Fired Employees Claim Bias at ICG

Four former employees of Colorado-based ICG Communications Inc. filed a lawsuit Tuesday, alleging they were terminated from the company’s Los Angeles sales office and faced other workplace discrimination because of their ethnicity.

The complaint against the publicly traded telephone service provider alleges that the Latino employees were terminated despite a history of receiving positive performance reviews, then being denied copies of their personnel files. Furthermore, the suit alleges, they did not receive compensation, advancement opportunities or working conditions comparable to those of nonminority employees.

“There were five terminations in the last year in the entire Los Angeles sales force. Four were the Latinos and one was a Filipino guy with a Spanish surname,” said attorney John Marder, of Manning Marder & Wolfe, who represents the workers. “This company at the local level is where the discrimination is occurring. The corporation is to blame because it doesn’t create the sensitivity among lower-level management.”

ICG officials at the company’s Englewood, Colo., headquarters said they had not yet been served with the lawsuit, and they declined to comment on the specific terminations. However, they denied allegations of workplace discrimination.

“We certainly have policies that wouldn’t allow any discrimination. The allegations, as far as I understand them, are completely without merit and we’ll defend them appropriately,” said Don Teague, ICG executive vice president and general counsel.

Teague added that the region’s sales team “still has Hispanics and a substantial representation of other minority groups on it.”

The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Marder said he will seek $50 million in damages.