‘Go back to Haiti!' Florida company pays $1.4 million to end lawsuit over racism
Waste Pro of Florida is based out of Longwood, but the accusations in an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit involve what did or didn't happen at Waste Pro's Jacksonville office, 2940 Strickland St. Specifically, the lawsuit in Jacksonville federal court concerns what did and didn't happen to welder Fednol Pierre after he transferred there in October 2021.
The $1.4 million will go to a ground that includes Pierre, 25 co-workers named in the consent decree and any of Waste Pro's Black and/or Haitian-American Jacksonville employees 'who were subjected to a hostile work environment based on their race, color, or national origin, from February 2021 through Dec. 31, 2023.'
The consent decree also requires Waste Pro to hire a racial discrimination expert as a compliance officer to investigate race discrimination complaints and claims of retaliation for such complaints in Waste Pro's Northeast region for the next 18 months and oversee those investigations throughout the company for the next three years.
A statement from Waste Pro corporate communications says:
'Waste Pro has always been committed to fostering a productive and healthy work environment for its employees that is free of harassment and discrimination. This case stems from events alleged to have occurred in 2022, and while Waste Pro did not find evidence of intentional wrongdoing, a settlement was reached to avoid lengthy litigation and refocus on our commitment to our employees and the people we serve.
Waste Pro has proactively enhanced our existing training for all company managers, our internal reporting mechanisms, and our company-wide communication regarding our robust anti-harassment and discrimination policy.'
The consent decree says Waste Pro denies it violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and, officially, admits no liability.
READ MORE: Miami plastic surgery company discriminated against worker with breast cancer, EEOC says
'Go back on the banana boat!'
The lawsuit says Pierre, a certified welder, worked for Waste Pro in Port St. Lucie for two years and three months before transferring to Jacksonville in October 2021. Another welder, the lawsuit said, welcomed him with 'there is no need for you here,' and dropped a racial slur.
This continued over the succeeding days, the EEOC suit said, from two different welders with 'Go back to Haiti, (n-word);' 'Y'all don't belong here;' 'Go back on the banana boat;' 'This is Trump country;' and other pieces of verbal racist aggression.
'The comments and slurs were ubiquitous, frequent, and occurred openly, including in the presence of...a technician, and other similarly aggrieved Black and/or Haitian-American coworkers,' the lawsuit said.
Pierre and a maintenance supervisor told the maintenance manager what was happening and, eventually, an investigation commenced March 29, 2022. After the investigation, the regional human resources manager planned to hold a staff meeting to talk with maintenance workers about race discrimination.
'Before the staff meeting, [Pierre] and another Black employee discovered a stuffed monkey carrying an American flag in Mr. Pierre's work area,' said the lawsuit, although the photo in the lawsuit appears to show a gorilla.
(Images and statements likening Black people to monkeys or gorillas long have been used in attempts to dehumanize Black people.)
The two welders who had been spewing racist epithets at Pierre, the lawsuit said, began retaliating.
They 'refused to communicate with Mr. Pierre about auto-repairs, and they often left him with the least desirable, most difficult welding tasks to complete at night,' the lawsuit said, which also claimed they 'locked the best welding equipment in their personal lockers so that [Pierre] could not access it.'
Believing nothing substantive had been done, Pierre resigned May 12, 2022.
The next day, the lawsuit said, the regional maintenance manager told a maintenance manager 'to incorrectly note in Mr. Pierre's termination paperwork that he was not rehireable because he had twice walked off the job.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
19 minutes ago
- New York Post
LA mayor Karen Bass confronts heavily armed federal agents conducting apparent immigration sweep in park
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass confronted a group of heavily armed federal agents conducting an apparent immigration sweep at a local park on Monday, demanding law enforcement leave the greenspace. Officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and the military units deployed by President Trump arrived at MacArthur Park in force, with the agents seen carrying rifles and traveling across the grounds on foot, horseback and in armored vehicles. Bass, who was due to meet with California Gov. Gavin Newsom in the morning, showed up in the middle of the operation to yell at the agents to get out of the park, slamming the demonstration as a 'political stunt.' 6 LA Mayor Karen Bass confronted border officers operating a sweep across MacArthur Park on Monday. AP 6 Officers on horseback rode around the park, disrupting services for its homeless inhabitants, according to the St. John's Community Health Center. AP 'They need to leave and they need to leave right now!' Bass yelled after getting off the phone with someone coordinating the officers. 'What I saw in the park today looked like a city under siege,' she told reporters following the confrontation. 'It's outrageous and un-American to have armed vehicles in our American parks.' Bass was only at the park momentarily after speaking with CBP Assistant Chief Patrol Agent David Kim, who handed her a direct line to 'the head of customs,' she added, noting that the agents left moments later. Bass and members of the LA City Council said the sweep disrupted a children's summer camp, with the children corralled into a nearby basement while waiting for the agents to leave. 6 The armed forces arrived in armored vehicles, vans and SUVs in an apparent show of force. Chelsea Lauren/Shutterstock 6 The agents were seen marching across an empty soccer field where a children's summer camp session was behing held. X/@MayorOfLA The raid also pushed out members of the St. John's Community Health Center who were conducting their daily check ups with homeless individuals at the park, officials added. The mayor also went onto X to vent about the operation at MacArthur, posting time-lapse video of the agents marching across an empty soccer field inside the park. 'Minutes before, there were more than 20 kids playing — then, the MILITARY comes through,' she said of the raid. 6 Horse-mounted Border Patrol agents at MacArthur Park. AP 'The SECOND I heard about this, I went to the park to speak to the person in charge to tell them it needed to end NOW. Absolutely outrageous,' Bass added. It remains unclear if anyone was arrested during the sweep, as activists had gone around the park to warn people to leave before the officers marched through, the Los Angeles Times reported. 'I think the goal is to spread fear,' Bass said of Monday's raid at the park, as she vowed to uphold the city's status as a sanctuary for immigrants. 6 Bass condemned the deployment at the park as a 'political stunt' and vowed that LA would remain a sanctuary city. AP The LA Police Department said it was unaware of the federal operation going on at MacArthur Park. CBP, which led the operation, did not immediately respond to The Post's request for comment. The Department of Homeland Security said it does not comment on ongoing enforcement operations. Los Angeles has become a hotbed for the Trump administration's immigration policy, with the city seeing chaotic raids and protests unfold last month. The Trump administration has since sued the city, claiming LA is obstructing immigration enforcement operations through its sanctuary city policies. Bass said the city was mounting its own legal challenges against Trump over the raids and deployment of troops in LA.
Los Angeles Times
37 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Migrants deported from U.S. to Salvadoran prison remain under U.S. control, Salvadoran officials tell U.N.
WASHINGTON — The government of El Salvador has acknowledged to United Nations investigators that the Trump administration maintains control of the Venezuelan men who were deported from the U.S. to a notorious Salvadoran prison, contradicting public statements by officials in both countries. The revelation was contained in court filings Monday by lawyers for more than 100 migrants who are seeking to challenge their deportations to El Salvador's mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT. The case is among several challenging President Trump's immigration crackdown. 'In this context, the jurisdiction and legal responsibility for these persons lie exclusively with the competent foreign authorities,' Salvadoran officials wrote in response to queries from the unit of the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The U.N. group has been looking into the fate of the men who were sent to El Salvador from the United States in mid-March, even after a U.S. judge had ordered the planes that were carrying them to be turned around. The Trump administration has argued that it is powerless to return the men, noting that they are beyond the reach of U.S. courts and no longer have access to due process rights or other U.S. constitutional guarantees. But lawyers for the migrants said the U.N. report shows otherwise. 'El Salvador has confirmed what we and everyone else understood: it is the United States that controls what happens to the Venezuelans languishing at CECOT. Remarkably the U.S. government didn't provide this information to us or the court,' American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Lee Gelerent said in an email. Skye Perryman, chief executive and president of Democracy Forward, said the documents show 'that the administration has not been honest with the court or the American people.' The ACLU and Democracy Forward are both representing the migrants. Administration officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The administration in March agreed to pay $6 million for El Salvador to house 300 migrants. The deal sparked immediate controversy when Trump invoked an 18th century wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to quickly remove men it has accused of being members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. In a related case, the administration mistakenly sent Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the same prison, despite a judge's order prohibiting the Maryland man from being sent to El Salvador. The administration initially resisted court orders to bring him back to the U.S., saying he was no longer in American custody. Eventually, Abrego Garcia was returned to the U.S., where he now faces criminal charges of human smuggling while legal battles continue. Last month, a coalition of immigrant rights groups sued to invalidate the prison deal with El Salvador, arguing that the arrangement to move migrant detainees outside the reach of U.S. courts violates the Constitution. Sherman writes for the Associated Press.
Yahoo
39 minutes ago
- Yahoo
‘The ground shook': drone attacks help Haitian government wrest control of capital from criminal gangs
The earth beneath Jimmy Antoine's apartment shuddered and for a split second he feared another natural disaster had struck, like the 2010 cataclysm that brought Port-au-Prince to its knees. 'The ground shook like it does during an earthquake. You tremble like everything might collapse,' said the 23-year-old trainee mechanic, recalling how he and his panicked neighbours raced out on to the street. This time, though, the jolt had come not from deep below, but from high above: it was the detonation of a weaponized drone of the sort being used to hunt Haitian gang members who have hijacked most of the country's capital since the start of a coordinated criminal insurrection early last year. 'People had told me about drones … but this one caught me off guard … It felt like it exploded right where I was standing,' said Antoine of the 6am attack last month near Sico, the working-class neighbourhood where he lives. As Haiti's beleaguered government struggles to reconquer a sprawling seaside city now almost entirely controlled by the gangs, armed drones have become a key part of their arsenal. Since the drone campaign began in March, at least 300 people have been killed by the remote-control devices and almost 400 injured, according to a local human rights group called RNDDH. Videos of those attacks have spread rapidly on social media, painting a terrifying portrait of the drone warfare unfolding on the streets of one of the Caribbean's largest cities. One such video, which the Guardian identified as having taken place in a gang-run area called Fort National, shows four people – at least two of them armed – moving through an alley before being hit from above by an explosion. Blue and white smoke fills the backstreet as the men scatter. Another clip, posted on social media by a US missionary, shows an attack on an evangelical theological seminary about 2 miles south-west of Fort National, not far from Jimmy Antoine's home. At least one person can be seen sprinting for cover as the drone swoops towards its second-floor target and explodes. 'I have fond memories of teaching in the very classroom it struck,' Luke Perkins, the president of the missionary group Crossworld, tweeted in mid-June. Trevor Ball, a former US army explosive ordnance disposal technician, said the drones used in Port-au-Prince appeared to be first-person-view (FPV) drones. Images of one such improvised weapon were shared on social media in March, reputedly from the aftermath of a police raid on a gang stronghold in the Lower Delmas area. The Guardian was able to identify this model of FPV drone, and found it being sold on Chinese e-commerce sites for about $200, making them relatively cheap and expendable. Ball said it was not possible to determine from the images the exact munitions being used but it was likely the drones had either been fitted with explosives intended for commercial mining, or black powder – a homemade mix of potassium nitrate, charcoal and sulfur that is used in fireworks. 'These tactics are used in other parts of the world, especially in the Ukraine-Russia war. Using first-person-view drones to deliver explosive devices has become extremely common there, and has been seen in other conflicts as well,' Bell added. One other video that surfaced earlier this year showed a targeted drone strike on a moving car less than 500 metres (547 yards) away from the compound believed to belong to Johnson André, a notorious gang boss known by the nickname 'Izo' whose gang is called 5 Segonn ('Five Seconds'). The car was driving near waterways reportedly used for drug and gun trafficking by the gangs. The provenance of the online drone videos remains unclear but many suspect at least some of them are being produced and released by a shadowy government-recruited armed group which has been enlisted to bolster the counterattack against the gangs. The aerial videos generally depict 'action shots' or the moment the drone strikes on a target, often edited and set to energetic music. Last month the New York Times, citing senior Haitian and US government officials, reported that the controversial Blackwater founder Erik Prince had been working with the Haitian government 'to carry out deadly operations against gangs that are terrorizing the nation and threatening to take over its capital'. The newspaper claimed American contractors, including Prince, had been hired 'to work on a secret taskforce to deploy drones meant to kill gang members'. Two experts said Prince had recently shipped 'a large cache of weapons' to Haiti and was seeking to recruit Haitian American military veterans to send to Port-au-Prince as part of a 150-strong mercenary force over the coming months. Earlier this month, Fritz Alphonse Jean, the head of the transitional council that has attempted to govern Haiti since its prime minister, Ariel Henry, was toppled early in the gang rebellion, confirmed that a private security firm had been engaged by the government. But he declined to name it or say how it was being paid. Jean argued it was impossible for Haiti's underequipped and underfunded police to 'face these challenges alone'. Perhaps surprisingly, Haitian human rights activists have backed the use of drone warfare to target criminal groups who have forced more than 1 million people to flee their homes and killed thousands. A UN-backed international security force, led by Kenyan police officers, has so far failed to repel the criminal advance. 'For us … drones are entirely proportionate to the level of weaponry the gangs possess,' said Rosy Auguste Ducéna, a respected human rights advocate who works for RNDDH in Port-au-Prince. Ducéna said her group supported such strikes against gang strongholds. 'Why? Because we consider the sophistication of the weapons in the gangs' hands, how those weapons are used to inflict suffering on the rest of the population – the crimes we know about: killings, thefts, rape, gang-rape, the burning of people's entire belongings,' she said. Ducéna thought drones were 'instilling fear' in heavily armed gang members and appeared to have such criminals on the back foot. 'We cannot dismiss the fact that these operations are having an impact on them. The element of uncertainty is also very important. The gangs don't necessarily know when or where a strike will happen, and we believe that's one reason for the drop in gang activity we're currently seeing,' she said, describing how the fear that has gripped her city's streets was gradually subsiding. 'Many banks have reopened, and many schools are open again. There is no longer the same tension as during the height of the insecurity … There is a glimmer of hope,' said Ducéna, although she voiced concern that the taskforce coordinating the drone attacks was being led by the office of the prime minister, Alix Fils-Aimé, rather than security officials. 'We believe [this is] extremely dangerous for democracy. A political authority should not be leading a team conducting this type of operation,' Ducéna said. Foreign human rights activists and specialists question the efficacy – not to mention legality – of using weaponized drones in a country which, despite all the bloodshed, is not officially considered to be in a state of conflict. 'I don't think it works. They haven't killed a single gang leader after three, going on four months of doing this, and we don't know how many civilians have been harmed,' said one expert, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue. 'It just shows how absolutely desperate the government and the police [are].' 'I think it's a sign of desperation … It shows how desperate people are to have some sign that … something can be done to stop [the gangs]. That's really what it is all about,' they added, fretting that gang leaders might adopt the same tactics, exacerbating an already dire situation. 'What if they [the gangs] start shooting off drones? The escalation factor is also very worrying.' Earlier this month there were signs that gangs were already seeking to build their own arsenal of drones when three alleged 'terrorists' were arrested in the neighbouring Dominican Republic trying to buy the devices. In recent years both Mexican cartels and drug traffickers in Rio de Janeiro have started using armed drones to launch attacks on authorities or rivals. On the ground in Port-au-Prince, many offer a more positive assessment of the aerial offensive. Last month, Belony Jassé, an 18-year-old high school student who said he heard drone explosions 'all the time', finally managed to return to the home that gangs once forced her to flee after security improved. The sound of drone attacks terrified the algebra-loving teenager. 'It makes you jump. It's scary. You don't expect the noise. You might drop whatever you're holding. The sound is very loud. It breaks your heart, it takes time to recover. It's heavy,' he said. But Jassé credited those attacks – coupled with an intensification of ground operations by police and vigilante groups – with the recent progress in his neighbourhood. 'I don't hear much gunfire any more. Last night I hardly heard any shots … This week I haven't heard any gunfire at all,' he said. The situation remained critical, Jassé admitted. 'But compared to how it was, I'm not scared any more.'
