Rogue supervisor didn’t make firing decision — but still got company in trouble
February 11, 2009 by Sam NarisiPosted in: Discrimination, In this week's e-newsletter, Investigations, Job Screening Tests
Even when front-line managers don’t get the final say in who’s hired and fired, their biases can still get employers hit with costly lawsuits.
In one recent case, a supervisor caught an African-American employee setting off firecrackers at a job site. The supervisor notified upper management, and the employee was fired for a blatant violation of their safety policy.
Seems like a pretty simple case, right? Wrong.
The employee sued for discrimination. Two white employees were caught doing the same thing and weren’t reported by the supervisor.
The company’s defense: The decision-makers were never aware of the other safety violations. The employee was fired based on his manager’s report. If the company knew about the other employees’ conduct, they would’ve been fired, too.
But that didn’t matter to the judge. The front-line manager discriminated against the employee by taking action against him and not his white co-workers. Therefore, the company was liable.
Cite: Madden v. Chattanooga City Wide Service Dept.
February 18th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Why didn’t they just go back and fire the white guys too? I guess too simple for a government agency.
February 19th, 2009 at 8:19 am
Maybe they did. However that was not the issue. The action was taken and it was taken in an illegal discriminatory way. That presented a different legal actionable cause that now would enter the court system.
I’m courious. Your choice here was to address the firing and not the obviously discriminatory attitude and action of the manager. Going back and firing the other two will do nothing to be certain that the manager’s racist attitudes would not get the company in trouble again. Is there a reason you did not comment on the manager’s racism that got the company sued?
February 19th, 2009 at 11:44 am
John…..just because a white guy fires a black guy (or ‘tells’ on him) does not make it automatically a race issue. That’s the problem with our society. You are making a pretty presumptive assesment that it was an ‘obviously discriminatory attitude’. How can you say that? You assume in your post that the manager is a racist…..but that is a very far presumption based on the limited amount of info given in the article. I agree that it was a dumb move to ‘tell’ on one but not the other, but to assume that the mgr was a racist is a far stretch. Again, just because someone is fired and they are a different race, does not automatically preclude that the termination was based on race.
If the scenario was reversed (a black guy told on a white guy for not following the rules, but didn’t tell on his buddies) would we be having the same conversation? Would it have made ‘news’? Would it have even gone to court?
February 19th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Charles
It was more than dumb it was blatantly racist. When people do racist things and they personally do not think it is or are too stupid to know it is then they want that to become their defense. A manager should have known better. I find it telling that you are making the same assumptions in a polar sense about this manager. I did not see in the article that the manager was white. It would seem that your personal familiarity with racism made you assume the manager was white. I simply said it was a racist action that lead to the court decision. So tell me then is this a consciousness of guilt admission on your part that white do this so frequently that any mention at all has to be a reference to whites as you suggest?
The question you ask about the scenario being reversed is disengenuine. Your concern is not rather or not the same thing should have happened your concern is that I called a person a racist based on a racist action. If you cannot see what the problem was that was ruled on by the court then you have the same problem as that manager. Is that an assumption of you? Maybe, but your defense of racism rather than your understanding of why the manager’s action was racist is how you are labeling yourself to me.
February 19th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
John,
Way to go! I’m in total agreement with you. Discrimination is just being unfair. And good catch about the manager’s race. Touche.
February 20th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
If you read the legal brief, you would see that the manager was white.
February 23rd, 2009 at 10:12 am
Jackson
Thanks, the article above did not indicate that. That is what I based my response upon.
However once confirming that the manager was white further substantiates that racism was involved and was more than likely a major reason this ee won this case.
Here is the problem. The term here is ‘institutional racism’. That means that something occurs and it may be with regularity, and the reason given for the **occurrence** is not the **behavior** exhibited. (Actually it was two fold, racist which is attitudinal and discriminatory which is an illegal action but that is another lesson)
Take this for example. This was identified as maybe a friend who happens to be a manager, turning in an employee who happens to be black, and not reporting the other two who happen to be white, for the same infraction. Directly leading to the dismissal (rightly so) of the black employee. The reason was surmised to be maybe the whites were friends so the **occurrence** of not turning in the white employees could have been that but the **behavior** was racism that got them sued. It seems that the “maybe they were friends” theory is so accepted that the mere mention of it being racism is summarily dismissed missing the legalities, appearance, and how the black employee would have felt about the behavior. The company does not get the chance to tell the employee how aggrieved he was by the action, that is described in the behavior of the manager and how employment law would view the manager’s behavior. Missing that cost the company not because the company fired the black ee without cause, rather, the company’s agent, the manager, performed a racist and discriminatory action as a representative of the company.
What is missed is that the manager white, green, gray, blue or black cannot substitute his/her feelings for how things should be for the way employment law dictates it must be.