Bowers v. Kraft Foods Corp., 77-1277C(1).
| Decision Date | 22 March 1979 |
| Docket Number | No. 77-1277C(1).,77-1277C(1). |
| Citation | 467 F. Supp. 971 |
| Parties | Mary L. BOWERS, Plaintiff, v. KRAFT FOODS CORP., Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri |
Raymond Howard, Jr., Howard, Singer & Meehan, St. Louis, Mo., for plaintiff.
Edwin L. Noel, Walter M. Clark, Armstrong, Teasdale, Kramer & Vaughan, St. Louis, Mo., for defendant.
This matter was tried to the Court. The Court has been duly advised by testimony, exhibits, and briefs. The Court makes the following findings of fact and conclusions of law.
1. Plaintiff Mary L. Bowers is a black female who was employed by the defendant on August 31, 1970. At the time of trial plaintiff was still employed by defendant.
2. Defendant Kraft Foods Corporation is a division of Kraft, Inc., (hereinafter Kraft) which is organized under the Delaware Corporation laws with its principal place of business in the State of Illinois. Kraft is an employer engaged in an industry affecting commerce and employs at least 25 persons.
3. Plaintiff testified that she applied for a job as an assistant secretary and did not discover until a year and a half later that she was classified as a junior clerk. At the time plaintiff was employed by the St. Louis office her rate of pay was $400.00 per month.
4. Prior to being employed by the defendant, plaintiff had no significant clerical experience. She had held part-time jobs and summer jobs while she attended school. Plaintiff could not use a comptometer and her duties consisted of simple, routine clerical tasks at the time of her employment.
5. The employee hired immediately prior to the plaintiff, Sue Pritchard, a white female, received the same starting salary as that received by the plaintiff, $400.00 per month.
6. One of the plaintiff's complaints is that she should have been started at a higher salary, and if she had been started at a higher salary she calculates her damages to be approximately $11,000.00. She also asks for attorneys fees. This Court finds no creditable evidence to show that there was any discrimination in the employment of the plaintiff, and considering her qualifications and past experience, she was adequately paid for her starting salary.
7. In September of 1970 the defendant paid $376.32 to the National Business Center, an employment agency, for plaintiff's referral fee.
8. Sue Pritchard, the white female who was hired on July 20, 1970, was initially hired for the position of a comptometer operator. Her duties required Ms. Pritchard to perform analytical and computational duties which are included in the classification of an intermediate clerk. The plaintiff's initial position did not require her to perform these tasks and she was not qualified to perform them. Despite Ms. Pritchard's greater qualifications and responsibilities, she received the same salary as the plaintiff, $400.00 per month.
9. Shortly after the plaintiff was hired by defendant she requested her immediate supervisor for one week's leave of absence without pay so that she could get married and take a wedding trip. This was granted to the plaintiff.
10. When plaintiff first began to work for the defendant she received some of her work assignments from Patricia Post, a white female who was classified as an intermediate clerk. Ms. Post served as a secretary to Mr. Charles White, the St. Louis District Sales Manager for defendant. Ms. Post turned some of the typing over to the plaintiff. It was soon discovered that the plaintiff and Ms. Post did not get along together and plaintiff complained of the manner in which she was being treated by Ms. Post. When this complaint was received by the plaintiff's supervisors the plaintiff no longer received any assignments directly from Ms. Post.
11. The plaintiff claims that she should have received a tuition refund in September of 1970. The Court finds that she actually received a refund in January, 1973, and that she had not requested it prior to that time.
12. Plaintiff also complains that she was not permitted to use the company telephone for personal telephone calls but that white females were able to do this. She also claims that she was harassed by her co-workers and her supervisors. The Court finds no creditable evidence to support these allegations except plaintiff's own testimony. As a matter of fact, two black females who are in the employment of defendant at the St. Louis office, Ms. Janice Creagh and Ms. Otera Sanford, both testified that they worked for the same supervisors as the plaintiff and that in all cases they have been treated with dignity and respect and they find no discrimination either in hiring or promotion at the St. Louis plant.
13. The plaintiff did not introduce evidence from a single employee of the defendant, except her own testimony, to support her claims of discriminatory practices against blacks. In addition to the black employees who testified in favor of the defendant, the defendant also introduced evidence that no complaint had ever been filed against the company with the EEOC or the Missouri Commission on Human Rights except the complaint filed by the plaintiff. The defendant also showed evidence that it is their policy, not only in the St. Louis branch but elsewhere in the company, that they have an affirmative action program to hire minorities and females and that the percentage of blacks employed in the St. Louis Division equals the percentage of blacks in the St. Louis work area.
14. Plaintiff complains that she should have received her first salary increase sooner than she did. The facts are that in 1971 the government imposed a temporary wage freeze and that plaintiff received a promotion some 17 months after she was employed. The evidence shows that during this same period of time no white co-employee received any salary increase more quickly than the plaintiff. Of the white co-employees, three others went 17 months without a salary increase, one went 18 months, two went 20 months, one went 21 months, and one went 22 months. This conclusively demonstrates that plaintiff was not treated in any respect differently than white co-employees.
15. Plaintiff testified that she received her first salary increase only because she had made a complaint to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The defendant's District Sales Manager, Charles White, testified that he had received a visit from an NAACP official but the NAACP official did not even mention plaintiff's name to him and that plaintiff's salary increase was not in any way related to this visit from the official.
16. Plaintiff also alleges that during 1972 the defendant hired two white females for the position of intermediate clerk while the plaintiff was still classified as a junior clerk. Both of these employees were hired to operate a comptometer and to perform analytical and computational tasks which the plaintiff did not perform and was not capable of performing. One of these employees, Ms. Schulte, had 23 years prior experience as a branch manager and instructor of a comptometer school; the other employee, Ms. Gan, had 11 years prior experience as a comptometer operator. There is no basis for the plaintiff's complaint that the hiring of these two employees at a higher grade was in any way racially motivated.
17. On July 16, 1973, the plaintiff was promoted to the position of intermediate clerk. The plaintiff alleges that her promotion to intermediate clerk was...
To continue reading
Request your trial