Sony BMG Accused Of Racial Discrimination

A federal agency has revealed that Sony BMG intentionally laid off its black employees from a Manhattan sales office while keeping its white employees.

According to the New York Post, an October 2006 ruling by the New York office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) asserts that Sony "overwhelmingly" targeted black employees after a merger and restructuring in the summer of 2004.

The EEOC found that six black employees of the aforementioned Manhattan office received pink slips, including three who accepted a severance package and three who were axed "involuntarily." The only black worker to survive was a mail clerk. None of the company's eight white employees were released.

The EEOC's ruling has given Tamieka Blair, a former field marketing rep, the right to sue Sony BMG claiming she "was the victim of race discrimination."

Blair told The Post she initially accepted her layoff after a boss told her "it was just a numbers game," but when the ousted workers called each other, "we realized it was all the black people," she explained.

Sony BMG insists it based its layoff decisions on job performance but the EEOC claims the company had "no documented procedure for determining who the best players were," and "lacked performance standards."

Blair's lawyer, Mitchell Carlinsky, divulged that his client's suit, which aims to hold Sony accountable, will be filed this week in Brooklyn federal court.