read the rest here.

Union Busters

Brought to you by LaborLab: The nation’s leading watchdog standing with working families to stop employer coercion and intimidation. Visit www.laborlab.us for more info.

Here are the most recent filings:

In addition, the following filings were amended:

  • Tindall Consulting amended their filing for Amazon DAX5 to add their compensation and local union ($2,000/day, Teamsters Local 396)
  • Greer Consulting amended their LM-20 for Blick Art Supplies to add their compensation ($1,500/day)

Due to a lack of enforcement, some labor relations consultants may disregard the law and fail to report their activities to the U.S. Department of Labor. Therefore, it’s crucial for organizers and workers to report suspected “persuader” activity to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS).

It’s crucial for organizers and workers to report suspected “persuader” activity to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS). You can reach them via email at  OLMS-Public@dol.gov, by calling (202) 693-0123, or by contacting your nearest OLMS District Office.

For assistance, please contact LaborLab at contact@laborlab.us.