EVERETT – A fired Everett employee who wants his job back has reached a tentative settlement agreement in his racial discrimination lawsuit against the city.
The City Council is scheduled this morning to vote on the $85,000 settlement, which includes back pay and attorney fees for Alphonso Washington, 43, who worked with the public works department for 21 years.
The 2005 lawsuit alleged that Washington, who is black, was routinely called “boy” and “Mississippi mudman” and other racial slurs by his supervisors in the city’s street division 18 years ago. His termination in January 2005 was the culmination of years of on-the-job discrimination, Washington alleged.
Nobody was at Washington’s Marysville-area home Tuesday afternoon.
After he complained about the earlier harassment, Washington alleged that his supervisors retaliated by routinely passing him for promotions. Less experienced, less capable white employees with less seniority were promoted instead, according to the lawsuit. Washington claimed that he was denied the chance to train for other jobs that would improve his chances of being promoted, while white colleagues were given training opportunities.
The suit also alleged that he was singled out and wrongfully terminated.
Robert Christie, a Seattle attorney representing the city in the case, declined Tuesday to explain why the city agreed to settle. He said it would be improper to discuss details until the council votes on the matter and that the broad terms of the agreement reached in mediation are approved.
Judith Lonnquist, a Seattle attorney representing Washington said that he would get his job back under the deal, and is expected to return to work on Nov. 13.
Washington was terminated for allegedly working on the construction of his new house while on sick leave, Lonnquist said. His termination order also accused him of abusing the city’s jury duty policy.
Lonnquist said those allegations are unproved and that they served only as an excuse to get rid of Washington.
Washington made close to $50,000 as a steel painter for the city in 2002, according to public records.
Early in his career, as a 25-year-old street division laborer, Washington lodged a racial harassment complaint against his supervisors.
Two supervisors were suspended in March 1989 for 30 days without pay for being “consistently and frequently abusive to street laborers.” The superintendent of the street division also was reassigned.
Washington’s supervisors were required to take management skills training and to attend affirmative action classes.
An internal investigation and independent probe into the 1989 allegations found two supervisors engaged in “name calling, derogatory statements, intimidation and favoritism.”
The investigations did not conclusively support Washington’s accusations. However, co-workers at the time confirmed his claims during interviews with The Herald.
This isn’t the first racial harassment lawsuit to beset Everett’s public works department in recent years.
In June 2005, a jury awarded two former public works employees a total of $585,000.
The jury determined that the city had done nothing to halt a Hispanic supervisor’s racial harassment and retaliation against the white utility workers. Among other things, the supervisor used the racial slur “honky” around white workers.
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