NAACP to support lawsuit against Tulsa Transit for alleged workplace hostility

TULSA, OK (KTUL) — More than 10 former and current Metro Link Tulsa employees are calling the NAACP to help with claims that Tulsa Transit is a hostile work environment. Employees claim that supervisors threaten them and are discriminatory.

“This has been going on for six years,” said Alicia Moore, a current bus driver for Tulsa Transit.

She and her former colleagues who spoke with News Channel 8 say the managers create a hostile work environment, bully employees, harass, falsify records, threaten people with guns and have a list of wrongful terminations.

“She got upset because I’ve been going to court for six years for not being represented, and she came at me with a knife,” Moore said.

She adds that she ended up filing a police report, but nothing came of it. That police report is one of many documents used in the Oklahoma EEOC complaint she and her former co-workers filed. Records show the Oklahoma EEOC gave them approval to sue Tulsa Transit.

“They lost about 250 people. It’s over 250 people. They lost a lot of drivers,” Moore said.

We reached out to Tulsa Transit over a two-week period multiple times for comment. I didn’t get a reply.

Former employees say that when it came to filing grievances with management, they followed the chain of command. Nakia Burris is a former Tulsa Transit supervisor. She’s who employees would go to when they had a complaint, but as grievances piled up, Burris said upper management made things difficult.

“Drivers would come up and ask, ‘Can you give us a ride?’ I have to go to her like, ‘Hey, I need a complaint, you can put one in their mailbox because she took it all out,'” Burris said.

Former employees claimed that when they file complaints, upper management retaliates and fires them.

“The last one was a hostile work environment that affected my pay and he was bullied. I sent him in. She (Burris) heard her say that Ima was firing Shiela for this,” said Sheila Hill, a former bus driver.

Hill was there for five years before she was fired.

“Attendance is good. No letters. No accidents. No nothing,” Hill said.

Crystal Carter is also a former Tulsa Transit manager. She said she stood up for a driver who was assaulted because she didn’t like the way senior management handled the situation.

“I was fired. They sent me home and two days later I’m fired,” Carter said.

NAACP Tulsa Chapter President Francetta Mays said they will help pay for attorneys representing current and former employees.