B&H Photo ‘forced Hispanic workers to use separate, unsanitary bathrooms’

A US Labor Department lawsuit filed Thursday accused B&H Photo & Electronics, the largest non-chain photo and video equipment store in New York City, of heavily discriminating against Hispanic employees by forcing them to use separate, unsanitary bathrooms.

The Jewish-owned store is further accused of discriminating against Hispanic and Asian job-seekers, the New York Post reported. The lawsuit also stated that female workers at the store’s warehouse in the Brooklyn Navy Yard were not provided with a separate restroom or changing facility.

B&H Photo & Electronics is owned by Herman Schreiber, an observant Satmar Hasid, and hundreds of Orthodox Jews work there. B&H is closed on Saturdays for the Jewish sabbath.

B&H has been sued multiple times for racial and gender discrimination. In 2007, B&H agreed to pay $4.3 million to settle a case levied by Hispanic employees over uneven pay scale; in 2009, four female employees sued B&H over failure to promote women to sales positions; and in 2011 Hispanic employees Luis Santana and Carlos Marchand sued B&H over denied promotions and raises.

Henry Posner, a spokesman for B&H, declined to comment to the New York Post about Thursday’s Labor Department lawsuit, beyond describing the dispute as being over “unresolved issues.”