THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 16, 1994 TAG: 9410160049
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KERRY DEROCHI, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 140 lines
They come to the Berkley church every two weeks, as if to find strength in a prayer.
They meet for an hour on the cold metal chairs, their voices and fists raised in anger. Again and again, they stand to tell their stories, hoping their words will, somehow, make a difference.
``We only want what we feel is due us,'' says Earl Walton, their leader, as he stands at the front of the fellowship hall.
``We don't want what we feel is given us on a silver platter. We just want a chance.''
The words are a constant refrain at these Friday night meetings, where black workers gather to rally their cause against the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, a cause for which some have been fighting for more than 20 years.
That fight entered a new phase this month when attorneys representing the workers filed a lawsuit against the shipyard in federalcourt, claiming racial discrimination.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Norfolk, named Navy Secretary John Dalton and the Tidewater Virginia Federal Employees, Metal Trades Council. It seeks more than $58 million in damages for the 107 black employees who have worked in the shipyard's Shop 71.
Neither the Navy nor the shipyard will talk about the lawsuit because it is still pending in court.
But lawyers elsewhere say that they are monitoring its progress. The suit is one of several class-action discrimination claims pending against the U.S. military, including a $130 million suit filed against the Navy in Florida.
In that suit, black workers claim they have been discriminated against at several Navy installations in the Pensacola area.
``It's a constant pattern of black workers getting stuck in lower jobs,'' said Charles Stephen Ralston, senior staff attorney for the NAACP legal defense fund in New York. ``Lines of progress are being set up to be dead ends.
``It's become sort of all right to be a racist again.''
The case against the naval shipyard in Portsmouth centers on a theory that management of Shop 71 has deliberately denied blacks the training they needed to advance from low-level jobs such as sandblasting. In addition, almost all of the shop workers who clean bilges - by crawling through tiny spaces at the bottom of the ship and spraying a caustic liquid - are black.
In recent years, these low-level jobs have become increasingly vulnerable to layoffs because of the post-Cold War military drawdown. Since 1992, the shipyard's work force has fallen from 11,200 to about 7,600.
The black workers of Shop 71 say it's a fear for their jobs that has forced them to sue.
``If you're not in management or you're not white, you're pushed aside,'' said Walton, 42, a sandblaster foreman, who has worked in the shipyard for 20 years.
Charles Brown, a painter mechanic, cited a piece of paper he found his first day on the job in 1981. It was a petition signed by black workers complaining of being mistreated.
``I thought to myself, `Lord have mercy, what have I gotten myself into,' '' said Brown, 43. ``Here it is 1994, and it's the same situation of how most of the blacks are being treated as second-class citizens with no opportunities.
``I think the light should be shined on the government as a whole for the handling of the discrimination.''
For Carl Phillips, a painter foreman, the lawsuit is a chance to change problems that started the first week he reported as an apprentice 17 years ago.
He had gone to use the restroom across from a snack shop when he looked up and saw the word ``colored'' scrawled above the door.
Phillips, 44, wasn't surprised.
His father had worked as a blaster in Shop 71 for 35 years and had told him of the separate bathrooms and the separate utensils, of white security guards who carried guns to keep the blacks in line.
There were other signs of trouble.
His apprentice class had 12 trainees in it. Those who were black were sent down inside tanks to shovel grit, using a bucket and dustpan. The whites were allowed to spray paint.
Phillips didn't complain. He had just gotten married and needed the job, though it paid $4 an hour.
``It used to be with the government, you knew you were secure and your family was, too,'' Phillips said in an interview. ``It's not that way any more.''
Phillips worked for five years as an apprentice before he was made a painter mechanic. In 1984, Phillips earned credentials to work on nuclear vessels. Later that year, he made supervisor for the first time. His career seemed to be moving.
But in 1989, he was stripped of his nuclear credentials after complaining when a supervisor didn't follow procedure. Though he would later get them back, he was blocked from doing the more challenging and rewarding nuclear work.
In February 1994, Phillips was removed from a job and sent to an excess-labor shop where he was told to supervise other workers picking up trash. A white mechanic, who was not a supervisor, was put in his place to finish the job.
The excess-labor shop had about 400 workers at the time. Phillips estimated about 80 percent of them were black, including Earl Walton.
Phillips said he and Walton began talking about what had happened.
``We decided something needed to be done,'' Phillips said.
They filed complaints with the shipyard's Equal Employment Office and began looking for a lawyer.
``I'm willing to risk it because things have to change in that shipyard,'' Phillips said. ``I didn't see any future for my kids, for anyone's kids, if it doesn't.
``It's not in me to walk away and leave. Then I'd probably be thinking, `Maybe if I'd pushed this, I might have made a difference.' This way I can try.''
At a recent meeting of the workers at the New Rising Sun Baptist Church, Phillips sat at the head table with Walton, watching as the workers slowly filed into the hall and lined up to pay the $50 each owes to cover the cost of the struggle.
They slip quietly into their chairs as their attorneys, Thomas Hennessy and SuAnne Hardee, stand before them.
The fight has entered a new phase, they are told as the room draws to silence. A lawsuit has been filed in federal court.
Walton waves a thick bundle of white pages.
``A bomb's been dropped,'' he said. ``This is the hurdle, the first hurdle. Finally we will get some answers.
``Let me tell you, this is not going to be easy. You have to be willing to sacrifice to go that far. I, personally, am willing.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
GARY C. KNAPP
Above: Norfolk Naval Shipyard workers listen during a meeting as one
of their attorneys explains the next steps in their fight to end
racism on the job. Left: Carl Phillips, a painter foreman who has
worked at the shipyard for 17 years, says of the group's battle:
``I'm willing to risk it because things have to change in that
shipyard.''
GARY C. KNAPP
Earl Walton, who leads the workers who have filed suit against
Norfolk Naval Shipyard, tells the group about the upcoming court
battle. Walton, 42, is a sandblaster who has worked in the shipyard
for 20 years.
KEYWORDS: LAWSUITS RACIAL DISCRIMINATION SHIPYARDS by CNB