The biggest construction materials company in the country has been sued by a Livermore-based employee who says that his boss kept a noose at work and committed other racially-fueled offenses, according to reports.
In court documents, Gordon Tillman accused Vulcan Materials Co. of racial harassment, including a supervisor keeping a noose at work and comparing tim to a "monkey," according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Tillman says he brought forward complaints to management but was largely ignored "for three years," the newspaper reported.
Dowload Gordon Tillman's complaint against Vulcan Materials
The supervisor who kept the noose and allegedly called Tillman racist names, Shawn Geaney, was suspended for one day in September for "bad language," but wasn't fired until Tillman brought his problems to the national office, the newspaper reported.
Geaney lobbed racist remarks at his employee beginning in 2010, including jokes about carrying chains, and boasts about his ability to tie a noose, the newspaper reported.
After Geaney's firing, Tillman was "shunned" by two supervisors at the Livermore-based plant, the newspaper reported.
"Race harassment unfortunately appears alive and well in the 21st century - even in the Bay Area," Kelly Armstrong, Tillman's lawyer, said in court filings.
