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The Port Authority of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania is being sued over rules it recently handed down that forbid its workers from wearing Black Lives Matter face masks and other items “of a political or social protest nature.”
Port Authority officials revised the agency’s Uniform Standards for Port Authority Operators in July after some employees started going to work in masks that read “Black Lives Matter,” according to Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85. The new restrictions are “unreasonable … void for vagueness, overly broad, and inappropriately viewpoint-based,” the labor union argues.
More specifically, they violate the employees’ First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression and their 14th Amendment rights to equal protection under the law.
The labor union and three workers who have been disciplined under the new regulations — James Hanna, Sasha Craig and Monika Wheeler — filed a federal lawsuit against the Port Authority in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania on Wednesday. They are also seeking an injunction from the court to stop the Port Authority from enforcing the new regulations while the case is litigated.
According to the lawsuit, Craig and Wheeler are instructors and supervisors who went to work Aug. 5 wearing face masks that had the words “Black Lives Matter” on them. Their supervisor told them they would be suspended if they refused to take the masks off and wear face coverings that complied with the Port Authority’s newly revised rules.
“Refusing to surrender their right to passive, peaceful expression … Craig and Wheeler did not remove their BLM masks,” the lawsuit says. As a result, their supervisor refused to let them continue working.
A week later, Hanna, who is a bus driver and a union steward, arrived at a scheduled disciplinary hearing in which he was expected to represent a fellow employee when a Port Authority supervisor “demanded” he take off the Black Lives Matter face mask he was wearing, the lawsuit says. Hanna refused and the disciplinary hearings were cancelled.
Hanna “was sent home and told to await a call for a disciplinary hearing to impose discipline upon him.”
At his own disciplinary hearing Aug. 26, Hanna was given a verbal warning about the face mask and told “any further use of the mask would result in additional discipline up to and including discharge,” according to the lawsuit.
Before the uniform rules were changed, many Port Authority bus drivers and employees wore face masks that said Black Lives Matter or BLM “without any incident or objection from the public or other workers,” the lawsuit claims.
The Port Authority itself had endorsed the Black Lives Matter message, as well as other political and social protest messages such as gay pride, even going so far as to have some of the city’s buses “wrapped” with messaging for causes, the employees say.
A Sept. 3 letter from CEO Katharine Eagan Kelleman to employees about the new uniform policy says federal law prohibits public agencies from “allowing employees to express political or social messages, unless it allows all messages,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. As for the previous instances of bus wrapping with social-issue messaging, Kelleman said that was a different matter, one related to specific local events.
The letter is included in the union’s lawsuit as an exhibit.
The Post-Gazette also reported Port Authority officials previously said they were “concerned that employee support for such issues could make riders feel uncomfortable or otherwise disrupt transit rides.”
The Black Lives Matter movement and messaging has become exponentially more prominent in cities and towns throughout the country since the May, when George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer who kneeled on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. The incident was in public view and caught on cellphone videos that were almost immediately broadcast on the internet, on television and all over social media.
Floyd’s killing sparked what has been nearly five months of protests for racial justice across the U.S., many led by chants of “black lives matter.” The protests, both organized and individual, have led to numerous lawsuits from participants who claim their rights to free speech and equal protection have been infringed upon by police and others.
Have you been told you cannot wear Black Lives Matter face masks, buttons or other items at work? Have you been disciplined for doing so? Tell us about it in the comment section below.
The plaintiffs are represented by Joseph J. Pass of Jubelirer Pass & Intrieri PC and Patrick K. Lemon.
The Black Lives Matter Face Masks Lawsuit is Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85, et al. v. Port Authority of Allegheny County, Case No. 2:20-cv-01471-NR, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
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One thought on Penn. Port Authority Workers Sue Over Black Lives Matter Face Mask Restrictions
I think a company has the right to say whats in their dress code and I think all employees should abide by the rules; cause I think BLM is a controversy group that most of the time they are rioting and causing an uproar locally !