By Bay City News
A federal civil rights agency and Northwest Airlines announced on Dec. 7 the settlement of a lawsuit filed over alleged harassment of a Filipino American mechanic at the San Francisco International Airport.
The former mechanic, Marcel Espiritu, said he found a noose hanging in his locker at the airport after he complained of harassment to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1996.
Last January, the EEOC sued Northwest in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on charges of creating a hostile work environment by allowing Espiritu to be harassed on the basis of his national origin for nearly five years beginning in 1991.
EEOC Regional Attorney William Tamayo said when the suit was filed that supervisors and co-workers had subjected Espiritu to “a constant barrage of offensive comments for being Filipino, Asian and an immigrant and having an accent.”
Espiritu, 39, of Sunnyvale, Calif., left his job in Northwest’s Maintenance Department in 1996 and now helps to operate a nonprofit housing complex, Tamayo said today.
Under the settlement announced jointly by the EEOC and Northwest, the airline will provide additional anti-discrimination and anti-harassment training to its San Francisco airport maintenance workers twice during the next two-and-a-half years. The airline also agreed to take action to address any racial or national-original harassment known to managers, even if the employee subjected to harassment does not complain.
Northwest did not admit in the settlement that any of the allegations were true. Tamayo said the agreement resolves the lawsuit’s bid for an injunction barring future harassment. He said Espiritu reached a separate financial settlement with Northwest, which is being kept confidential. |
