Attorney Alioto Calls for Wonder Bread Boycott

"People are being called "nigger” every day!  That kind of stuff is unbelievable, but it's out there, and it occurs all the time."

"No African Americans in management, and our guys could not get promoted to foremanship no matter how they tried.  In fact, when one was promoted because the company had to, they worked him to death; he lost thirty pounds and all his hair, the company took his back-up away from him, it was just inhumane, what they did.  And the jury gave him twelve million dollars.  The jury was very upset."

"When the top of a corporation is fundamentally racist, it isn't specific to any department, it's the whole company!  When a manager of a department is racist, that's when you'll see the racism departmentalized. But the racism at IBC (Wonder Bread's parent company) is deep­ rooted--it is at the top.  It's in Kansas City (corporate headquarters) and it seeps down to every department head.  So it's in every single job that an African American has, that the consequences are felt.  When you allow nasty, nasty jokes, like "How do you know when a nigger is hung well?  When his feet stop dangling.” Stuff like that--being called "You ignorant nigger."  It took me months to practice for this trial--to even be able to say "n-i-­g-g-e-r”--and yet you MUST be able to say it, because if s the force of saying it that just STUNS the jurors."

Gibbs Magazine requested this interview with San Francisco Attorney Angela Alioto because of the work she is doing on behalf of African American and other minority workers.  Recently 21 African American workers represented by Ms. Alioto in a civil lawsuit were awarded $124,000,000.00 for discrimination by their employer, Wonder Bread, Inc.  This was the largest racial discrimination verdict in the history of the United States.  Gibbs was interested in this victory and also in current discrimination lawsuits and trends in Silicon Valley.  The high-tech industry has often been described as a meritocracy -- a work environment in which rewards were distributed based fairly upon work performance, free of the impediments that minority employees face in traditional corporations.  This may be changing, if in fact such a work utopia ever existed to begin with.

Gibbs:  Thank you for agreeing to this interview, Ms. Alioto.  I'll start off with a couple of questions about your current discrimination lawsuits in Silicon Valley.  What are the issues involved with the NEC lawsuit?

Alioto:  It's fundamental disparate treatment--being treated differently because you are African American, disparate impact, retaliation for having reported discrimination under your protected rights, and emotional distress.  Silicon Valley is very ripe for these types of lawsuits, because so many minorities get to a point (in their careers) and THAT’S IT.  Women are experiencing the same thing; I think gender cases are going to be the big thing in Silicon Valley in the coming years, because women can have far superior educations to those of men who are promoted over them, yet they get either stopped at a low level and fired, or paid off to go away.

Gibbs:  Do you think the number of lawsuits we will see in the high tech industry is growing?

Alioto: No, because it takes a lot of guts to exercise your rights and complain.  It takes a lot to say, "Hey, I think you're doing this to me because of the color of my skin." Almost 100% of my clients have a hard time admitting discrimination.  You can't change the color of your skin, so it takes a long time to ask, "Am I going to have a lifetime of being treated this way?" Most people cannot afford to lose their jobs; they have families to feed, mortgages to pay.  And by the way, that's how I, as an attorney, know that this is a good case.

I think the best thing Silicon Valley can do is to emphasize diversity training.  Some HR managers do not have a clue as to what diversity and integration mean. They also don't have a clue in that they don't care about complainants.  So I think the best thing to do is to educate managers--but I have to add that it's very difficult for a leopard to change the color of his spots.  If you are a racist, it's very difficult to hide it.

Gibbs:  Do you think that the number of younger managers in Silicon Valley makes any difference, compared to management in many traditional industries?

Alioto: One would think that the younger, the more liberal they would be.  But it's not true.  I had some "dot-commers" on a jury in January against McGraw-Hill, in a disability case, and after we lost, I talked to the jury, and they said point blank: "You've got to be kidding--I'd have gotten rid of her a long time ago.  She's got carpal tunnel and she's having surgeries.  I don't need her; I need people who can do the work." And I thought, "Oh my God, the lack of tolerance is scary." I don't know if that's a trend, or what it is.  There have been a lot of articles about dot-commers being on juries and being intolerant.

Gibbs: Have you seen age as a factor in many discrimination cases?

Alioto: I have, but not as much as race, gender, and national origin.  The NEC case I have is a race case; the complainant is an African American, and it is quite stunning.  I have two NEC cases, actually--the other one involves a Latino employee.  The first case has a trial date in May, 2001.  It has been filed in federal court because it started out as a Title VII case.

 Gibbs:    What are the allegations?

 Alioto: Mr. Shands, the NEC complainant, was subjected to verbal abuse and visual abuse.  There was the situation of the supervisor with the bullwhip--very ugly, unbelievable behavior.  The complainants in all these cases were not able to get promoted, and were not being treated the same in work assignments--in other words, my client would be assigned a job that is "job-specific," that is, the description of the job would be clear.  A non-African American would be assigned the exact same job, but then my client's job would have so many more tasks to it than the other job with the same description.  They would overwork my client; they tried to get my client to quit because he is African American.

 Gibbs:    So he was being set up to fail.

 Alioto: Absolutely.  A lot of these companies hire minorities for entry-level jobs, and the concept is slavery.  The concept is, everybody at Wonder Bread who is African American is in an entry-level job.  The backbone of these corporations and this country, for that matter, is entry-level jobs.  That's where the companies hire minorities, and that's where they want them to stay.  It is racist to hire them at the bottom level, with the least pay, with the worst working conditions and then make sure of their inability to move upward.  And not only do they have the most work, but they have to hear racial slurs at work.  Racial slurs are a big part of almost every one of these lawsuits.  I just took on a new case, against Radiant Paint Company--it's a national paint company, owned by Magruder.  No African Americans are in management, and the five men I represent endure racial slurs every day.  They can't get promoted, and their work assignments have the same description but are different jobs than for non-African Americans.  It's just amazing to people that this occurs in the year 2000.  People are being called "nigger” every day!  That kind of stuff is unbelievable, but it's out there, and it occurs all the time.

I think the Wonder Bread case is going to be symbolic, because you think you have a level playing field and you find out you have this (blatant discrimination) right in your own back yard.

 Gibbs:  How many complainants were there in the Wonder Bread case?  Were they all African Americans?

 Alioto: There were 21, all African American males.  I have another trial in the next month for the women.  I can't believe Wonder Bread is going into the courtroom--its arrogance.

 Gibbs:  How many employees does Wonder Bread have?

 Alioto: In Northern California they published 286.  Nationally, they've got 40,000.  We made a big impact with this verdict.

 Gibbs:  Were all the complainants from the same section or division in the company?

 Alioto: Actually we divided them up: we had four transit drivers, who drive the biggest trucks, then we had the route drivers, then the shipping dock employees, then the production guys who bake the bread.  We divided them up by department to work with them on the stand, so that it would be easy for the jury to follow.  I think it worked very well.

 Gibbs:  So the same types of problems were encountered by all these employees in these four different departments.

 Alioto: Let me just say this, because I love that question.  When the top of a corporation is fundamentally racist, it isn't specific to any department, it's the whole company!  When a manager of a department is racist, that's when you'll see the racism departmentalized. But the racism at IBC (Wonder Bread's parent company) is deep­ rooted--it is at the top.  It's in Kansas City (corporate headquarters) and it seeps down to every department head.  So it's in every single job that an African American has, that the consequences are felt.  When you allow nasty, nasty jokes, like "How do you know when a nigger is hung well?  When his feet stop dangling.” Stuff like that--being called "You ignorant nigger."  It took me months to practice for this trial--to even be able to say "n-i-­g-g-e-r”--and yet you MUST be able to say it, because if s the force of saying it that just STUNS the jurors.  It is the force of saying it that my clients are hit with every time they hear it.  So it was important not to minimize the impact of those kinds of words.  At any rate, it starts at the top.

 Gibbs:    So this is why the punitive damages were so high?

 Alioto:  Absolutely.  No African Americans in management, and our guys could not get promoted to foremanship no matter how they tried.  In fact, when one was promoted because the company had to, they worked him to death; he lost thirty pounds and all his hair, the company took his back-up away from him, it was just inhumane, what they did.  And the jury gave him twelve million dollars.  The jury was very upset.

 Gibbs:  What were the main issues that influenced the decision?

 Alioto: The pervasiveness of the racial epithets; the appointment to foremanships by the "tap on the shoulder”--no African Americans were ever getting tapped on the shoulder.  It was really clear what was going on.  My guys were the backbone of that company.  They couldn't even come to the trial; the plants would have had to close down, so they had to rotate their appearances in the courtroom.

 Gibbs:    They couldn't operate without 21 people?

 Alioto: You have to understand my guys were the BACKBONE.  They're not just 21 people, these guys train EVERYBODY that jumps over them and gets promoted.  All of their own present-day bosses were trained by my guys.  Can you imagine that, training people and having them become your boss all the time?  It's pretty unbelievable.  We are actually calling for a large Wonder Bread boycott, including Wonder Bread, Hostess Twinkies, Dolly Madison and Home Pride.  Tell people not to buy these brands until they stop these practices and promote some African Americans into positions of authority in management.  We shouldn't buy their bread.  Boycotts make a difference, as you know.  I haven't eaten a grape in twenty-seven years--it's important.

Gibbs: Is Wonder Bread going to appeal?

Alioto: The post-trial motions are due for a hearing on September 29.  The biggest issue in the state of California, and even in the nation, is punitive damages.  No punitive damage award over 3.8 million dollars has ever been published; there was one for 27 million but it wasn't published-- certainly nothing like 124 million dollars has been published.  They are appealing, of course, but in the meantime we are also going to mediation.  Nobody knows what the judge will do on September 29.

Gibbs: Is there anything else you would like to tell our readers about the Wonder Bread verdict?

Alioto: Just that it is so important for public policy reasons that this verdict stays intact.  If the courts are going to be decreasing punitive damages in cases like this, they are basically saying, "Hey, you big corporation, it's okay to discriminate." And that's not what the jury is saying, the jury said, "It's NOT okay." It's a shame that the courts are cutting all these punitive damages almost to zero, because then it doesn't mean anything to these big corporations.  Let's say the judges cut these damages from $120 million to some other figure.  IBC is the largest baker in the world; they make about $3.8 billion a year.  They don't care about a smaller amount. The $780 million against Lockheed was cut down to $3 million.  So my point is, there is no reason for corporate America to stop discriminating if the court system won't maintain the punitive damage standards.  Legislation sets punitive damages, so until the legislature changes punitive damage standards, judges shouldn't touch them, because they represent the decisions of the juries who saw the evidence.  When they cut the punitive damages, they are telling corporate America that it's okay to call Willie Wilkerson, who has over thirty years with the company, an "ignorant nigger" when he goes to work.

That's what the fight is going to be--to maintain these awards.  Because I'll tell you something: Every chairman of the board is going to stop and think, "If I do this--if I mistreat this woman, this person over forty, this disabled person, this Latino person, this African American, or even a Sicilian like me--I'm going to get hit with a Wonder Bread verdict, so I'd better not do it."  If they cut the award down to three million dollars, it will not be in that chairman of the board's mind; it'll be a joke.  That was my biggest plea to the jury: Don't let those big guys laugh at us.

Gibbs:  Is there anything else you'd like to tell our readers?

Alioto: Just let them know to boycott Wonder Bread.

Gibbs would like to thank Ms. Angela Alioto for an insightful and provocative interview.  We wish her well in her pursuit of civil justice. [This interview was conducted at the law offices of Joseph Alioto and Angela Alioto by Susan Robinson of Gibbs. Ms Alioto's E-mail is angelaav@aol.com. Her phone number is (415) 434-8700]. []