Sending a message

Amtrak employee Bill Regan left some information off his job application a decade ago. Is that really why he's in trouble with his employers?

Cityscape by Sarah McNaught

Bill Regan knows vengeance. Over the past seven years he has been set on fire, assaulted, threatened, suspended from his job, and publicly humiliated. He has heard colleagues and supervisors call him "nigger lover," "wanna-be," and "scumbag." He has received threats of a car bomb. His daughters have had to sleep on the couch in his living room because Regan was told to expect bricks through their bedroom windows.

What's driving the hate directed at Regan is his determination to bring affirmative action to the engineering division of the MBTA's commuter-rail service, which is operated under contract by Amtrak. His activism has made him a key witness in a $100 million class-action suit filed last April on behalf of more than 5000 black track-laying and repair workers in the Northeast, charging that Amtrak harasses and discriminates against African-Americans. And now, his activism may be the reason he loses his job.

In what he and his attorneys call the most recent example of retaliation, Regan -- who is white -- will face disciplinary hearings on January 25 for leaving information about several previous employers and a workers' compensation settlement off his employment application and pre-employment medical form 10 years ago. Amtrak officials say Regan has simply run afoul of standards that apply to all Amtrak employees. But Regan and his supporters believe the 55-year-old former labor-union president has been unfairly singled out; they charge that when Amtrak officials discovered the extent of his involvement in the class-action suit, they decided to use him as an example of what will happen to employees who speak out against the company.

"The timing of their disciplinary action is a blatant attempt to ruin Bill and possibly dissuade others from participating in the class-action suit," says Warren Kaplan, an attorney at the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, one of four firms handling the lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiffs. "I could see if an employee falsified information pertaining to their education or skills, which would directly affect their ability to perform a certain job, but that is simply not the case here."

---

It was on December 4, 1998, that Regan learned he would face disciplinary action. But Amtrak had known about the information missing from his old employment forms for almost two months. He supplied the details willingly when he was deposed on September 16, 1998, in connection with a separate discrimination complaint he filed against Amtrak in 1996. (Michael Smith, an attorney who will be defending Regan in the upcoming disciplinary hearings, says Amtrak attorneys had actually obtained the information a week earlier, on September 9.)

"A month went by after Amtrak obtained the information about his application, and they made no attempt to discipline Bill," Smith says. It was the testimony of another Amtrak employee in relation to the class-action suit, Regan's attorneys believe, that led Amtrak to investigate Regan.

On October 16, Warren Kaplan questioned Leroi Fergus, a 20-year employee of Amtrak who worked his way up from laying track to a position as special adviser to the general manager in the New England Division, about information he had supplied to the Phoenix for a story about racism at the company (see "Hate Train," October 11, 1996). Among other questions, he was asked whether he had told Regan that his own boss, Bill Duggan, had ordered him to ignore minority job applications that had been directed to him by the Greater Roxbury Workers Association, a group that helps supply qualified black workers to local employers. Fergus said no, but Kaplan believes the line of inquiry alerted Amtrak officials that Regan was working with the plantiffs.

"During the deposition of Mr. Fergus, it became clear for the first time that Bill Regan was cooperating with us on the class-action suit," explains Kaplan. "Only after Amtrak realized that Bill was a key witness for the plaintiff in our case did Regan become the focus of an internal investigation by Amtrak." The lawyer says that plaintiffs are currently discussing settlements with Amtrak but that the case will proceed to trial if no agreement is reached by the end of this month.

The information omitted from Regan's employment application and medical form is now a matter of public record. Regan stated in his September 16 deposition that he worked as an orderly at the Fernald League for Retarded Children, in Waltham, for two years until he was fired in 1986. Regan says the troubles that led to his dismissal began when he went to the press with complaints about work conditions, health-care benefits, and salary issues at Fernald. At that time, he was accused of threatening his supervisor, and his termination was based on those allegations. Regan filed a grievance and the case went to arbitration. Two years later, the charges were overturned and Regan was awarded back pay.

"I didn't put this in my application, but it wasn't intentional. I had worked at several jobs after leaving Fernald before I applied to Amtrak," explains Regan, who says that he was never asked to account for the time gap on the application.

Also in question is Regan's failure to include a 1984 workers' compensation settlement for an injury that he says he received lifting cinder blocks on a construction job. He was out of work for six months and won a $16,000 lump-sum settlement, as well as a portion of his pay for the time he was out of work. On the medical form, which he says he does not remember completing, he had written "no" in the section that asked whether he had ever received compensation for a work-related injury.

Amtrak officials say that they take such discrepancies seriously. "Amtrak presumes that employees truthfully complete employment applications, especially given the possible consequence of termination for falsification," said company spokesman Cliff Black in a prepared statement. "However, discrepancies are brought to management's attention from time to time. Once such questions are raised, management has no alternative but to investigate and take action."

In fact, Black says, more than 20 employees in the past five years have been charged with falsification of their applications for employment. Many more applicants and probationary employees have been disqualified by such falsification, he adds. Amtrak did not respond to the Phoenix's questions regarding how many of those employees had ever filed complaints against Amtrak and how long each had worked for Amtrak prior to being investigated.

Kaplan, meanwhile, says the Washington Lawyers' Committee is skeptical. The attorney informed Amtrak in a December 9, 1998, letter that unless the allegations against Regan are withdrawn, he will require the company to prove in court that the disciplinary action is not retaliatory. He warned that Amtrak would be questioned as to how often it seeks to verify the employment information of employees who have not filed discrimination complaints, and about cases in which officials have been aware of misstatements on employment applications but have not taken disciplinary action.

Kaplan is not the only one appealing to Amtrak on Regan's behalf. Reverend Joseph Washington, chairman and CEO of the Organization for a New Equality, has told Amtrak president George Warrington that the investigation is bogus. Even state representative Christopher Fallon (D-Malden) has asked Amtrak's attorneys to back off: "[I]f indeed the disciplinary charge is retaliation, then it is a most unfair practice and not worthy of a gentleman of Mr. Regan's character," Fallon wrote in a January 6 letter. "It is with all due respect that I ask you to . . . exonerate Mr. Regan of these questionable disciplinary charges."

"I get up every morning and go to work knowing that I am going to be the subject of derogatory jokes, threats, and other forms of retaliation, but I accept it because I believe in what I am fighting for," says Regan. "And if I do lose my job, it doesn't affect just me. It sends a clear message that huge companies like Amtrak can do whatever they want, and working-class people -- black, white, red, or yellow -- have to accept it."

Sarah McNaught can be reached at smcnaught[a]phx.com.