The City of San Francisco is facing an HR nightmare in the courts thanks to their own statistics and the tireless complaints of its employees. Mission Local reports.
Black city employees in San Francisco have filed a class action lawsuit against the city for how they are treated compared to their white colleagues. The city allegedly prefers to settle cases and seal them rather than address systemic problems.
This last September, one HR manager allegedly forged a settlement agreement of a Black female public transit worker. However, the genuine problems seem to stem from the top. There are multiple allegations of the city’s top HR officials sitting on cases and then sending them back to departmental managers with instructions to edit out the racial parts of the complaints. Otherwise they wouldn’t accept it. Only five formal complaints last year were sustained by the Department of Human Resources. 579 were submitted.
Even more damning, the city’s own statistics on corrective actions, discipline, wage differences between races show that there are systemic problems. Small wonder then that employees finally turned to the legal system to seek justice. If the allegations, and the statistics, are true then they have a strong case.
However, this level of systemic racism won’t go away with a court victory. The whole system will need to be overhauled.