Opinion ID: 184247
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Anthony Thomas

Text: Anthony Thomas stated in deposition that McKerley “took care of” his personal friends whom he “hung out with and went golfing with and ate with and whatnot”; these employees were white men. ROA at 259. McKerley “kept [his friends] at the front of the line with all the jobs with the less work on it, where they would be getting as much overtime as they could . . . .” ROA at 259. However, Thomas acknowledged that he shared a job on the assembly line at various times with white employees, and that some white employees not among “the guys that McKerley hung out with” received the same difficult work Thomas and other African-Americans did. ROA at 269, 270. Thomas claimed that McKerley “would harass [him] all of the time” by giving him “dirty jobs” and extra tasks, but stated that he did not know why McKerley did so. ROA at 261. Thomas complained -4- No. 08-1282 Steward v. New Chrysler to McKerley’s boss, an African-American female, that the distribution of work was uneven, but had never suggested to management that the disparity was related to race. ROA at 270. Thomas also claimed that McKerley would “harass” employees by forcing the assembly line to move forward before they were finished with their tasks, and that this affected “everybody, whites or blacks.” ROA at 265. It seemed to Thomas that “the blacks [were] the ones [McKerley] was fighting [i.e., arguing with] the most, but he fought with the whites too.” ROA at 267. Thomas claimed that McKerley subjected African-American employees to stricter disciplinary standards than white employees, but he could not give any examples when asked. ROA at 267-68. He recalled having overheard McKerley make a racial joke to another person sometime during or before 2001, but could not remember anything more specific about it. ROA at 268. In 2003 or 2004, Thomas transferred to a different area of the plant to get out from under McKerley’s supervision; all the incidents which he described took place before that transfer. ROA at 265, 270.