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Faces of EEOC: Laudente Montoya

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"I could hardly bring myself to go to work in the morning because I hated working with that manager so much.

Now that it's all over, I am proud that we stood up for ourselves, and I'm glad EEOC was able to help get things like the training and the survey as part of the settlement. All I ever wanted was to change how people were being treated."

Laudente Montoya,
EEOC v. Dart Energy

 

Laudente Montoya took a job as a mechanic with J&R Well Services at one of the company's sites in Wyoming. On his first day on the job, one of his managers called him a series of derogatory names, and he experienced harassment based on his national origin, which is Hispanic. J&R Well Services treated Laudente's Native American and African-American co-workers with similar disrespect. Senior management at the company ignored or brushed off employees' complaints about the treatment.

After months of abuse, Laudente and some of his co-workers filed charges of discrimination with the Wyoming Department of Employment Labor Standards. EEOC investigated those charges and, after failing to resolve the charges voluntarily with the employer, and brought suit against J&R Well Services and two other companies that operated as an integrated enterprise for harassment of a group of employees and for retaliation. The companies settled the case for $1.2 million and a three-year agreement approved by the court that requires training for company staff about discrimination, an anonymous complaint line to report occurrences of discrimination, and annual surveys of employees to ensure that they are not facing discrimination.