Employees accuse FEMA of racial bias in personnel decisions

After getting multiple calls from black Federal Emergency Management Agency employees alleging racial bias, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is considering bringing a class action lawsuit against the agency.

Employees are claiming, for instance, that qualified blacks were ignored for a promotion to a vacant GS-14 level position. According to a Jan. 26 memorandum, FEMA Chief Financial Officer Margaret Young called upon the agency's acting operations director, Kenneth Burris, to recruit outside candidates for the budget analyst position because "[t]here is currently no existing staff that has the level of expertise necessary."

Union officials said there are 11 blacks at the GS-13 level who were passed over for a promotion to the vacant spot, as well as four white employees.

FEMA declined to comment, and a spokesman said Young was unavailable.

The memorandum served as the first "smoking gun" concerning bias at the agency and is the precursor of the potential class action lawsuit, said Leo Bosner, president of the American Federation of Government Employees' FEMA headquarters Local 4060.

"It's like there is a glass ceiling for blacks" beginning at the GS-13 level, Bosner said.

An attorney from the NAACP was mum on the matter.

"We're taking complaints right now," said Anson Asaka, assistant general counsel for the NAACP, who was called upon in late March to begin looking into the allegations. "I don't want to make any comments about it. We'll make a determination after we [conclude] an investigation."

Bosner said he has been contacted by FEMA employees in Washington and in regional offices around the country, who have relayed similar tales of alleged bias.

"There is an ongoing, festering problem," he said. "People are getting directly in touch with Mr. Asaka. He's received a number of calls."

Bosner, a 27-year FEMA veteran, filed two unfair labor practice complaints with the Federal Labor Relations Authority on behalf of other employees. In one, he said he provided members of Congress with information relevant to racial discrimination but did not specify which lawmakers. Another FEMA employee filed a separate complaint with the Office of Special Counsel in late March.

According to the OSC complaint, the employee, who declined to comment on the matter when contacted, was given the Jan. 26 memo saying that there were no qualified employees to fill the post, titled "Budget analyst, GS-560-14, target 14," or simply GS-14. The complaint alleges the employee -- who is one rank below GS-14 -- received a request from a supervisor to meet after the memo surfaced.

The supervisor, whose name is redacted from the complaint, allegedly said the person who leaked the memo to the employee would be fired if a positive identification could be made, and added that if he were "blind-sided" by another incident, the person responsible would be "cut off … at the knees." The employee - a FEMA employee for 11 years - said the supervisor's comments were "threatening."

OSC did not comment on the matter. Jill Crumpacker, executive director of FLRA, said the two complaints received are "under active investigation" and declined to comment further because of the ongoing review.

Bosner said he believes discrimination has been an issue at FEMA for years, reaching back before the Clinton administration. But the problem is not as prevalent among rank-and-file employees, he said.

"I don't sense any racial animosity between employees," he said.