A class action lawsuit alleging a suburban beauty supply distributor and staffing agencies enforced discriminatory practices against Black workers is moving forward.
Named plaintiffs Joe Eagle, Michael Keys, James Zollicoffer and Evan Franklin filed suit alleging that Vee Pak, located in Countryside and Hodgkins, had a policy that favored hiring Latino workers over Black applicants, and instructed several staffing agencies to implement that policy when filling temporary positions in its warehouse. The manufacturing facilities had workers fill and cap bottles and tubes for personal-care and drug companies.
The legal action dates back to 2012, when Eagle, Keys, Zollicoffer and Franklin, who are Black, first brought the putative class action individually and on behalf of other Black temp workers allegedly similarly denied work, against Vee Pak and three staffing agencies, Alternative Staffing, Personnel Staffing Group and Staffing Network, that allegedly implemented Vee Pak’s alleged discriminatory policy. Alternative Staffing and Personnel Staffing Group, which does business as Most Valuable Personnel, or MVP, have settled the claims against them; Vee Pak and the third staffing agency, Staffing Network, remain in the case.
Plaintiffs moved to certify a class of Black workers who sought, but were denied, work assignments at the three staffing agencies from which they could have been referred to Vee Pak between 2011 and 2015.
The plaintiffs’ motion for class certification was granted Feb. 23 by U.S. District Judge John Tharp in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago. Eagle and Keys were appointed as staffing network subclass representatives, Zollicoffer as MVP subclass representative, and Franklin as ASI subclass representative.
The court appointed attorneys Joseph M. Sellers and Harini Srinivasan, of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, of Washington, D.C.; Christopher J. Williams, of National Legal Advocacy Network, of Chicago; and Christopher J. Wilmes and Caryn C. Lederer, of Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym, of Chicago, as class counsel.
According to court documents, Eagle first sought work at Staffing Network in March 2011. During his first visit, he allegedly completed an application and was told to return the next morning. This began an alleged pattern of Eagle arriving early in the morning, signing in, and waiting for hours, allegedly to no avail. While waiting, Eagle allegedly often observed that Staffing Network assigned Latino workers, who arrived at Staffing Network in vans the staffing agency provided, to Vee Pak. Eagle did not, however, allegedly observe any Black workers on a van destined for Vee Pak.
Keys allegedly sought work from Staffing Network around the same time as Eagle, in September 2011. Even though Staffing Network told Keys it only accepted new applications two days a week, Keys allegedly observed new Latino workers obtain work on other days of the week. Keys said he was consistently among the first workers to sign in, but the agency did not give him an assignment for two weeks.
Keys also testified that Staffing Network assigned him to a few of its clients but allegedly never to Vee Pak.
Zollicoffer testified that he experienced similar treatment to Eagle and Keys at Staffing Network, although outside of the class period in 2009 and 2010. After Zollicoffer moved to Chicago in summer 2009, he allegedly sought work at MVP’s Cicero office. The first time he signed in and was told to come back the next day. Although Zollicoffer allegedly returned early the next morning, Staffing Network did not assign him work. Zollicoffer asserted that on multiple occasions in 2009, he would travel to MVP’s Cicero office during the early morning hours on foot, seeking assignment for temporary work. He further claimed that he observed MVP assign Latino workers to clients on days when he was waiting for work for multiple hours.
Franklin testified to similar alleged treatment from ASI, seeking placements at ASI’s Cicero office in September 2014. Franklin continued to seek assignments from ASI on numerous occasions, indicating she was available and had no work limitations. Franklin received sporadic work placements over a period of several months, but never at Vee Pak. She also allegedly observed ASI assigned Latino workers, but not Black workers, to jobs when she visited the ASI offices in person.
Employees at the three staffing agencies purportedly testified to the defendants’ discriminatory practices, which included first-hand accounts of alleged discriminatory conduct at all levels of management, including that Vee Pak allegedly told staffing agency managers not to refer Black workers, that staffing agency employees allegedly perpetuated these policies, that staffing agencies allegedly used derogatory code words to refer to Black workers, and that the few Black workers who did manage to bypass staffing agencies allegedly were turned away at Vee Pak’s door.
The court found testimony about specific mechanisms of discrimination, from the upper echelons of staffing-agency management to the staffing-agency dispatchers to the employees facing the effects of discrimination, spoke to the existence of an alleged discriminatory policy among the defendants.
Vee Pak and Staffing Network moved to bar the testimony of Marc Bendick Jr., a labor economist on whose proffered opinions the plaintiffs rely in their class-certification motion. Bendick performed a statistical analysis of the relevant labor market that purports to find a shortfall of staffing-agency placements of Black workers at Vee Pak. He compared his expected representation of Black applicants eligible to work at Vee Pak to Vee Pak’s actual hiring practices.
The defendants’ motion to bar Bendick's testimony was denied. The court said Bendick considered Black workers' potential interest in the job, drew his relevant labor market based upon real data, and applied a regression methodology that courts have repeatedly endorsed. Although his results are not bulletproof, the court found any deficiencies could be addressed on cross examination.
Vee Pak has been represented in the case by attorneys Joseph K. Mulherin, of McDermott Will and Emery, of Chicago; and Donald S. Rothschild and Brian M. Dougherty, of Goldstine, Skrodzki, Russian, Nemec and Hoff, of Burr Ridge.
Staffing Network is represented by attorneys Carter A. Korey, Elliot S. Richardson and Michele Denise Dougherty, of the firm of Korey Richardson, of Chicago.