Earlier this year Pella was hit with a racial discrimination lawsuit; now it’s Woodgrain Inc.’s turn. Seven former employees have sued the company, alleging racial discrimination. Filed in the U.S. District Court of Colorado, the employees all say they were “discharged from their employment just weeks after signing a petition complaining of race-based discrimination” at the company’s production facility in Aurora, Colorado.
The seven individuals signed an open letter at the turn of the new year alleging “discriminatory pay, hiring, and promotion practices wherein Black and Brown employees at Woodgrain’s Aurora facility earned less and had fewer opportunities than their white counterparts.”
The group says that the company failed “to take disciplinary or other remedial action” after a white supervisor allegedly referred to three of the plaintiffs in what they say were “blatantly racist” terms. A day after submitting their letter, they allege the company’s human resources (HR) director issued a letter to the seven in return, warning them not to discuss the petition, they claim. Two weeks later, they say they were called into a meeting with the HR director where they were told the company “would not tolerate any further ‘drama’” at the facility. According to the complaint, all seven were dismissed from employment by the end of January.
In the initial complaint, the seven point to a general manager at Woodgrain’s Aurora facility, who, according to the document, was hired in the spring of 2024. The plaintiffs allege that the manager “began talking openly about wanting to change the ‘culture’ at the Aurora facility,” though what that meant, exactly, the plaintiffs said was unclear to them at the time. They now allege that, to the manager, “changing the culture meant, at least in part, replacing African-American employees with white employees,” and say that he began hiring young white employees with little or no experience in door and moulding processing, placing the new-hires in “identical positions to long tenured Black and Hispanic employees,” including those the plaintiffs held, they allege.
“[M]any of the new white employees at the Aurora facility earned more than their Black and Hispanic counterparts,” the plaintiffs allege in their complaint, providing what they allege are examples.
“When Black employees, including plaintiffs, would complain to [the manager] about pay disparity, [the manager] would simply respond that if the employees did not like it, they could find a new place to work,” the complaint contends. Plaintiffs further claim that long-tenured African-American employees were passed over for promotions, alleging that, “open positions have instead been filled by new hires, all of whom are white.”
The initial complaint outlined specific examples pertaining to individual plaintiffs, including one who attempted to vie for the role of operations manager, only to be told that the company had “lost” his application for the position, the complaint says. The man who was hired for the position became the direct supervisor for three plaintiffs, they say, and had a supervisory role over two others. The supervisor—a white man— “immediately began showing contempt for the long-tenured Black employees … and made little attempt to hide his racial animus,” they allege, including “making statements disparaging the long-tenured Black employees and expressing enthusiasm for replacing them with new employees.” After recounting numerous examples of alleged racist statements and conduct, the three plaintiffs say in their complaint that they were “shocked” by what they say were “blatantly racist” comments.
When the plaintiffs took their concerns to the manager, they felt he protected the new supervisor and attempted to rationalize his comments, describing his statements as a “poor choice of words.” According to the complaint, they were assured that the situation “had been handled,” but human resources had not been informed of the incident, they now allege. They contend the involved manager violated Woodgrain’s policies regarding workplace harassment by failing to report the conduct to Woodgrain’s HR department, they say. After the situation was escalated to what they believed at the time to be an HR representative, plaintiffs say they thought that Woodgrain’s HR department had been informed of the incident. As of December 2024, three plaintiffs “had not been informed of the outcome of Woodgrain’s Human Resources Department’s investigation into the incident,” they say. Later that month, one plaintiff drafted an open letter (a “Petition”) regarding the discriminatory conditions Black employees allege they were experiencing at the Aurora facility. According to court documents, it was signed by 21 primarily Black and Hispanic employees from that location.
The company’s response was issued to all employees at the Aurora facility, indicating the petition was a surprise to the HR department, plaintiffs allege, stating that the company would launch an investigation into the allegations. According to the legal complaint, the letter recommended “that while the investigation is taking place, all Denver employees stay focused on production work, specifically avoiding all forms of excessive or disruptive gossip that might disparage Woodgrain. Vindictive gossip and/or gossip that is meant to tarnish Woodgrain’s or any employee’s reputation is a form of workplace bullying and will not be tolerated,” indicating that doing so “could lead to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.”
Plaintiffs allege that, after the letter, they and their non-white counterparts were subject to increased scrutiny and that when an official HR investigation began at the Aurora facility, plaintiffs were interviewed with either the manager or supervisor in the room with them.
Ultimately, the Human Resources investigation wrapped up with a meeting at the Aurora facility, wherein the HR director reportedly “acknowledged that there had been problems at the facility, that she had come to Aurora to ‘hit the reset button,’ and that Woodgrain would not tolerate any further ‘drama’ at the Aurora facility,” and “repeatedly instructed employees that Woodgrain’s focus from that date forward would be on employee productivity and performance, that no drama would be tolerated, and that employees who failed to get on board would be ‘taken care of.’”
One plaintiff, who had worked at Woodgrain for 10 years, says he was informed that “we’re doing a reset” and “we’re not going to need your help anymore.” Per the complaint, he was not given “any actual explanation as to why he was being discharged.”
Another says he was fired, 11 days later, for allegedly having “been driving to an unsanctioned location … during work hours,” though he says he did not actually drive to unsanctioned locations during working hours, and that the location was unfamiliar to him.
And the day after he was fired, five other plaintiffs “were brought into a conference room” with “four armed guards surrounding the conference table,” they allege. They were told “that due to a business slowdown, the company was having to make budget cuts,” the complaint states, and that they had each been identified as “underperforming” on the job, thus being let go, they allege.
In April, the seven plaintiffs “filed timely Charges of Discrimination with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC),” and in May the EEOC issued Notices of Right to Sue for all seven Charges of Discrimination. Among other things, the seven men are asking for “Actual economic damages as established at trial; Compensatory damages, including but not limited to those for past and future pecuniary and non-pecuniary losses, emotional pain, suffering, inconvenience, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, and other non-pecuniary losses; Punitive damages for all claims as allowed by law in an amount to be determined at trial; Injunctive and declaratory relief; and Attorneys fees.”
Woodgrain denies much of what the plaintiffs allege. While officials say that the manager hired in the spring of 2024 wanted to “improve the workplace culture at the Aurora facility,” the company says that “[the] Aurora facility was subject to the same cultural improvement program (the “Friedman Fundamentals Program”) that all 37 of the Company’s business locations participated in.” They deny that he meant “replacing African-American employees with white employees.”
Some Caucasian employees were hired in the same job classification in which African-American and Hispanic employees worked, the company admits in its response, while denying that the new employees were paid more than the established employees.
Though the company didn’t specifically deny some of the offensive statements allegedly made, its response “specifically [denies] that there was any racial connotation or animus connected.”
It further denies that the investigation prompted additional scrutiny of its non-white employees and the claim that HR had never been informed of the October statement that kicked off the sequence of events leading to the suit, and that the accused manager or supervisor were present during the investigative interviews. The company also denies that there were “four armed guards” at the meeting wherein plaintiffs were fired, as well as the argument that they “had received positive performance reviews just days earlier.” The plaintiffs’ race or status as having signed the open letter/petition played no part in their terminations, Woodgrain’s response claims.
Overall, the company denies the allegations of discrimination and argues that any employment actions taken, or not taken, with respect to the plaintiffs did not violate federal, state or local law.
Both sides are requesting a jury trial “on all issues so triable.”
Stay tuned to [DWM] for more information as it becomes available.