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Mel King, the Boston civil rights activist and former mayoral candidate, asked the MBTA Board of Directors on Wednesday to immediately address complaints of discrimination raised by minority employees, as state transportation officials launched a top-to-bottom review of the agency’s hiring, promotion and other workplace issues.
“I can’t believe I am standing here dealing with these issues,” King told the board. “Injustice has been done. Do something to make sure these practices stop.”
David Brown, an African-American carpenter and a long-time “temporary” MBTA employee, told the board the agency is not moving minority employees into permanent jobs. “I would be an asset to the MBTA,” he said, describing how less-experienced co-workers were promoted while he was not.
Board members tried to move on to other business after hearing the complaints of several minority employees, but King demanded to know what the board intended to do. John Jenkins, the board chairman, said that discrimination issues were already being discussed within MassDOT, but King said that’s “not new information.” King’s parting advice to the MBTA employees: “Don’t waste your time. Go to court.”
Some minority employees are considering legal action against the T and have been meeting with Federal Transit Administration officials to discuss their concerns.
Paul Griffo, a FTA Washington spokesman, said in a statement Tuesday that the agency has met with employees to review their complaints. “Any FTA Office of Civil Rights conducted investigation, if it were to occur, would be into possible systemic discriminatory practices rather than individual incidents of discrimination,” he said.
The FTA did not respond to requests for additional details about the nature of the complaints and whether they involved specific hiring or promotions practices.
Craig Dias, a leader of the MBTA’s Latino Alliance and a founder of the Concerned Minority Employees, headed up the employee group that met with federal authorities. Dias, an African-American employee who has worked 18 years at the T, claims that Latino employees are underrepresented in MBTA jobs and that women have yet to achieve parity in salaries.
The Latino employee group is working with Philip Gordon of Boston’s Gordon Law Group. Gordon, who attended the board meeting, declined to comment on future legal action or timelines. In December, Gordon secured a $40 million settlement from Wal-Mart in a wage-and-hour class action judgment to pay nearly 90,000 current and former Bay State employees.
Bay State transportation officials said that they did not know about any meetings between FTA officials and individual MBTA employees, nor were they aware of any possible lawsuit.
“While the MBTA has not been served with a class action complaint nor informed of an FTA investigation, the Authority continues to work very hard to enforce its policies and procedures that deter discrimination, encourage cooperation, and reward strong work performances – regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, age, or gender,” MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said in a statement.
John Lozada, director of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation Civil Rights Office, also announced that the department intends to conduct a “top-to-bottom assessment” of the MBTA’s Office of Diversity and Civil Rights to root out civil rights complaints that have been “alleged to have been mishandled, left unaddressed, or unresolved by previous management,” as well as review temporary work assignments and the failure to move those job holders into permanent slots. MassDOT will also create a “MBTA Civil Rights Roundtable” to address civil rights and diversity issues.
These steps are necessary to jumpstart “a process of reconciliation and renewal made necessary by years of mistrust, miscommunication, and perceived unfairness felt and experienced by employees at the MBTA,” Lozada said.
