SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- A federal judge has certified a class action lawsuit alleging that FedEx Corp. discriminated against minority workers.
The suit was filed in 2003 by eight current and former employees. It seeks millions of dollars in damages and an end to the company's alleged discriminatory practices.
The class action case, certified Wednesday, includes an estimated 10,000 current and former hourly workers and about 1,000 low-level management employees in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming and parts of Texas.
The suit contends the delivery service paid thousands of current and former minority employees less than their white counterparts, passed over them for promotions and gave minorities poor work evaluations.
Here's an interesting tid-bit from the plaintiffs' attorney:
James Finberg, an attorney representing the class, said FedEx normally promotes from within, yet three times the number of package handlers and loaders are minorities compared to drivers, who earn more. Twice the number of minorities fail promotional tests than do whites, Finberg added.
"FedEx knows that black and Hispanics fail at a much higher rate, but yet has not changed the test," Finberg said.
Damn FedEx for not lowering their employee standards for the sake of equality!
Seriously though, if FedEx has displayed demonstrable tendencies toward favoring one race over another then they deserve to be punished. That being said, from what I can see in this particular article this lawsuit has to do with FedEx not lowering its standards. Which is, of course, unfair to the employees who do meet the standards and earn raises and promotions.
After all, employment decisions made on merit can never be racist. If minority employees are, for whatever reason, deficient as a group when compared to non-minority employees FedEx can hardly be blamed for that. Its more indicative of a larger societal problem than any sort of corporate bias.