Federal suit claims bias in airport hiring

Adrienne Packer

Friday, March 30, 2001 | 11:27 a.m.

Michael Jordan was once a loyal McCarran International Airport employee who until a decade ago gradually rose through the ranks in a department where he has worked half his life.

Today the 47-year-old black man has shed the loyalty label; he prefers the term "fighter." Loyalty, Jordan claims, isn't what earns career advancements at McCarran: race and religion do.

After losing five bids for managerial positions to white co-workers Jordan filed a civil federal lawsuit against the Clark County Department of Aviation.

Not only is he challenging one of the county's largest divisions with 922 employees, but he is taking on one of the community's most influential faiths -- the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Jordan claims that, after a handful of promotions during a 10-year period, he has been stuck as an airport services coordinator for as many years. He has seen few black people progress from the the service coordinator positions but said he has watched as Mormons, relatives of airport administrators and white employees were generously promoted.

"I'm stunned this has gone on as long as it has," Jordan said of what he calls blatant racial and religious discrimination at the airport, a department many employees have dubbed the M&M Factory -- for Mormons and military.

"To me, it's a way of breaking people. It's discouraging when you look up and see people being promoted all the time."

Airport administrators have essentially acknowledged the widespread feeling among employees that promotions and hiring are based on race and religion.

A 1998 survey conducted by Downey Research Associates to gauge perceptions among 603 airport employees proved Jordan isn't alone in his beliefs.

The airport-sponsored survey has never been made public and has never been reported on.

"About 70 percent of respondents gave suggestions for change in the hiring and promotion process ranging from specific ideas for making it more fair to complaints about political hiring, favoritism, nepotism and religious ties," the consultant's report says.

Survey results showed employee's primary concerns were that they didn't have a chance at a promotion if they weren't Mormon, related to an administrator or didn't have "juice." Many also were convinced members of interviewing panels had their minds made up before applicants were interviewed.

Some 51 percent said the hiring process at the airport was not fair, and 37 percent of the surveyed workforce said they were most concerned about fairness as it related to religion. Thirty-three percent noted race and 31 percent listed gender.

"End the Mormon reign that has for years gone on here at the (Department of Aviation)," reads one employee's comment. "Nepotism is pretty bad too and seems connected to the Mormons in higher positions."

"Can't advance without juice or family or Church ties," said another.

Airport Director Randy Walker's assistants ignored repeated requests for survey results until told the Las Vegas Sun was planning to file a Freedom of Information Act request.

Airport Deputy Director Rosemary Vassiliadis said that the answers were perceptions, not reality.

Airport attorney Bruce Young declined to speak on the record throughout an hourlong conversation Wednesday with the Sun.

Although the consultants' report apparently confirms the belief that decisions are made based on religion and that nepotism is prominent, Jordan is the only employee so far to take his case to federal court.

A second black employee is preparing to file his own lawsuit, but in the meantime has asked to remain anonymous. And a high-ranking Clark County official, who also is black but has asked not to be named, said she too was discriminated against when she was employed at the airport.

Even though she has a master's degree, she was never promoted and eventually transferred out of the airport. Her frustration grew as she watched white employees with no college degree move into upper management, the county official said.

"It was not an equal playing field," said the official. "You can have all sorts of degrees and all sorts of experience and still not go anywhere."

Mormons move up the ranks fastest, Jordan's lawsuits says. In 1996 all but one of the airport's 11 administrators were white, and in his lawsuit Jordan claims all but one were believed to be LDS members. Last year, eight of the county's nine administrators were white, and Jordan believes half were Mormon.

Vassiliadis denies the proportion of Mormons and cited employee confidentiality policies for not divulging the percentage. She also denied that blacks are discriminated against in management.

"We look for specific qualities in high-level management positions," Vassiliadis said. "We go by open recruitment."

After several requests, the airport also turned over the countywide Affirmative Action Plan. Unlike its 30-page plan used until 1994 -- which included specific figures on departments where black people work -- the current plan is five pages and simply addresses policy.

Airport officials said the older plan, which says there is a "concentration of black employees in a job category that is considered low skill level, low- paying and without many opportunities for advancement" is inaccurate.

In 1996 a group called the Black County Employees Association was formed to push administrators to hire more blacks. Of the 715 staff members employed by the Department of Aviation that year, 144 were black, according to a report from the county's Equal Employment Opportunity office.

Of the 922-member workforce at the airport in 2000, 201 were black. There were a total of 875 black employees working for the county, which last year employed 5,904 staff members.

A breakdown of what positions black employees hold was not available; officials with the EEO office and airport said they do not keep those records.

However, Jordan's lawsuit claims that in 1996 the airport hired 18 black employees, 17 of whom were placed in service-maintenance. The survey two years later included comments about how difficult it was to advance from those positions.

Jordan, who attended a community college for two years, is no longer in an entry-level position. He has applied three times for the airport ground transportation supervisor's position, once for airport parking supervisor and once for terminal operations coordinator.

Vassiliadis said seniority plays no role in promotions, and the airport's formal response to the lawsuit claims Jordan scored too low during his interviews.

But Jordan, his lawyer Kathleen England and at least one other black employee question the makeup of the interviewing panel, calling the process "subjective."

In 1995, for example, Jordan was in a field of applicants for terminal operations coordinator who interviewed with a two-person panel that included Terminal Operations Assistant Director George Rakers and Terminal 2 Manager Malon Harris.

The two women awarded the positions were Judy Carpenter and Linda Mueller, both former administrative assistants under Raker and Harris.

Carpenter had been an administrative assistant since 1980 when she received the promotion, which doubled her salary, according to records obtained from the county's Human Resources Department. Mueller had been an office assistant since 1989; her salary also doubled.

Airport officials said the two women had been at Terminal 2, which handles charter and international flights, since it opened, were familiar with the facility's "unique" operation and essentially worked as coordinators without the title.

And though they said it was unusual to have only two interviewers, it was not unprecedented.

"Our goal and practice is to have three," said Christine Santiago, the airport personnel manager. "But there is nothing in policy and procedure that says we have to do that."

Santiago added that the county's EEO office looked into that particular hiring and found no wrongdoing.

A 50-year-old black employee who works in landside operations said he has complained to the county's Equal Employment Opportunity office about the lack of blacks on interviewing panels.

He said after his complaint last year, two black people appeared on the panel, and of the three black employees applying for an airport parking shift supervisor position, they chose the least qualified applicant. When the employee quit his job two weeks later, the airport appointed a white man tothe position.

"That's what they use to eliminate people, to make sure they don't hire anyone they don't want," the high-ranking county official said. "The interview panels are subjective. They learned how to maneuver through the rules."

The 1998 survey notes several comments from employees who said the interviewing panel just goes through the motions and has already determined which staff member will be promoted.

"In (staff members') comments, several indicated that promotions appear to be political and are decided before the interviews take place," the report says.

A custodian who has worked at McCarran for six years said he has struggled to even be promoted to a supervisory position in the janitorial department because he doesn't have the proper connections.

"The buddy-buddy system works there just fine," said the man, who is also black. "I feel if I do the job and go extra lengths to show I can do the job, I should be given equal consideration to get a higher position.

"It's fixed when we get in there. They know who will be hired. We know who will be hired. (The interview) is just a formality they have to go through."

Jordan, who gave up on the process through the county, said he hopes his federal lawsuit will encourage others to come forward publicly and battle a facility that acts as its own government.

"I've been a fighter all my life," Jordan said. "I'd hate to see someone else come along and have to go through this. I have truth on my side, and I believe in the truth."

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