Memphis workers sue AT&T alleging supervisor threw 'noose' at black manager

Nine former Memphis AT&T warehouse workers are suing the telecommunications giant for firing them after a white supervisor allegedly threw a noose at a black manager.

The lawsuit claims supervisor Bruce Allman "made a noose and tossed it" at plaintiff Earnest Johnson during a 2017 meeting about the consequences of not improving performance and finding two missing iPhones at the Capleville-area warehouse, according to the federal complaint filed on Dec. 9 in Memphis.

The plaintiffs, including Johnson, claim they were fired because they lodged complaints against Allman.

"As a result and in retaliation of Plaintiffs’ internal and external complaints about Defendant, they were warned, reprimanded, disciplined, not promoted, harassed, ignored, and ultimately terminated," according to the complaint.

The company launched an internal investigation that cleared Allman of wrongdoing. In statements at the time, which were included as exhibits to the complaint, Allman and Johnson both said Allman was making a joke about the Green Bay Packers football team "choking" — a statement Johnson now says he made out of fear of losing his job.

"I did not feel threatened at all," Johnson said in his original, since-renounced statement. "The harness was attached to a forklift and it was short. I didn't see anything threatening about it. It was funny. The only thing I'm mad about is the Cowboys did lose."

In his statement, Allman acknowledged his action was the result of "poor judgment."

Despite making the statement, Johnson was still permanently laid off, even as other white managers were laid off temporarily, according to the complaint.

The lack of disciplinary action against Allman sparked a series of small protests by the Communications Workers of America union near the plant in 2018, as reported then. Around the same time, the nine workers filed racial discrimination complaints against AT&T with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC in September closed the case without making a determination and cleared the plaintiffs to file suit.

Shelby County commissioner: Throwing a noose at a black employee is 'not OK'

Van Turner, a Shelby County commissioner and the attorney representing the former AT&T workers, said throwing a noose at a black employee is "not OK" — and especially not in the South, which has a long and gruesome history of lynching black people.

"When you do something like this to individuals who lived through Jim Crow, this is very weighty to them," Turner said. "In today's society, we cannot allow things like this to go unchecked."

Asked for a comment, AT&T spokesman Joe Chandler emailed this statement:

"We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind. This occurred over two years ago and we thoroughly investigated it, and absolutely no evidence of any discrimination or threat was found. The facts don’t support these allegations."

Chandler added that the investigation "found no one involved in the conversation felt there was any intent to threaten or discriminate against anyone." The AT&T statement also noted that the company was named No. 1 on DiversityInc's 2019 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list, and has been a top 10 company for 10 of the past 12 years.

But the plaintiffs said they were never interviewed about the incident, and that AT&T violated its own policies by not investigating the incident more thoroughly, not disciplining the supervisor, and retaliating against them for making the complaint. Turner, who also owns Memphis Greenspace Inc., the nonprofit that bought and removed the city's Confederate statues in December 2017, said the lawsuit is an example of how society has come far — but not far enough.

"Despite the advances we've made in society, there are still some individuals who are not involved," he said. "It's not OK to make a noose and throw it at African American workers."

Reach Ryan Poe at poe@commercialappeal.com and on Twitter @ryanpoe.

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