Black factory workers sue for 'segregation'

WASHINGTON - A group of black workers is suing the world's largest poultry meat producer, accusing it of tolerating racist abuse and "whites only" signs on toilet doors.

Tyson Foods is accused by 13 workers of maintaining a segregated system in a break area at one of its factories in Alabama, "reminiscent of the Jim Crow era".

The workers also allege only whites were given a key to the toilet's padlock, that workers hung a noose in one of the break rooms and annotated a picture of monkeys with the names of black staff.

When the workers complained, they say the plant manager told them the facilities had been locked because they were "nasty, dirty [and] behaved like children".

Jake Whetstone, one of the workers, said: "When I saw that sign it really hurt me. I'm 50. I grew up when there was segregation. I thought we [were] over it and moved on but seeing that sign I had a flashback."

Whetstone said the experience made him remember an incident when he was a child. "I was 4 or 5 and my daddy had taken me to get ice-cream at a Dairy Queen in Alexandria City, Alabama. I went to the window, but the lady said she could not serve me and I would have to go to another window.

"I was just a child so I went to the other window and it was the same lady who served me. When I saw the sign on the bathroom I thought we were still in that time."

Nicole De Sario, for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said since the men filed their lawsuit conditions at the factory had been increasingly tense.

The company's website said the claims were "without merit".

- Independent