Long Beach will pay $1.28 million to settle a lawsuit brought by five current and former city employees who alleged there was systemic racial bias in the city\u2019s hiring, pay and promotion practices.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit, filed in June 2021, made sweeping claims against the city<\/a>, alleging that Black employees were not being properly paid or promoted.<\/p>\n Primarily, the class-action suit set out to prove that five current and former city employees were underpaid or wrongfully passed over based on their ethnicity.<\/p>\n After nearly five years of legal back-and-forth, the City Council in April agreed to pay the settlement instead of heading toward trial.<\/p>\n Long Beach \u201cvehemently denied the allegations\u201d and emphasized that the settlement \u201cis not an admission of liability,\u201d Deputy City Attorney Howard Russell wrote in an email.<\/p>\n The city \u201coperates with a strong commitment to respect, integrity and equity,\u201d Russell wrote.<\/p>\n Among the lawsuit\u2019s claims, Christopher Stuart alleged he was not promoted despite singlehandedly doing the same amount of work \u201cas three non-Black employees.\u201d He further alleged he was subjected to a hostile work environment from his white supervisor, who allegedly accused him of stealing batteries and scrutinized his work harder than that of non-Black employees.<\/p>\n Stuart also claimed he was \u201crequired to perform higher class work without the pay or title\u201d for the duration of his employment with the city.<\/p>\n Eric Bailey, who retired from the Public Works Department in 2021 after more than three decades with the city, claimed he was passed over for the role of street sweeper supervisor in favor of a non-Black employee who lacked experience working as a street sweeper.<\/p>\n When Bailey eventually was promoted, the lawsuit alleged, he was given the \u201clower-paying title\u201d of refuse supervisor and required to perform \u201cout-of-class work without the proper pay or title for the rest of his career.\u201d<\/p>\n Deborah Hill and Sharon Hamilton, both administrative aides with more than two decades of experience with the city, made similar claims and also took issue with the city\u2019s use of an employee exam created by the Wonderlic company to evaluate candidates for promotion.<\/p>\n They claimed the test \u201cis notorious for creating exams that disparately impact Black people.\u201d<\/p>\n The city did not answer a question about whether it still uses the Wonderlic exam.<\/p>\n The five plaintiffs were not the only city employees to allege they suffered through racist treatment in recent years.<\/p>\n In March 2021, the Long Beach City Council approved a $700,000 settlement to end a lawsuit against its former Civil Service Director<\/a>, who was in charge of overseeing the city\u2019s hiring.<\/p>\n