Nuclear Waste Partnership, the contractor that runs the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, this week asked a federal court in New Mexico to dismiss a $500,000 lawsuit filed by an African American security employee who claims he was bypassed for a promotion due to his race.
While the Amentum-BWX Technologies partnership acknowledges plaintiff Eddie Thomas was the only African American member of the protective force at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) when a lieutenant’s position came open in May 2020, the contractor denies it passed over the plaintiff due to his race.
“Defendants conduct and actions were at all times undertaken in good faith, and without malice or ill-will toward Plaintiff,” Nuclear Waste Partnership said in its Monday filing. The WIPP prime contractor also said Thomas’ claims are barred by the collective bargaining agreement at WIPP “and should be handled under the grievance process contained therein, including the arbitration of disputes.”
Thomas went to work for the defendant in April 2019 and has experience working security as part of the SWAT (special weapons and tactics) team at the DOE’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to his complaint filed last month. But when WIPP conducted a “force on force” security training exercise in September 2019, Thomas was excluded although “it was specifically in his area of work.”
When the lieutenants’ job became open in May 2020, Thomas had not yet received his security clearance, which at the time he expected would arrive in December of that year, according to the complaint. “Plaintiff was told other people applied who had no clearance either,” according to the complaint.
Thomas was not granted an interview for the job and has been “humiliated and suffered emotional distress because of the actions of the managers in the security division,” according to the suit.
In a Tuesday order, United States Magistrate Judge Gregory Wormuth instructed attorneys for Thomas and the federal contractor, to “meet and confer” by Aug. 19 to discuss the case and explore “the possibility of a prompt resolution or settlement.”
The DOE contractor declined comment.
