HOUSTON, TX (Law360) — Shell was hit with a federal lawsuit this week accusing it of implementing a “pretextual departmental reorganization” that discriminated against several white employees.
The suit, filed Tuesday by longtime Shell employees Kevin Taylor and Michelle Romak, stems from a January reorganization announced by the company’s regional security manager. According to the suit, the reorganization eliminated three white employees “and replaced each with someone of color with less experience and objectively weaker qualifications.”
“Further, the people of color already working in corporate security during this reorganization were not subject to the same requirements and processes as the three white employees,” the suit said.
Taylor, a corporate security professional who has worked for Shell USA Inc. for 16 years, alleged he was replaced by a Hispanic male, a Shell contractor whose contract was “in the process of being terminated in December of 2024 for poor performance.”
Taylor wrote that he was ultimately given “a less desirable” security position that required his transfer from Houston to Pennsylvania or New Jersey. Romak, meanwhile, was terminated as part of the organization.
In addition to Shell PLC and Shell USA Inc., employee Wayne Hunt, a Black man who was named as country security manager under the reorganization, is also named as a defendant.
According to Taylor and Romak, Hunt gave Romak and the employee previously in his position, a white male who is not named as a plaintiff, a “tear jar” shortly before their last day of work.
“A tear jar is a vessel designed to collect and save the tears of someone experiencing grief, and here, the gift was intended to humiliate and mock two employees who had just lost their jobs in a racially discriminatory reorganization,” the suit said.
Counsel information for Shell was not immediately available.
The employees are represented by Sean C. Timmons of Tully Rinckey PLLC and Julia Z. Haller and Jacob P. Meckler of America First Legal Foundation.
