Jim Crow Is Back In Philadelphia

August 5. 2009

First a group of black children are unlawfully and unconstitutionally denied access to a club swimming pool, even though they paid their dues.

Now comes a lawsuit that looks like it was filed 60 years ago, regarding a waste transfer company in Philadelphia, called Gibson Trowery, maintaining whites only bathrooms and water coolers. Yes, you read that correctly.

It's awful when something like this slaps you in the face in modern times. You feel as though someone set the clock back several decades. I kept reading the following article thinking, this has to be a joke or some kind of satire site, but it is real.

Alleged Racism in Philly Workplace: Whites Only Bathroom, Water Cooler

August 2, 2009 - ”As a man I would have put my elbow down his throat. You’re not going to talk to me like that.” That’s what supervisor John Gill allegedly said to a black shop steward who brought black worker complaints to his attention. Two black employees are now suing the city, claiming decades of racial discrimination and harassment suffered by black employees at a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, waste transfer plant.

Leslie Young, a former worker and Gibson Trowery, who still works at the station, filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission in October 2007. Their attorney, Howard K. Trubman describes shocking instances of workplace racism, not seen since the Jim Crow days.

The alleged racial segregation imposed on the workplace by the supervisor, led to increased tension between black and white workers, with the two groups remaining apart with little interaction.

The workers’ complaint says supervisor John Gill kept segregated bathrooms for white and black workers. The white bathroom was conveniently located and was kept locked, with only white workers having access to the keys. The bathroom set aside for black workers, was down five flights of stairs and kept in poor condition.

The complaint says that black workers attempting to use the “whites only bathroom” risked being suspended from their jobs. “It was very degrading and humiliating,” said Young.

The segregated bathrooms were not the only humiliation imposed on black workers at the waste transfer plant. The complaint also alleges that only the white workers were permitted to drive the newer garbage trucks. The so-called “white driver’s” keys” were kept in a locked drawer of the supervisor’s desk.

Additionally, Gill the supervisor kept a chilled water cooler in his office, that he only made available to white workers, reserving a water fountain elsewhere in the building for black workers. Young recalled one very hot summer day, when the cool water was denied to black workers...

A trial is expected next summer and the lawsuit is seeking Gill’s dismissal in addition to monetary damages.

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