NAACP voluntarily dismisses bias suit against US Airways

What began as a startling NAACP suit accusing US Airways Group Inc. of discriminating against its African American employees at Philadelphia International Airport has ended with a settlement and a pledge by the airport's largest carrier to strengthen workplace diversity.

On the matter of the monetary terms and whether the three former US Airways employees named as plaintiffs in January's federal class-action suit would get - or even want - their old jobs back, no one would say.

The case before U.S. District Judge Petrese Tucker was voluntarily dismissed Friday, the same day the NAACP and US Airways issued a joint statement that the airline would continue a "strong commitment" to diversity and equal opportunity and would work with the NAACP to enhance its workplace-diversity programs at the Philadelphia airport and at Reagan National Airport in Washington.

In the statement, the NAACP and US Airways pledged to collaborate at the two airports on equal-opportunity programs, training, personnel, policies, and procedures, and to "maintain a direct dialogue" in the future.

"The parties are not commenting on anything except what's in that press release," said NAACP attorney Brian Mildenberg.

Asked whether his clients - three former customer-service employees - would talk about the settlement, Mildenberg said he "got in touch with two out of three. They don't want me to give any details of their situation."

On the financial terms, US Airways spokesman Todd Lehmacher declined to "speak to anything in that arena at all. The only thing I can say: They've voluntarily agreed to dismiss their claims."

US Airways' human-resources staff in Tempe, Ariz., and the Philadelphia NAACP will work "closely" together, Lehmacher said.

"The NAACP is very pleased that US Airways has agreed to work with us," Philadelphia NAACP president J. Whyatt Mondesire said Monday. "There's a big confidentiality clause to this, and I understand why: because it's a national company. We got calls from as far away as Georgia, Texas, and Arizona."

The NAACP settled the case on behalf of "60-odd people that we represented, most of them here, but a couple in D.C.," Mondesire said. "I hate to be circumspect, but I don't want these people to lose what they have been able to achieve."

In the future, US Airways workers with diversity complaints can contact the Philadelphia NAACP, which will discuss the cases with airline human-resources personnel, he said.