B&H Photo was hit with another multimillion dollar discrimination lawsuit yesterday when two Hispanic men charged that they were denied promotions and raises for years at the electronics shop.
Luis Santana and Carlos Marchand, both of the Bronx, fired the opening salvo in state court in what their attorney, Richard Ancowitz, hopes will become a class-action suit.
Ancowitz said Santana worked 15 years for the company, traveling with his bosses all around the world and helping B&H to expand its base in Central and South America, but he was never able to get a better-paying sales position.
Court papers say he applied for promotions in 2006, 2008 and 2009 and was rejected each time.
Marchand was on the payroll for six years, but he, too, found what the lawsuit describes as an "abusive work environment" and saw that non-Hispanics with less experience with cameras, computers and electronics got more lucrative jobs and promotions, his lawyer said.
Both men were fired in 2010, the same year that seven women went to state court accusing the company of keeping all women in lower-paid positions where they earned less than half what men earned. That case is still pending.
In 2007, B&H had to pay $4.3 million to settle a discrimination claim by another group of Hispanic workers with jobs in the firm's Brooklyn Navy Yard warehouse. Part of that settlement requires the company to raise wages for Hispanic workers and to be monitored by federal authorities.
Representatives of B&H's management did not return several calls to their offices.
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