Black workers win IP discrimination case > Jury awards Alabamans $55,000 each; paper company contemplates appeal

PORTLAND — International Paper Co. said Tuesday it believes errors were made when a federal jury awarded three black men $55,000 each in a discrimination suit, but no decision on an appeal had been reached.

“Although the jury has spoken through their verdict, the company believes some errors were made in the decision,” IP spokesman Gary Bickford said from the mill in Jay. He declined comment on the types of errors IP believed has been made, saying the company must first conduct a thorough review of the trial transcript.

The federal jury returned verdicts in favor of the workers, Isom Harris, Willie R. Minor and Eddie Pugh, who were recruited by IP to transfer from a mill in Alabama to the Jay mill during a drawn-out strike. The three men claimed in U.S. District Court that they had been promised training and promotions that were later denied because they are black.

The jury’s verdict, reached Monday night and made available Tuesday, said IP had entered a contract with the workers that promised them training that would qualify them for promotions working on IP’s paper machines. The jurors found that IP had breached the contracts and therefore would have to pay the workers.

The three plaintiffs are all still employed at the mill, Bickford said.

Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Gene Carter spent Tuesday hearing evidence involving alleged violations of the Maine Human Rights Act. That portion of the case was not being decided by a jury.

The three plaintiffs, who now live in Lewiston, were recruited from an IP mill in Mobile, Ala., during the 16-month strike that the paperworkers union called off in October 1988.

In addition to the allegations about denial of promotions, the three plaintiffs charged that some employees and supervisors at the Jay mill harassed them by using racial epithets and discriminated while enforcing work rules. Complaints to management were ignored, the suit says.

Before the jury verdict had come in, IP spokesman Brad Peters had said that the company never promised promotions to the workers, but he declined to comment on the allegations of racial harassment and the alleged failure of management to act on related complaints.