A Buffalo, New York, steel galvanizing company will pay $360,000 and adopt new anti-discrimination practices to settle a federal lawsuit by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on behalf of Black and Haitian workers who said they endured egregious racial slurs, harassing graffiti and a hostile workplace for more than a decade.
The lawsuit against Frontier Hot-Dip Galvanizing, Inc. was filed nine years ago in U.S. District Court in New York after two Black employees filed complaints with the EEOC, charging they were fired after complaining about discrimination on the basis of race and national origin.
Galvanizing involves putting a coating on steel to prevent it from rusting. Workers’ responsibilities at the Buffalo plant include loading steel, working in acid tanks and a galvanizing kettle, and driving a forklift.
Johnny Mitchell, who began working at Frontier in 2012, said in the complaint (obtained by Atlanta Black Star) that white managers and co-workers openly referred to Black employees using racial slurs such as “ni—er,” “monkey,” “coon,” and “you people,” and that two of his co-workers repeatedly called him “ni—er,” “punk” and “fa—ot” from December 2014 to March 2015.
When he complained to his supervisor, Superintendent Michael Oshirak, about the verbal harassment, he says Oshirak laughed and told him to ignore it. Mitchell then took his complaints to upper management, who met with one of his co-workers, Jaquan Sumler, and told him to stop bothering Mitchell.
But afterward, Sumler taunted Mitchell, saying, “That’s not going to stop me,” and continued to harass him, calling him “coon, ni—er, monkey and fa—ot,” the lawsuit says.
Racist graffiti covered the walls of many common areas of the facility, including those across from the front office, locker room, and the walls and stalls of the bathroom, and contained imagery and phrases such as “ni—er, go home,” “no ni—ers allowed,” “ni—ers suck c—k,” “ni—ers must die,” “go back to Africa,” “Haitians is fa—ots,” as well as pictures of male genitals, Confederate flags and swastikas.
Managers spent extensive time in the areas where the graffiti was visible, the complaint says, and were well aware of it.
Mitchell said he and other Black employees complained repeatedly about the graffiti and slurs, but the company took no action to address them.
On March 7, 2015, Nate Oshirak, another co-worker (and the grandson of his supervisor), waited outside the bathroom, followed Mitchell to his work area, knocked items off of his workstation, and got in his face, calling him “ni—er” and “fa—ot,” Mitchell claims. Mitchell says he backed up and told Oshirak to leave him alone, but Oshirak continued to move forward, physically confronting him, after which Mitchell slapped Oshirak in the face.
Then, according to a deposition by Michael Jackson, an employee and claimant in the lawsuit, the elder Oshirak then came charging out of his office, raising a wooden stick, and told Mitchell, “I’m going to kill you, ni—er!” and then fired him, saying, “Leave, ni—er, and never come back!”
The lawsuit also chronicles the experience of Jean Basquin, who started working at Frontier Hot-Dip Galvanizing in 2008. Basquin, who is Haitian, said Superintendent Oshirak routinely made offensive comments to him, including, “People like you come to this country to get a handout,” and “You don’t deserve to work here.”
On March 19, 2014, the complaint says, Oshirak asked the employees on his shift to confirm their citizenship because the company had received a contract from the U.S. military that purportedly required anyone who worked on the project to be a U.S. citizen.
When Oshirak approached Basquin, he allegedly shouted, “We don’t work with terrorists! Only American citizens work here!” and “Go back to Africa!” and then made monkey noises and gestures at Basquin.
Oshirak then told Basquin, “I think you are here illegally,” and threatened to call the FBI.
Basquin had a green card, but was terrified by the threats, the lawsuit says, and complained to Vice President Lewis Pierce and Executive Manager Jeffrey Pruet that Oshirak had called him a terrorist. But the company officials failed to prevent or promptly correct the harassing behavior, the EEOC said.
The lawsuit, filed in August of 2016, contended that Frontier had no anti-harassment policy or procedure in place for employees to complain about harassment or discrimination.
Basquin took his complaints to the EEOC, filing a charge of discrimination on March 21, 2014, alleging harassment based on his national origin.
When he returned to work three days later, Frontier’s president Lewis Pierce “waved the EEOC Notice of Charge in his face,” the lawsuit says, and then Basquin was given two disciplinary warnings for excessive absences for two absences that had occurred in January and February. Prior to that day, he had never received a disciplinary warning.
In June of 2014, Basquin received disciplinary warnings for allegedly refusing to galvanize bomb racks, despite Oshirak’s earlier command that Basquin not do so because he was a foreigner, the complaint says.
On September 29, 2014, Basquin got another disciplinary warning for leaving work early to attend to his ill son, despite receiving permission to leave, he claimed. He was placed on a six-month probation and threatened with termination.
On March 2, 2025, Basquin was fired for allegedly failing to show up for an overtime shift. The EEOC contends that he had obtained permission for the time off, and that his termination and the disciplinary actions leading up to it were in retaliation for his filing a discrimination complaint with the EEOC.
The lawsuit argued that Frontier had violated the federal Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1991 by discriminating against Mitchell, Basquin and similarly aggrieved Black employees at the Buffalo facility on the basis of race and national origin, by creating a hostile work environment, and by retaliating against them when they complained.
The EEOC sought a jury trial to determine compensation to “make whole” Basquin, Mitchell, and other Black employees, including backpay, reinstatement, economic losses from the unlawful employment practices, medical expenses, emotional pain and suffering, and humiliation, as well as punitive damages.
It also wanted the court to order Frontier to institute and carry out policies and practices that provide equal employment opportunities for Blacks and Haitians and that eradicate the effects of its past and present unlawful employment practices.
In its answer to the complaint and in subsequent court filings since 2016, Frontier denied all of the allegations of discrimination and retaliation in the lawsuit.
The company asserted that Mitchell was fired for cause, for “physically attacking a co-worker,” and not for any reasons related to his race or his complaints about racial discrimination, and further argued that racist graffiti at the Buffalo warehouse had been “expeditiously” removed once the company became aware of it.
Similarly, Frontier argued that Basquin was terminated for his excessive absences, not due to his national origin or for making a complaint about discrimination.
In its bid to dismiss the case in 2023, Frontier further maintained that it had an anti-harassment policy in place since 2015, which employees could and did utilize.
In its memorandum opposing that motion, the EEOC argued that Frontier’s anti-harassment policy was ineffective and barely known to its employees and the many temporary, predominantly Black workers at its warehouse.
In depositions, supervisors testified that workers only saw the company’s anti-harassment policy when they were told to review a binder containing all of Frontier’s employee policies on their first day of work, but were not otherwise provided with a copy of the policy.
Frontier did not provide supervisors or employees with any training about the laws that prohibit discrimination in the workplace or with any training on its anti-harassment procedures or related complaint procedures, the EEOC said.
When interviewed in depositions, the company’s managers tasked with enforcing the anti-harassment policy could not articulate how it was supposed to be implemented, and Oshirak, the superintendent, could not recall ever reading it, the memorandum said.
Oshirak was reprimanded with a written warning for using the word “ni—er” at work, the EEOC noted, but a deposition of Oshirak revealed that the cloudiness of the company’s anti-harassment policy left him believing “he would simply be given another warning if Frontier caught him calling an employee a ‘ni—ger,’ and he continued to say it.”
“Near total ignorance among supervisors and employees about its policy and Frontier’s lackadaisical attitude towards harassment occurring within its walls indicates that management condoned and even encouraged the creation of a hostile work environment, making its policy a ‘sham,’” the EEOC concluded.
“Frontier feigns ignorance as to how allegations of rampant racism – employees and supervisors calling their Black colleagues “ni–ers” and “coons” on the warehouse floor and racist graffiti covering the walls, locker room, and bathroom – could be true when Frontier hires so many Black and Hispanic temporary workers. Incredibly, Frontier fails to grasp the scope of the discriminatory, hostile, and racist environment it maintains, even when employee after employee reported racist graffiti and racist language so commonplace that most thought it futile to complain.”
U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo denied Frontier’s motion for summary judgment in July of 2024, and after another year of litigation, a trial expected to last two weeks was scheduled to begin in August.
Instead, last month the parties settled and submitted a joint motion to approve a consent judgment decree, which Vilardo approved on July 18.
The three-year consent decree requires Frontier Hot-Dip Galvanizing, which admits no wrongdoing, to pay $360,000 to “the class of aggrieved individuals … subjected to a racially hostile work environment by Defendant,” which will be put in a settlement fund and managed by the EEOC.
The decree includes injunctions prohibiting Frontier from engaging in harassment or discharge on the basis of race or national origin; from engaging in retaliation of any kind because a person has filed a discrimination claim or opposed a practice prohibited by civil rights law; and requiring the company to remove all graffiti of a racial, ethnic or derogatory nature within 24 hours of observation or reporting.
Frontier must revise its policies for addressing racial harassment, including developing new anti-discrimination policies, and provide training to its managers, supervisors, and all other employees.
It singles out Superintendent Michael Oshirak for six hours of one-on-one anti-discrimination training by a human resources consultant who will be retained to work with the company for the duration of the decree, and will help to develop its employee training, complaint reporting, and record-keeping procedures.
Among the mandated new employment practices for Frontier will be an independent equal employment opportunity (EEO) hotline for employees to call when they have complaints or concerns about discrimination.
Frontier must regularly report its progress to the EEOC during the decree’s three-year duration, or until the EEOC finds that the company is in full compliance.
“Enduring race and national origin-based harassment is not and should not be a condition of employment,” said Kimberly Cruz, regional attorney for the EEOC’s New York District Office. “Employers are responsible for preventing and remedying harassment of all workers – including temporary workers – and the EEOC will continue to hold employers accountable when they fail to do so.”
Frontier representatives, in a statement to The Buffalo News after the settlement was announced, said they “firmly deny the EEOC’s claims and make no admission of wrongdoing.” They stated that they settled the lawsuit to “avoid the unsustainable financial burden of continued litigation against a government agency.”
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