Ex-Human Resource Manager for Austal Testifies about Racist Graffiti at Mobile Shipyard

A deposition from a former human resource officer at Austal USA was read by the attorneys for another former human resource manager to prove that the plaintiff’s allegations against the company about it tolerating a racially hostile workplace.

At this week’s trial in federal court, Beverly Thomas seeks unspecified monetary damages.

From March 2007 to January 2009, Jeff O’Dell was the human resources manager for the company. He was not available to testify for the case. So, instead, the attorneys on the case used a sworn testimony from O’Dell that he gave at another deposition. When O’Dell was asked about racist graffiti, he said, “When didn’t I learn about it? I mean, it was always a problem. … It’s a very rough place to work.”

According to the deposition, O’Dell said he would remove the offensive graffiti as soon as it was found.

The company’s attorneys guided those in court to areas of the deposition that show that O’Dell was not convinced that black employees were not making the graffiti.

O’Dell, in his deposition, stated that there is a lot of racial tension at the company. A group of black workers filed lawsuits against the company, which in turn caused a spike of racist graffiti and nooses, according to O’Dell’s deposition. He suspected that they were creating the racist graffiti in an effort to aid in their legal fight.

Terri Lindley, who is the current human resources coordinator, testified that the company’s structure when Thomas worked there included executives, managers, and coordinators who all were white.

Lindley said, “When the charges came forward, we were absolutely, positively blindsided by the charges.”

Lindley also said that not all of the complaints received had to be documented by supervisors. This led Thomas’ attorney, C. Michael Quinn to ask how many human resources officials might have known about the problems.

On such matters, she said that the department had an open-door policy.

“We never turned anyone away from human resources,” she said.

Attorneys for the company scoured through the criminal background for McCarthy and they asked her if she knew she was going to be sentenced for a drug crime later that year. They asked her this when she reported that she saw a noose in the break room of the company back in February of 2008. Company attorneys claim that she planted the noose herself.

“I wasn’t thinking about that,” she answered. “I didn’t know I was going to find a noose.”

Thomas was also probed by McCarthy about session she had with a counselor, asking the plaintiff is she informed the therapist that she is gay. United States District Judge Kristi DuBose cutoff the attorney and made a ruling that the questions were out of line.