Long v. Ford Motor Company

352 F. Supp. 135, 5 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 246, 1972 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11213, 5 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 8082
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Michigan
DecidedNovember 9, 1972
DocketCiv. A. 37429
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 352 F. Supp. 135 (Long v. Ford Motor Company) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Michigan primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Long v. Ford Motor Company, 352 F. Supp. 135, 5 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 246, 1972 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11213, 5 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 8082 (E.D. Mich. 1972).

Opinion

OPINION

FEIKENS, District Judge.

Claude E. Long, a black man, is suing his former employer, Ford Motor Company, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1981 for wrongful termination of his employment. 1 Long’s claim is that his employment was terminated at least in part because of his race.

The question presented here is one of the more pressing in the automobile industry (which may be the most significant economic force in this district). More specifically, the hiring of black people into lower and middle-management positions in the automobile companies is at the leading edge of the struggle for equal employment opportunities for members of all races. In positions held by hourly workers, the problem of racial discrimination has been alleviated somewhat by a greater consciousness of the problems in this area on the part of management and the union representatives. This awareness has also accelerated the movement in recent years of black people into higher-level positions in the unions. Upper-level management has also shown a real consciousness of the problems in this area.

In a letter under date of January 17, 1968, Mr. Henry Ford II, writing to all members of the Ford Motor Company management group, said in this regard (in part):

“Equal opportunity is one of Ford Motor Company’s oldest, firmest and most basic policies. The purpose of this letter is to call on each of you to give that policy your full and active support, and to put it into practice in new ways and with a new sense of urgency.
“Our goal is to do all we realistically can to give people who have been held back by prejudice and poverty a chance to earn a decent life. .
“We can continue to improve our internal training programs and provide leadership and support to public and private community programs to seek out and develop talent abilities that may be productively employed in business and industry. .
“By helping people to help themselves, we can help to cure a social cancer that threatens the vitality and peace of the communities, where we do business.
“New approaches will bring new problems, but I know we have the management ability to solve them. . . .” (See Plaintiff’s Exhibit 4.)

Lower and middle-management personnel still possess a great lack of awareness of the problems of racial discrimination and the right to equal employment opportunity. This lack was demonstrated during the trial by the testimony of virtually all those Ford employees (both black and white) that they were, in effect, “color blind.”

This testimony indicates that they did not understand what Mr. Ford had said to them. People who say that they are color blind and stop there either do not understand or do not care to understand the problem of racial discrimination. Ford did not tell his management group to be “color blind”; he told them to be “color conscious.” And he said much more. He said that that consciousness should carry with it the equally important goal of thorough job training. This testimony indicates that these management people — contrary to the position of their higher management — have little awareness of the need for positive steps to advance black people into the lower and middle-management levels. They seem willing, even, to accept token integration of these levels of management so long as this does not require *137 changes in entrenched attitudes and practices.

What must be understood in an analysis of this case is that a black man should not be hired just because he is black. A black person who is hired solely for appearance sake and is inexperienced and not given thorough job training is likely to fail. If that occurs and he is then fired, one may conclude that just as he was hired because he was black, so he was fired because he was black.

This community has seen black men, some with college degrees, placed into management positions in which they had no experience and for which they received little or no training. As a result there were resignations or firings and the common black man’s complaint is then that this occurred because of race.

It is against this background that the facts of this case must be judged.

Claude Long applied for a position with Ford on July 5, 1967. He is a graduate of Michigan State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Police Administration.

He began working at the Ford Rouge complex approximately two weeks later. Although Long began as a production foreman, his testimony indicated that he accepted this position because a Ford spokesman had told him that he would have to take such a position to “gain experience” in the way Ford did things prior to becoming a labor relations representative (which was the position Long testified that he was more interested in). This contention is borne out by the fact that Long’s application for employment with Ford indicated that his objective was to “get into the management area at Ford Motor.”

As a foreman, Long received three “satisfactory” performance reviews with various notations as to specific duties which he was or was not performing adequately. The testimony and exhibits indicate that Long related well to the employees under his supervision (most of whom were black) but that he was not what might be termed a “by the book” foreman.

On January 2, 1969, Long was given his first “unsatisfactory” performance review by General Foreman R. Kaul.

Shortly thereafter, Long filed a complaint with the Michigan Civil Rights Commission alleging that he was harassed, given an unfair performance review, and that he was denied a better job placement because of his race.

This complaint was withdrawn, prior to investigation, because Long was transferred to the Industrial Relations Department in May of 1969.

This transfer was accomplished through the efforts of Harvey Proctor, a black man. Proctor, who had just moved from the position of Industrial Relations Manager at the Frame Plant to the same position at the Stamping Plant, suggested to his successor at the Frame Plant, Rex Bremer, a white man, that Bremer might consider Long for an upcoming vacancy at the Frame Plant. This suggestion resulted from a discussion between Proctor and Long about the possibility of Long’s getting into labor relations work.

The parties greatly differ over whether Bremer’s hiring of Long was as a result of Long’s civil rights complaint (a “conciliation” of the complaint). This court does not see this question as being particularly crucial to the decision of this case, and thus it need not be decided.

Long was interviewed by Bremer. Bremer testified that he hired Long as a favor to Proctor.

Prior to the time that Bremer appointed Long to the wage analyst position at the Frame Plant there were two people handling wage analyst work, a Thomas Malizia and a John Hastie. What was later to become the work of Long was divided between them.

Long took over the position that Hastie had held. His supervisor was a Mr. Haney. Long’s job training was scanty.

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547 F. Supp. 429 (W.D. Michigan, 1982)
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Bluebook (online)
352 F. Supp. 135, 5 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 246, 1972 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11213, 5 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 8082, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/long-v-ford-motor-company-mied-1972.