SUPERIOR COURT OF WASHINGTON FOR KING COUNTY

 

 

LARRY PITTMAN, et al.,                                        Plaintiffs                   v. KING'S COMMAND FOODS, INC.,                                        Defendant

No. 99-2-52345-8KNT DECLARATION OF larry shockley IN REsPONSE TO DEFENDANT’S MOTION TO DISMISS

 

I, Larry Shockley, declare:

 

            I live at (redacted for this website) Seattle, WA (redacted for this website).

            I was an employee at King’s Command from Feb 1983 until August of 1999.  My last job responsibility was grinder, day shift.

            In the early days, in Seattle, there was a racially hostile environment.  There would be pictures of lynching and things like that.   I saw racist behavior going on when I first started there in 1983.  Papa Baer didn’t want someone hired just because of affirmative action.  He wanted to have to have people work and he wasn’t sure if he hired blacks if they would really work.

            Darrell Cody was the first black.  He knew what was going on about the attitude.  I respected him a lot because we had a picnic and he went up to people and shook their hands.

            I knew Michael Pittman.  He could get around, even with his disability.  I heard them telling him they would hire him.  He was there six months as a temporary.  They worked him and worked him and I don’t know why they didn’t hire him.

            I worked with Larry Pittman at King’s Command.  His job description was Condensation Technician.  He was wiping the pipes with the big broom but he was doing everything else that no one wanted to do like taking rotten meat out to the trash.  It smelled so bad that no one else wanted to smell it. I worked with Larry Pittman on the weekends and he did maintenance work.  I remember one time we were putting incoming goods on the box conveyor.  Larry Pittman drove the forklift because I didn’t know how to drive one.  On the weekends Larry would sand and paint rust marks on the machines so that rust wouldn’t get in the food.  Larry supervised during the weekends several times.  Larry went in whenever they was asked.  I know that he was the lowest paid one there even though he was in charge.  He did whatever they wanted.  Robert Thomas treated Larry Pittman like Sambo.  He wasn’t respectful.  He had an attitude toward blacks.

My supervisor was Kirk McCoy.  Mark Wallace hired Kirk McCoy because they were boyhood friends.

            I worked with Keith Kern.  He worked very hard lifting those boxes.  Robert Thomas would give him a lot of grief, minor abuse.  He would treat Keith like a slave.  He had an attitude toward blacks. 

            I worked with Terry Smith and Dave Horn.  I came to work drunk and on crack and they didn’t fire me. 

            They wouldn’t fire me because I came to work but they fired a single mother for attendance.  It was o.k. to them that I was there drunk or high just as long as I was there.  Half the time I was drunk; the other half of the time I was high. They weren’t fair with the occurrence policy.  I finally fired myself.  I didn’t like the way they treated the employees.

I make this statement under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of Washington.

            DATED this 23rd day of January, 2002.

 

                                                                                    _____________________________

                                                                                    Larry Shockley

 

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