city &local 2 dec 084 Dec 2008 13:48
African-American cafeteria workers employed by a London-based catering company serving the Comcast Center have filed a $200 million lawsuit alleging supervisors practiced "Jim Crow segregation" and used racist and demeaning slurs.
The 11 current and former employees of the Compass Group filed the suit in federal court yesterday against Compass, two Compass employees and two related companies.
"Our clients have been called names such as 'chim-chim,' 'monkey,' 'gorilla' and 'the N-word,' " Kenneth P. Thompson, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said yesterday at a news conference outside the Comcast skyscraper at 17th Street and JFK Boulevard.
Only four of the employees still work there. One employee said he felt forced to quit because of the racial slurs, and the other workers were fired after complaining of mistreatment, said Thompson, of the New York firmThompson, Wigdor & Gilly LLP.
Thompson also accused the catering firm of practicing "Jim Crow segregation" when it provided private catering service such as during the Democratic Governors Association meeting at the Comcast Center in July. He said black employees were "forced to work in the back by the kitchen or were excluded from staffing these events entirely."
Thompson said that Compass "brought in white" workers to staff special events.
Crystal Miles, a Compass employee still working as a coffee shop supervisor, said she heard the chef call black worker