Five former delivery truck drivers for the Fort Myers, Fla. News-Press newspaper are suing the paper, according to a story in the Naples News. The drivers contend they were not assigned a coveted delivery route on a predominantly white island because of their races. The racial discrimination lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Myers on August 26 accuses the News-Press and parent company Gannett Company Inc. of assigning white delivery drivers to the Pine Island distribution run. Those routes deliver the least amount of papers compared with other routes and allow drivers to use new, air-conditioned trucks with radios. The complainants said they never received the Pine Island assignment because they are black, Haitian and Puerto Rican, according to a copy of the suit obtained by the Naples News. From July 8, 2001, through July 14, 2002, "...The News-Press assigned (nine) white truck drivers with less seniority and worse performance evaluations than the plaintiffs to the Pine Island run ...," the suit says. During their tenure with the company, from 1994 through 2002, they knew of no black, Hispanic, Haitian or Puerto Rican delivery drivers to work the Pine Island run, the suit said.
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