Long Beach, Calif. Hit with Class Action Over Alleged Racial Discrimination Toward Black Employees

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A proposed class action alleges the city of Long Beach, California has for years subjected Black employees to unequal pay and other forms of discrimination amid a “pattern and practice of anti-Black culture” that includes allowing repeated harassment and city leaders to promote the Ku Klux Klan. 

The 35-page lawsuit, filed by five Black current and former Long Beach employees, alleges that although the city more than a year ago convened a Racial Equity and Reconciliation Initiative to help end racism within all local government and partner agencies, little to nothing has been done to name and eradicate racism toward Black employees in the city’s own backyard.  

Long Beach, the complaint alleges, lags far behind its peer municipalities in releasing hiring, pay, promotion, discipline and termination data sorted by race and other protected classifications as a means to name the problem in the city. The plaintiffs say Long Beach, despite its Racial Equity and Reconciliation Initiative, continues to systematically subject Black employees to unequal pay on the basis of race by:  

• Paying Black employees less than similarly situated non-Black employees;
• Hiring Black employees disproportionately into lower-paying classifications, levels, pay steps, occupational job categories and groups in comparison to non-Black employees;
• Disproportionately rejecting Black employees’ reclassification and out-of-class pay requests compared to non-Black employees; and
• Disproportionately hiring and keeping Black employees as non-career employees and/or unclassified employees. 

“This list is not exhaustive,” the suit relays. 

Overlying and fueling Long Beach’s alleged racially disparate employment practices is what the lawsuit claims to be a pattern and practice of “anti-Black culture” in which anti-Black, repeat harassers have allegedly been allowed to “terrorize Black employees unabated.” Further, city leaders, amid this culture, have been permitted to “promote the Ku Klux Klan,” including by allowing leaders to police Black employees as far as tone, dress and hair, the suit contests. Additionally, Long Beach is alleged to have subjected Black employees to common pay, promotion, hiring, training, performance management, job class and disciplinary policies and practices that serve to suppress the workers’ pay, promotions, career advancement opportunities and livelihoods.  

According to the complaint, Long Beach’s 2018 Workforce Demographics Report shows Black employees make up 13 percent and white employees make up 38 percent of the city’s workforce. Per the suit, 65 percent of the city’s Black employees, according to the report, make under $60,000 per year, compared to 34 percent of white employees. The suit says 54 percent of Long Beach employees in the $180,000-plus salary bracket are white, compared to 13 percent Black workers.  

“Moreover, per the Report, Black employees comprise a mere 8.8% of the City’s hires into classified positions, compared to 33.4% for white employees,” the complaint continues. “Indeed, the report further notes that the City’s hiring of Black employees decreased 4% in 2018 and that Black employees are the only racial minority group that has declined in workforce representation.”  

Overall, Long Beach’s leadership and human resources team, Equal Employment Opportunity Office and Civil Service Commission and department have failed to take reasonable steps to prevent discrimination, harassment and retaliation, the plaintiffs allege. Instead, the suit claims, the city has “tried to suppress complaints and preserve white supremacy.”  

In addition to the monetary, declaratory, restitutive and injunctive relief sought by the plaintiffs is the request that the court order Long Beach to establish a truth and reconciliation commission in order to heal from the alleged racial trauma inflicted by the city, as well as a revamped job analysis and valuation policy, back pay for past pay inequities, a trauma-informed complaint investigation process and racial justice monitoring by proposed class members.  

“Plaintiffs have been organizing, and at the same time, suffering in silence for years on end for fear of retaliation,” the lawsuit reads. “This is the time for the City and other municipalities to take efficacious, remedial steps to rid city governments from the ongoing harm of racism.” 

The lawsuit looks to represent a proposed class that includes all Black employees—union, non-union, classified, unclassified and non-career—who worked for Long Beach from June 3, 2018 through the date of trial. 

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