Hiring, Pay Complaints : Union Files Suit Charging Post With Discrimination

The largest union at the Washington Post filed a class-action lawsuit against the newspaper Wednesday, charging systematic discrimination against women, blacks, Hispanics and other minority groups as well as employees over age 40.

The complaint was filed with the District of Columbia Office of Human Rights, an administrative agency with broad investigative and prosecutorial powers.

It was brought by the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, the largest union at the Post, representing 1,400 editorial, advertising, business and circulation department employees.

The complaint alleged discrimination in hiring, pay, promotions, classification and other conditions of employment.

“The Post has discriminated on the basis of race and national origin by failing to pay equally qualified blacks, Hispanics and other minorities as much as whites for substantially equivalent work,” it said.

The complaint, publicized by the union at a news conference, also alleged a failure to hire women and minority groups in proportion to their representation in the community.

It said the paper discriminated on the basis of age by deliberately giving poor evaluations to older employees and “coercing them to leave the Post.”

This charge reflects a dual wage scale that establishes a lower minimum pay scale for those hired after 1976.

The union said information obtained from the Post showed black women reporters, for instance, earn an average of $172 less a week than white male counterparts after salaries are adjusted to take into account age and length of service. White women reporters earn an average of $121 a week less than their white male colleagues after similar adjustment, the union said.

White male reporters at the Post earn an average of about $1,100 a week, or $57,200 a year, Polaski said. The union said the paper refused to provide all the requested figures.

The filing of the suit coincided with the second anniversary of the expiration of the union’s contract with the Post. Most staff members withheld their bylines and credits from the paper Tuesday and Wednesday in protest.

“This complaint is not a bargaining chip,” said Sandra Polaski, the union’s chief negotiator. She said the suit was filed as a last resort because management refused to provide detailed pay data.

Bo Jones, the newspaper’s legal counsel, said in an interview that the complaint was a tactic “to increase salary levels beyond what could be obtained at the bargaining table.”

He said the Post paid its employees on the basis of merit, performance and experience and had stepped up minority hiring under an affirmative action program in the 1980s.

Blacks make up 16% and women, 40%, of the newsroom staff, Jones said. The union said blacks make up 10.6% of newsroom staff and women make up 27%.