B&H Foto Faces Discrimination Lawsuit From Brooklyn Navy Yard Workers

Popular photography retailer B&H is being sued by workers who allege discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, ethnicity, and gender while working in the company’s Brooklyn Navy Yard warehouse.

According to the workers, B&H Foto and Electronics Corporation routinely promoted and paid higher salaries to white workers, verbally harassed and provided separate and unequal restrooms to Hispanic workers. and rejected job applications of candidates solely because they were women, Asian Americans or black Americans.

However, in a statement published on their website, B&H defended themselves as “a family-owned business” that chose to stay in New York for 40 years. They added that “every one of our employees is treated with respect and dignity, no matter of race, religion or gender” and that they receive benefits and vacation days that “few companies offer.”

B&H also flatly denies the separate restroom accommodations, stating that:

The allegations you have been hearing about are largely made by people who have never set foot in a B&H facility. For the time being, we will address several of the accusations, as they are far from factual. We can declare outright that B&H does NOT have any segregated bathrooms by race or religion, and anyone working at B&H knows that to be true. Additionally, any similar contentions are not only inaccurate, but bizarre.

However, this particular lawsuit — which pertains to alleged conditions and hiring practices at the Navy Yard warehouse, not at the Ninth Avenue store in Manhattan — is just the latest in a steady stream of discrimination suits filed against the company over the past decade.

According to the New York Daily News:

The company was fined $32,000 earlier this month by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) for hazardous violation found at its Brooklyn warehouses.

In 2007, B&H had to pay $4.3 million to settle a discrimination claim by another group of Hispanic workers working in the firm’s Navy Yard warehouse. Part of that settlement requires the company to raise wages for Hispanic workers and to be monitored by federal authorities.

Yet, despite the monitoring, B&H was slapped with new round of lawsuits.

In 2009, a group of female workers sued the company, arguing they were paid less than male employees and were not promoted because of their gender. B&H fired the lead plaintiff, but the suit was later dismissed.

In 2011, in the third suit in five years, the firm was hit by another multi-million dollar racial discrimination lawsuit, filed by two Latino workers, who claimed the company refused to promote them and that B&H was an “abusive work environment.”

This most recent complaint was filed with the DOL’s Office of Administrative Law Judges and, worst case scenario, could cost the company $46 million in federal contracts. So far:

The Department of Labor said it was unable to secure “a voluntary agreement from B&H to take corrective action.” The lawsuit seeks to end the alleged practices and to compensate impacted workers.

B&H spokesman Henry Posner declined to comment due to the “unresolved ongoing legal matter.”

Have you ever worked at the B&H warehouse? What do you think of these lawsuits?