Workers Sue Amazon, Contractors for Nooses at Connecticut Site

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• Five electricians sued Amazon and its contractors for subjecting them to a racially hostile work environment at a Connecticut jobsite where work was temporarily halted after workers and police discovered at least eight hangman’s nooses during construction.
• The lawsuit follows the completion of an Amazon distribution center in Windsor, Connecticut, where electrical workers of color discovered the nooses over several weeks in April and May 2021. The suit claims one of the employers advanced a theory to the FBI that the workers planted the items on site in order to be reassigned to higher-paying jobs.
• While the FBI and local police investigated the Windsor events and questioned a person of interest, no one was arrested for the display of the hate symbols, which made international news. In their lawsuit, the workers claimed law enforcement officials accused them of hanging the nooses {snip}

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According to the lawsuit, filed Sept. 21 in U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, Amazon and its contractors — Fairfield, New Jersey-based RC Andersen and Holliston, Massachusetts-based Wayne J. Griffin Electric — should be held liable for the damages workers of color suffered at the site.

While news coverage of the events was intense once it became public, the lawsuit paints a picture of Amazon, RC Andersen and Griffin not responding adequately to the initial discovery of nooses, and only calling a full work stoppage after the eighth noose was found.

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On April 27, 2021, the suit claimed an electrician of color returned to his work area after lunch to find a noose hanging from the ceiling. {snip}

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In response to the electrician discovering the noose, the suit said a Griffin foreman gathered the electricians of color to read a statement from RC Andersen about the company’s anti-discrimination policy. But because it was only read to workers of color, according to the suit, it sent the message on site that a noose in the workplace was only a concern for people of color.

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When the FBI investigated, the suit claims, one of its agents investigated a theory offered by a Griffin manager that the electricians had actually planted the nooses on site in order to get reassigned to higher-paying, prevailing wage jobs.

The workers “presumed they would be treated like victims, not suspects,” the suit said. But once the FBI aggressively interviewed them, the workers realized that “Griffin and RC Andersen had identified them as potential culprits in the hanging of the nooses,” according to the suit.

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