Lockheed Martin Corp. will pay a former Kane'ohe Bay electrician $2.5 million to settle a lawsuit alleging racial discrimination.

The settlement is the largest for a racial discrimination case in Hawai'i, and is the largest obtained by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of an individual alleging racial discrimination, the EEOC said yesterday.

"We hope this settlement will send a message that racism and discrimination will not be tolerated," said William Tamayo, regional attorney for the EEOC.

Former Lockheed employee Charles Daniels alleged in a federal court lawsuit that he was the target of persistent racial slurs by co-workers and a supervisor between 2000 and 2001 while working on military contract projects at Marine Corps Base Hawaii at Kane'ohe Bay, and on other military jobs in Jacksonville, Fla., and Whidbey Island, Wash.

The 45-year-old Daniels, who is black, said he alerted Lockheed about the problems as early as 2000. Daniels said the company failed to discipline the employees, allowing the harassment to intensify to the point where he received death threats.

Daniels went outside the company for help, filing a discrimination complaint with the EEOC in 2001. Daniels said Lockheed laid him off after he filed the complaint.

Lockheed denied Daniels' charges and admitted no wrongdoing.

Lockheed spokesman Joe Stout said the EEOC and Daniels misrepresented the company's handling of the matter. Lockheed "conducted investigations and took the appropriate remedial actions," Stout said.

Stout said the company "chose to settle the allegations from six and seven years ago to enable all parties to move on."

Had the case gone to trial, the facts would have shown that the company took the allegations seriously and took appropriate action, Stout said. The trial was scheduled to start in February.

Stout said the alleged conduct involved "a small number" of employees, who either have been terminated or have left the company. Under the terms of the settlement, Lockheed has barred the former co-workers from working for the company again.

"The EEOC's characterization of the facts is false and we regret that the EEOC, for whatever reason, has chosen to distort the factual record in this matter," the company said in an e-mail.

Lockheed Martin is a military contractor with headquarters in Bethesda, Md., and about 140,000 employees worldwide. Lockheed reported sales of $39.6 billion in 2006.

HUMILIATED AND FEARFUL

Daniels, who appeared yesterday at a news conference in Ho-nolulu, said the ordeal has been devastating financially for his family, which includes his wife and three daughters.

Daniels, who was part of a team that serviced Lockheed's P-3 Orion military aircraft, said he was out of work about a year before taking a job in Georgia with military contractor Lear Siegler Services Inc. He now lives in Georgia.

Daniels, who worked for Lockheed from 1999 to 2001, said the experience also left him "humiliated" and fearful.

He said a Lockheed human-resources employee told him after he was fired, "You see that file cabinet behind you? It's filled with thousands of complaints just like yours. We're Lockheed Martin. We never lose. You can take your chances with the EEOC."

In his lawsuit, Daniels said that he was called "the N-word" a number of times by co-workers and was told "we should do to blacks what Hitler did to the Jews."

'SIMPLY PURE RACISM'

According to Daniels' lawsuit, co-workers openly discussed "lynching" in front of him and one told him he would "tie a knot" for him.

Daniels said that one former co-worker told him that he knew members of the white supremacist group Aryan Nations, who could "make people disappear."

"I was told that they could put my body 10 feet from the road and nobody could find me," Daniels said.

"It was simply pure racism, nothing else," Daniels said.

Stout, the Lockheed spokesman, said Daniels did not mention the death threats when he first reported the problem to the company in 2000. Stout said Lockheed only became aware of the alleged threats after Daniels filed his lawsuit in 2005.

Stout said Lockheed policy bars retaliation against any employee who comes forward with a complaint.

During the news conference announcing the settlement, attorneys for the EEOC suggested that Daniels' treatment reflects a broader pattern of misconduct by his former co-workers.

Raymond Cheung, a senior trial attorney for the EEOC, said the agency's investigation found "other people who may have been subject to racial harassment."

But Cheung said the EEOC is not likely to seek new complaints against the company because too much time had passed since the events occurred.

WITNESS BACKS HIM UP

In a news release, the EEOC said that a former co-worker who witnessed the events and provided testimony backing up Daniels' account also was harassed by co-workers.

The witness, Thomas Carey, ended up resigning from the company after his former colleagues called him "race traitor," the EEOC said.

Carey could not be reached for immediate comment.

Daniels drew a parallel between his ordeal and that of employees at a Lockheed plant in Meridian, Miss.

In 2003, Douglas Williams, a Lockheed employee with a history of racial animosity, killed five Lockheed co-workers, four of whom were black.

The Memphis Commercial Appeal reported that Williams wore a white hoodlike head covering at work about three weeks before his shotgun rampage.

The EEOC investigation came after several members of the victims' families sued Lockheed. The case was eventually settled, court records show.

Stout, the Lockheed spokesman, called the Meridian incident a tragedy that has no bearing on the circumstances involving Daniels.

According to the EEOC, racial harassment charges have risen sharply since the early 1990s. Last year, about 7,000 racial harassment cases were filed nationwide, which is more than double the 3,075 filed in 1991, the EEOC said.

The federal commission said racial discrimination complaints are the most common job bias complaints it receives nationwide.

Carl Varady, the attorney who represented Daniels, said his client's case shows that racial harassment remains a big problem in the workplace.

"Mr. Daniels' experience demonstrates how far we have to go before we can declare the battle against ignorance and bigotry won," Varady said.

Reach Rick Daysog at rdaysog@honoluluadvertiser.com.

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