The Allegation of Discrimination of Amtrak - Research Paper Example

 The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, commonly known as Amtrak, is a railroad service for city railroad service across the United States. Amtrak is a government owned company. Since being formed in the 1970’s Amtrak has a long record of alleged discrimination. The accused and proven discrimination includes gender, age, and race complaints. Since the number of complaints is so vast, this paper will focus on three specific race lawsuits. Campbell vs. National Railroad Passenger Corp., National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, Abner, Jr., and the class action suit settled for 8 million dollars in 1999. These three cases show the unfriendly environment that black employees had to face. Amtrak had flagrant discrimination in the workplace that had to be punished through monetary settlements. Campbell vs. National Railroad Passenger Corp. Campbell vs. National Railroad Passenger Corp. was a suit brought against Amtrak for discriminating against a black Conductor. “On March 3, 2009, a federal jury in Oakland issued a verdict against Amtrak for $677,000 for Race Discrimination toward John Earl Campbell, an African-American Conductor” (Egan 2009). The case was brought due to Mr. Campbell’s refusal for engineer training during the five years he worked for Amtrak (Egan 2009). After being terminated for complaining about race discrimination, Mr. Campbell filed suit for discrimination. It also came out in the trial that top management and managers regularly used racial slurs in front of black employees. The lack of training for higher positions was also an issue. The jury found that based on race alone Mr. Campbell was passed over for training and promotion. It was also found that Mr. Campbell was terminated due to being black. The suit Mr. Campbell brought was surprising for several reasons. Firstly, this discrimination complaint was not brought in the Deep South, but in Oakland, California. Secondly this is the twenty-first century. Racism, especially in the workplace, should not be prevalent in today’s corporations. Suits from the 1970’s can be understood since that was the era after the Civil Rights Movement, but this is 2009. Discrimination in the workplace has been outlawed for decades. Amtrak seems to think they are above the law in regards to discrimination laws. National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, Abner National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, Abner is the case about a black engineer in the Oakland Maintenance Yard. Mr. Morgan asserted the black workers had to endure slurs, discipline based on race, and refused training opportunities (Jet 2004). Another accusation was most of the mangers were white. Amtrak responded with the basis of Mr. Morgan’s termination. Amtrak said Mr. Morgan threatened a supervisor (Jet 2004). However even some managers testified for Mr. Morgan. “In the Morgan trial, a former Amrak Manager testified that Amtrak’s Managers regularly enjoyed watching one of the top Managers perform the “Shuffle Butt Ni—er” dance in the office at night” (Egan 2009). The environment was clearly discriminatory. In this case the jury awarded Mr. Morgan half a million dollars. The Morgan case was tried before the Campbell case. Clearly in the years in between the cases the situation in Oakland was not improved. In Morgan’s case “’A parade of witnesses at the trial clearly demonstrated that racial hostility permeated the Oakland yard,’ said Anthony Prince, one of Morgan's lawyers” (Jet 2004). If this was the case in the 2004 ruling, why was the Campbell case tried five years later? The answer is Amtrak did not address the issue of discriminating practices. Class Action Suit In a class action suit, numerous plaintiffs filed a complaint that ended in an 8 million dollar settlement in 1999. The plaintiffs alleged that managers would promote lesser qualified whites, while keeping black employees at the same level for years. Blacks complained about "the existence of an intensely hostile and racially charged environment" (Jet 1999). One example was: Roberta Perry, one of the plaintiffs, alleged that she was subjected repeatedly to the harshest of racial epithets from her former supervisors, reported the newspaper. The suit charged that during a downsizing of her department those same supervisors found jobs for everyone but her and another Black employee. Perry accepted a job at Amtrak that resulted in a 50 percent cut in her pay, according to the complaint, the newspaper reported. (Jet 1999) This lawsuit was settled by Amtrak and the plaintiffs. This case was the earliest case presented in this paper. After this settlement, Amtrak promised to correct the situation. The national passenger railroad, without admitting liability, said it would change its hiring, promotion and performance-appraisal procedures to make them more evenhanded, reported the newspaper. It also agreed to completely revamp its internal equal-employment-opportunity investigation and enforcement procedures. Amtrak, according to the newspaper, said it agreed to hire an outside consultant to perform a company compensation study and adjust the pay of any undercompensated Black management employees. Amtrak, in addition, created a new department focused on business diversity headed by a vice president. (Jet 1999) Despite the promise to change hiring techniques, and the hiring of a consultant, the discrimination lawsuits continued. The problem is Amtrak did not fulfill the promise, or take enough measures in order to prevent discrimination issues. Discrimination Causes Amtrak has a problem with discrimination. Not only do they have a problem with discrimination, Amtrak has a problem dealing with discrimination. One of the reasons for the lack of progress with discrimination is Amtrak is owned by the government. Amtrak was created by Congress in 1970 to take over the passenger rail services previously required to be operated by private freight railroad companies in the United States. Those companies reported they had operated the services without profit for a decade or more. More than half of the rail passenger routes operated by the freight railroad companies were eliminated when Amtrak began service on May 1, 1971. (National Railroad Passenger Corporation 2008) If the company loses money, managers and CEOs appointed by Congress do not lose their jobs. The monetary lose is picked up by the taxpayers. For example: In FY 2006, Amtrak earned approximately $2.05 billion in revenue and incurred approximately $3.07 billion in expenses, covering 67% of its operating costs. Excluding depreciation, a non-cash cost, Amtrak covered 80% of its operating costs. No country in the world operates a passenger rail system without some form of public support for capital costs and/or operating expenses. (National Railroad Passenger Corporation 2008) Some of the capital costs and/or operating expenses are the settlements and judgments mentioned above. The three settlements in this paper are only a few in Amtrak’s history. So the unlimited amount of money the United States government has created little or no stop to these practices. Amtrak Solutions Amtrak has made policies against discrimination. For example, an ethical code was put into place. Part of it states: You are personally responsible for your own conduct in complying with all provisions of the Code of Ethics and for promptly reporting known or suspected violations of this Code of Ethics or Amtrak policies to your supervisor, manager or the Amtrak Ethics and Compliance Hotline (1-866- 908-7231). (Amtrak Code of Ethics) This personal approach could possibly alienate potential whistle blowers or incidents that are reported. This ethical code puts the responsibility on the worker. If the worker is supposed to report incidents to managers that are known to discriminate, then many workers will not report the incidents. In the two out of three cases examined above, two employees were terminated for reporting these events. This personal approach does not seem to be working. Amtrak has created hostile workplaces for minorities. All the lawsuits presented in this paper speak of an environment where discrimination flourishes. Accusations against the managers have also been mentioned. Management seems to have a problem. Amtrak has also addressed discrimination directly. They have made a harassment policy. The policy is outlined as follows: Our policy is to provide a work environment that is pleasant, professional and free from intimidation, hostility or other offenses that might interfere with work performance. Amtrak does not tolerate any form of harassment – verbal, physical or visual – by supervisors, other employees, customers, suppliers, agents or other third parties. Harassment is personally offensive, lowers morale and interferes with the ability to work cooperatively. Accordingly, Amtrak does not tolerate harassment based on sex, race, color, religion, national origin, age, physical or mental disability, veteran status, sexual orientation or any other status protected by applicable federal or state law. (Amtrak Code of Ethics) This is a good policy, but Amtrak has not fulfilled the ideals. Additional Measures Suggestions for Amtrak to get on the right track would be training. Diversity training for all employees should be implemented. A special program for managers and management hopefuls need to be put into place as well. Everyone from the highest to the lowest employee needs to take classes on how to be culturally correct in the company. Since Amtrak is having so much trouble and lawsuits, an outside consulting company needs to perform the training. Having the same managers being accused of discrimination conducting the training would not be appropriate. Congress needs to look into Amtrak. Any other corporation in America has to accountable to their shareholders, so Amtrak needs to be accountable as well. If lawsuits are settled in the millions of dollars, Congress needs to see what the problem is. Taxpayers should not have to pay for decisions of faulty managers or CEOs. The settlements are not hurting Amtrak, only the taxpayers picking up the bill. Amtrak has a history of lawsuits based on discrimination. The company needs to get the problem under control, or new management needs to be put into place. Just because this is government subsidized business does not mean an endless amount of money exists. The hostile workplace needs to be replaced with a professional and legal environment. Amtrak, the taxpayer, and minorities can only win with this professional environment. Bibliography Amtrak Code of Ethics. Amtrak Ethics and Compliance Hotline: 1-866-908-7231. Egan, Sandy. (2009). Amtrak Pacific Division Discrimination Settlement. Trainorders.com. 25 Sep 2010 http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,1889802 Harris, H.R. "The struggle continues - racial discrimination - Brief Article". Black Enterprise. 25 Sep 2010 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1365/is_2_31/ai_64910149/ Jet. (1999). "Amtrak Pays $8 Million To Settle Racial Discrimination Lawsuit". Jet. 25 Sep 2010 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_7_96/ai_55333684/ Jet. (2004). Amtrak worker wins $500,000 in bias lawsuit". Jet. 25 Sep 2010 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_25_105/ai_n6153172/ Killian, E. (2002). National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, Abner, Jr. (06/10/2002). Medill News Service. 25 Sep. 2010. http://onthedocket.org/cases/2001/national-railroad-passenger-corp-v-morgan-abner-jr-06102002 National Railroad Passenger Corporation. (2008). Amtrak Factsheet. National Railroad Passenger Corporation. 25 Sep. 2010. http://web.archive.org/web/20080120101132/http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Amtrak/am2Copy/Title_Image_Copy_Page&c=am2Copy&cid=1081442674300&ssid=542 Read More