CAMPBELL SOUP IN HOT SOUP

CAMPBELL SOUP IN HOT SOUP

Black Employees File Lawsuit Against Campbell Soup Co.

• By: The Industry Cosign
• Posted: Jul 15

A nationwide class action lawsuit has been filed against Campbell Soup Company, charging that African American employees are denied professional development opportunities. The lawsuit has been filed in Camden, New Jersey, home of Campbell’s headquarters.

Filing on behalf of the Plaintiff Chester Hicks and the proposed Class are the Houston, Texas based firm, Nelkin, Nelkin & Krock, P.C., and Sidney L. Gold & Associates, based in Philadelphia.

The complaint asserts that African Americas are repeatedly passed over for promotions in favor of less qualified and less experienced white employees. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has issued a finding of probable cause in connection with Plaintiff Hicks’ charge. The Commission’s investigation revealed that Campbell’s was engaged in the practice of awarding promotions using a subjective, informal, and secretive method in which white managers were selected favored white candidates.

According to the Commission, the sales position of “Territory Manager II” was not commonly known to exist, nor were the promotions to that position given to whites competitively announced. Furthermore, this position was not listed, so neither Plaintiff Hicks nor other African Americans could have known to apply for it. Campbell’s contends that the position was created to “fairly justify retaining certain employees at an appropriate wage schedule after they had been reassigned.” However, the Commission found that this explanation “is called into question by a number of factors, including the secretiveness with which these actions were handled, efforts to disguise the existence of this position and its quite belated bestowal on [Plaintiff Hicks] and another African American co-worker.”

As a result of Campbell’s discriminatory practices, Plaintiff Hicks, who received only excellent performance reviews over his 24-year tenure with Campbell’s sales force, “saw a steady stream of white co-workers progress through the ranks of Territory Manager, Account Manager, Account Executive, District Manager, Regional Manager and beyond, while he and his African American co-workers remained in entry level Territory Manager positions despite their years of experience and their qualifications.”

The complaint asserts that Campbell’s began requiring or strongly preferring four-year college degrees for all new Territory Managers on the sales force in an effort to justify its discriminatory treatment of African Americans. Campbell’s instituted this requirement without ever conducting any studies to determine if a college degree was a bona fide occupational qualification for this position, or any other position within the career path to higher level positions within its sales force. The Commission concluded that the bachelor’s degree requirement “would have an adverse disparate impact against African American job applicants and/or employees that would not satisfy the business necessity test as a requirement for hiring.”

Furthermore, according to the suit, for those very few African Americans who do advance past entry level positions, there is a “glass ceiling” that prevents them from being considered for higher management positions.

There was a time when Campbell’s hired an African American Director of Human Resources. The Director admitted to Plaintiff Hicks the existence of both a glass ceiling and a “glass wall.” This same Director appointed the company’s first African American Account Executive. Within months, Campbell’s decided to eliminate the Executive’s position and offered the African American individual a position three levels below the Account Executive position. The African American employee resigned from the company. Within three months of his resignation, Campbell’s reinstated the Account Executive position, and hired a white individual.

The lawsuit also charges that African American employees’ compensation is adversely affected by Campbell’s discriminatory actions. According to the complaint, African American sales personnel are not only affected by unfair promotion procedures, but are assigned to smaller accounts in remote locations, negatively impacting their compensation. Furthermore, African American sales employees are allegedly compensated at the lower end of the salary range for their job level. Thus, any percentage of salary merit increase compensates white employees at a higher rate than African American employees. Decisions as to account assignments, salary and merit increases are left to the discretion of the predominantly white supervisors.

Plaintiff Hicks filed the class action suit on behalf of himself and all African Americans employed by Campbell’s in salaried sales positions in the United States at any time after July 7, 2003. The suit seeks an injunction to end Campbell’s discriminatory practices and prevent current and future harm, as well as compensatory and punitive damages for the Plaintiff and the class.

Nascar Driver Faces Discrimination

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NUMBER OF

DISCRIMINATION

SUITS SOAR

By Jennifer Hicks

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) will not go out of business. Charges of racial discrimination and sexual harassment have increased every single decade since Title VII was passed in 1964. The statistics are chilling:

• Sexual harassment charges increased 146 percent between 1992 and 2001. They have increased 150,000 percent since 1980. (1)
• Pregnancy discrimination charges increased 126 percent between 1992 and 2001. (2)
• Sexual discrimination charges increased 112 percent during the same period. (3)
• Racial discrimination charges increased 484 percent between the 1980-1989 decade and the 1990-1999 decade. (4)
• National origin charges increased 112 percent in the period 1992-2001. (5)

What’s worse is that the above numbers account for only some of the discrimination suits that have been filed Not all complaints go through the EEOC; some are filed independently.

Historical Background

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 precludes any form of employment-related discrimination based on an individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Since its enactment, employment-related discrimination suits have climbed more than 100 percent per decade. And, before you think that this statistic merely reflects a litigious society in general, keep in mind that civil case filings in the federal courts between 1990 and 2000 showed only a 20 percent increase.

Why the Increase in Discrimination Suits?

Researchers John Donohue and Peter Siegelman suggest that two reasons exist for this increase in discrimination lawsuits:

• the increase in the number of non-whites and women in professional and managerial positions
• the increasingly integrated character of the workplace, making it easier to observe unfair practices against a particular group or groups

Certainly each statement has merit and could indeed be perceived as contributing to an increase in awareness of discriminatory practices. In addition, a couple of surveys on racist attitudes show that such attitudes have diminished over time.

But a National Opinion Research Center survey, judged to be more accurate since it used a seven-point scale, concludes “most Americans see most minority groups in a decidedly negative light on a number of important characteristics….[and] ethnic images remain important determinants of inter-group attitudes.”

Combine the above findings with the following:

• The number of hate groups in the United States jumped by approximately 10% in the year 2000, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
• In seven of the ten industries studied by the General Accounting Office, the wage gap between male and female managers widened between 1995 and 2000.
• There were 645 bias incidents between September 11 and September 17, 2002. These incidents ranged in severity from racist jokes to assault, arson, and shootings. The victims were often Americans of South Asian or Middle Eastern heritage.
• A National Urban League survey of African Americans under age 35 found the single most important problem facing blacks was racism and discrimination.
• The Harvard University Civil Rights Project found that 70% of the nation’s black students go to predominantly minority schools; 37% of Latino students attend schools where 90% to 100% of the students are also minorities; white students tend to go to schools where more than 80% of the students are also white
• “There is one final reason for forgetting indigenous people. Our crimes against them are too horrible to contemplate… [T]he American nation in essence conducted a two century war against the indigenous people (ethnic cleansing in which blacks also participated) which didn’t end until Wounded Knee. That’s pretty hard to contemplate and mighty expensive to deal with. So the problem is swept under the enormous rug of American fantasy and forgetfulness.” – Roger Wilkins, professor at George Mason University

When taken in context, then, the meteoric rise in employment-related discrimination and harassment suits clearly isn’t just about an increase in the diversity of the workforce.

In fact, it looks increasingly as if racist and misogynist attitudes are on the rise.