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Edison Employees File Suit Alleging Race Discrimination : Workplace: African Americans’ suit is being handled by a celebrated plaintiffs’ law firm.

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TIMES STAFF WRITERS

Southern California Edison, for months the target of slow-moving federal investigations into alleged racial bias, on Wednesday was hit with a big new headache: a class-action discrimination suit crafted by one of the nation’s most celebrated plaintiffs’ law firms.

The suit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles by nine African American Edison employees, is being handled by the Oakland law firm of Saperstein, Mayeda & Goldstein.

The firm is well known for winning huge awards for consumers and employees with discrimination claims.

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For instance, in April the Saperstein firm helped win a $54-million settlement from Denny’s Restaurants in connection with the company’s alleged refusal to serve African American customers. That same month the law firm snared $107 million from Lucky Stores in a case alleging sex discrimination in the supermarket chain’s employment practices.

The Saperstein firm’s biggest windfall, however, came in March, 1992, when it won $250 million for women denied positions as sales agents with State Farm General Insurance Co.

It was billed as the biggest recovery of damages ever in a case brought under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Los Angeles management lawyer William S. Waldo said the Saperstein lawyers, “unlike some other plaintiffs’ firms, are very careful in the cases they take,” and investigate circumstances thoroughly before embarking on a suit.

In the suit filed against Southern California Edison on Wednesday, the nine plaintiffs charged the giant utility with discriminating on the basis of race in performance evaluations, training, pay and promotions.

The suit, which also accused the company of condoning a racially hostile work environment, seeks unspecified damages and a change in Edison’s employment practices. Edison denies all the charges and says it has made major strides in hiring and promoting minorities.

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The plaintiffs’ charges parallel complaints that were disclosed publicly a year ago by a group of more than 200 African American employees of Edison and filed at the same time with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The agency is continuing to review the allegations.

Separately, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, a unit of the U.S. Labor Department, has conducted a so-called glass-ceiling review since June of employment practices toward women and minorities at Edison’s headquarters in Rosemead.

A company spokesman called the review a routine matter, and said that Edison is one of about 50 companies over the last two years that have been singled out for such an audit by the agency. Federal officials declined to comment, other than to acknowledge the Labor Department’s glass-ceiling review.

Teresa Demchak, a lawyer for the Edison employees, said her clients decided to take their complaints to court because of the slow pace of the government inquiries and the company’s failure to reverse discriminatory practices.

She said Edison has made progress in hiring women and some minorities, but charged that it has continued a long pattern of discriminating against blacks.

Georgia Nelson, an Edison vice president, replied: “We’ve been really committed to increase opportunities for minorities in this company. We have a ways to go to achieve these things, but we’re committed to doing that.”

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The company issued figures showing that 5% of its professional and managerial employees are African American, versus 4% in 1989. Of the company’s top 20 officers, one is black. Overall, Edison said blacks make up 7.5% of its work force of 17,777 people, while only 6.7% of the people living in its service area are African American.

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