Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, August 12, 1995                   TAG: 9508140075
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER/ below
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CLASS-ACTION LAWSUIT OK'D AGAINST NS

Federal District Judge U.W. Clemon of Birmingham, Ala., entered an order this week certifying a 2-year-old lawsuit against the company as a class-action. The order authorizes the original plaintiff, an Alabama man, and eight others, including one from Salem, to act as representatives of the class.

The black employees claim that NS's system of hiring and promotion violates federal law. They are asking for back pay and a change in the company's promotion system to require the dropping of current promotion tests, the posting of job vacancies and the development of objective selection procedures for promotions.

The judge's order specifies that the suit include all black union and non-union NS workers who have applied for promotions with the railroad since Dec. 16, 1989, or who would have applied for promotions in the absence of discrimination.

In a prepared statement, Norfolk Southern denied any discrimination and said it would continue vigorously to defend itself against the lawsuit. The judge's order certifying the class action doesn't mean he believes the charges made against the railroad are true, NS said.

The Norfolk-based transportation company operating one of the six largest U.S. railroads, has about 3,000 employees in the Roanoke Valley.

Black Norfolk Southern employees from Virginia, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Missouri and Ohio appeared at a hearing before Clemon last September asking that he approve their request to certify a group of about 600 black clerical and supervisory workers as a class for trial. Jon Goldfarb of Birmingham, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the class now stands at many more than that.

The workers claimed that whites were chosen for promotions into non-union management and clerical jobs that blacks weren't aware were available. Blacks often don't know about the jobs because the company doesn't post vacancies, Bob Wiggins, another of the plaintiff's lawyers, said last year.

Wiggins said that Norfolk Southern uses standardized promotion tests, which have been ruled discriminatory in cases against other companies. The plaintiffs contend the tests, which firstwere used in 1965, were begun to keep blacks out of historically white jobs

Lawyers for the plaintiffs must notify members of the class of the pending lawsuit by Sept. 7 either by mail or, if addresses aren't available, by publication.

Class members have the right to drop out of the lawsuit by Oct. 6. Any judgement whether favorable or unfavorable will be binding on all class members who don't opt out, Clemons order said.

Willie Marshall Gude, one of the nine plaintiffs, is from the Roanoke area, Goldfarb said. Gude, whose phone is listed in Salem, confirmed he was a plaintiff but declined to comment on the suit.

"I do not wish to discuss it," he said Friday.