AUGUSTA — Bath Iron Works has been admonished by the Human Rights Commission for its poor response to a “seven-year pattern of vandalism and racist graffiti” against a black employee.

Despite a litany of complaints by sandblaster Charles Moore, 49, of Bath, the shipbuilding firm “has been completely unable to eradicate this hostile racial environment and has neither prevented nor corrected promptly any harassing behavior,” according to a report by HRC Investigator Paul D. Pierce.

Moore has been “clearly targeted as subhuman, solely because he is black,” Pierce said.

The Moore complaint will come before a formal hearing of the commission at 8:30 a.m. Monday at the Senator Hotel. The commission will determine if the complaint should proceed to a settlement hearing. If that fails, the case could proceed to Superior Court, where remedial action, including a financial settlement, could be ordered.

Moore is one of 30 sandblasters who work the 3 to 11 p.m. shift at the Bath shipbuilding facility and has worked at the firm since October 1989. He reported that the harassment started in 1993 when racist graffiti were painted on the wall near his work station. In 1994, his lunch was crushed, then a feminine hygiene product was glued to his helmet. A jacket and a knife were stolen before the incidents escalated.

Several times while he was sandblasting, the lights were turned off in the area, a development that could have caused severe injury, Moore said. His jacket was soaked with epoxy thinner, a highly flammable substance. Because Moore suffered facial injuries in Vietnam, he has no sense of smell. Moore took off the jacket, but it was in the car with fellow employees for the ride home, during which several workers smoked.

Pierce called the epoxy incident an “evil, malicious intentional act with the knowing and foreseeable consequences of bodily harm of the most serious magnitude.”

In 1996, Moore reported several other incidents and reported to the medical department with increased blood pressure problems that he felt were caused by the harassment.

In April 1997, he returned to his locker to find his boots filled with urine. A few months later, a pipe wrench and hammer were taken from his locker. Later, his locker was glued shut with a pipe adhesive, the complaint stated.

Attorney Tracey Burton, who represents BIW, said the firm took appropriate action to investigate Moore’s complaints. The company’s affirmative action office told Moore to report all incidents of vandalism or harassment and investigated the theft of Moore’s tools. It could not be determined if BIW ever confronted suspects in the theft.

The company has been investigating Moore’s complaints since 1994, Burton said. Security personnel conducted six interviews with employees and human resources personnel met with management and employees nine times to determine who was responsible for the incidents. But the firm reported that, to date, no employee has been disciplined or found responsible for the incidents.

Pierce said in his report, “BIW has asserted for several years that it is wholly unable, indeed it was impossible to determine who is responsible for the acts of vandalism, racial epithets, urination in Moore’s boots or theft of his property. To continue to accept such a response as being the equivalent of taking steps `reasonably calculated’ to eradicate unlawful racial harassment is contrary to statutory provisions and the laws of our state.”

Pierce said, “The harassment has continued unabated for seven years while BIW and the local union’s response — management meetings, investigations, admonitions to the sandblasting crew — have been insufficient to stem either the frequency or severity of the offensive conduct directed at Moore.”

BIW’s response is unacceptable, Pierce said. No other BIW employee was subject to similar harassment, the HRC investigator reported.