Black workers accuse plant of segregation

WASHINGTON – The way black workers tell it in a lawsuit filed last week, a “Whites Only” sign was posted on the door of a freshly renovated bathroom at Tyson’s poultry plant in Ashland, Ala. Only white employees had the keys.

After some complaints, the sign was removed, but the bathroom was kept locked, and the refrigerator and cabinets in a new employee lounge were padlocked. Only white workers had keys.

“When I was young, my mother used to tell me stories about segregated bathrooms,” Henry Adams, a plaintiff in the suit, wrote. “I never thought that her reality of 71 years ago would become my reality today.”

Adams and 12 other black workers at the plant filed a discrimination suit last week against Tyson Foods Inc., the world’s largest meat producer.

The regional office of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is also suing Tyson for violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits workplace discrimination.