City utility board faces 10th discrimination lawsuit from employees
Newsy
A utility board in Kansas City, Kansas, was hit with its 10th lawsuit alleging discrimination on Tuesday.
A Kansas utility worker has filed a lawsuit against his employer alleging it allowed him to face continuous racial discrimination and harassment, marking the 10th such lawsuit filed against the public body.
In his federal lawsuit filed Tuesday, Eric Lindsey says the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities (BPU) and its owner, Unified Government, have done nothing to stop the discrimination he said he's faced since being hired as a carpenter in 2012, despite repeated complaints.
In one instance, Lindsey, who is Black, said his coworker answered "yes, kind of" when another employee asked if the White man was racist. The same two coworkers, Lindsey alleges, have consistently acted to hinder his work, one time removing a breaker that prevented Lindsey from following instructions to open a garage door for ventilation purposes.
Other times, the two White coworkers allegedly hid tools so that Lindsey couldn't use them to get his work done, or hid his BPU truck keys, forcing Lindsey to walk to multiple jobs while others have never had to do so.
Lindsey also accused the Kansas utility of requiring him to work many two-person jobs alone though his White employees always had partners, overly criticizing his quality of work, and failing to notify him he had been exposed to asbestos when removing a floor.
