Black Workers File Racial Bias Suit Against Signature Flight Support Corp - $10 Million

Originally published in The San Francisco Chronicle FEBRUARY 9, 2005

Copyright 2005 The Chronicle Publishing Co. 

By: Bob Egelko

African American employees have filed a $10 million discrimination suit against the San Francisco branch of Signature Flight Support Corp., the world's largest service company for private planes and executive jets, claiming unfair treatment in pay, promotions and firings.

One plaintiff in the proposed class-action suit, filed last week in U.S. District Court, said he had been told by the general manager at a 2003 meeting that he had two drawbacks as a supervisor: "You're black, and you have a stammering problem."

The remark to Donald Hamilton showed both race and disability discrimination, the lawsuit said. Another plaintiff claimed sex discrimination, saying she was subjected to lewd comments and unwanted touching and sexual advances. Two of the four plaintiffs said they had been fired for made-up reasons when they complained.

"Not only are there a few racists, obviously, on the ground, but higher-ups at the corporation have known about the problem and failed to take any action," Louise Renne, the former San Francisco city attorney who represents the plaintiffs, said Tuesday.

Signature, a U.S. subsidiary of the British company BBA Group, has 1,700 employees at more than 40 U.S. airports, the suit said. Renne said she didn't know how many African Americans worked for the company in San Francisco.

An inquiry to Signature was referred to a spokesman at its national headquarters in Orlando, Fla. The spokesman did not return a telephone call. Hamilton, the lead plaintiff, worked for nearly seven years servicing aircraft without a promotion despite continual recommendations by his supervisors, the suit said. He was promoted to supervisor in 2003 by general manager Steve True, who commented on his race and stammering at his first supervisors' meeting, according to the suit. True then undercut Hamilton's authority, the suit said, by refusing to announce his promotion or enforce disciplinary actions Hamilton proposed against other staffers.

True demoted Hamilton for an alleged violation that had not been used to discipline others, but reinstated him last November after a federal civil rights agency found reasonable grounds for his discrimination claims, the suit said.

Another plaintiff, Bobby Jones, said that after he complained to an official from company headquarters about racial slurs and disparities in pay, he was assaulted by a man who identified himself as a friend of True, and was fired after reporting that incident. Plaintiff Aljarice Sanders said she had been subjected to racial and sexual name-calling and harassment, complained to a federal agency and was fired less than two weeks later.E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.