Complaint cries foul on creamery

WASILLA — The Alaska State Commission for Human Rights has ruled that discrimination and wrongful termination complaints filed against Matanuska Creamery by two former employees have merit.

Former creamery office administrator Kay Schaugaard and former pasteurizer Amy Moore, who are both Mormon, allege company co-owner and Chief Financial Officer Karen Olson made disparaging remarks about Mormons and not wanting “any more (expletive) Mormons” working for the company. They also claim co-owner Kyle Beus did not take their discrimination complaints seriously before they were fired more than two years ago.

The case will now be heard by an Anchorage court judge, which could rule the company owes them back wages and more than $15,000 in other expenses.

Schaugaard and Moore also allege that company executives misused federal grant monies for personal investments or illegally used them to support a separate company that makes milk jugs.

Olson said Monday that the women’s complaints and allegations are “completely without foundation” and that they are just “going through the motions.”

Beus did not return a call from the Frontiersman.

Schaugaard, who hasn’t bought creamery milk since she was ordered to leave the premises Dec. 5, 2008, said Monday she strongly suspects her termination is directly related to her allegations that company executives misspent federal funds.

Schaugaard said Monday the Federal Bureau of Investigation is conducting an investigation into the alleged funds misuse. When contacted earlier this year, the FBI would neither confirm nor deny such an investigation exists, as is its policy.

“Some of the financial transactions that I was in the process of researching were extremely suspicious,” Schaugaard said Monday. “I couldn’t track where the grant money had been deposited. Kyle Beus and Karen Olson would not give me the data I needed or the answers I needed to make sense of their finances.”

After a 22-month investigation, the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights ruled last week that Schaugaard and Moore have a legitimate case against the company for religious and sexual discrimination.

Moore said last week she believes her own termination is also linked to her claims that she was injured on the job. She has filed a separate personal injury lawsuit against Matanuska Creamery.

Both women said they are not fighting the company for personal gain, but to protect tax dollars and expose a company that is operating unethically, immorally and possibly illegally.

“When I first began working for them in March of 2008, I was under the impression they were trying to pull off a heroic effort to save the dairy industry, which was an admirable cause,” Schaugaard said. “But now I believe they are finding crises that are being used as opportunities for them on a personal level. I miss their products dearly, but I do not know how to separate holding them accountable for the things they’ve done that I find so despicable and that have injured workers and people in the community.”

As part of their discrimination claim, both women say they heard Olson say she didn’t want to hire any more Mormons after she had interviewed a job applicant who was Mormon.

In the Human Rights Commission’s determination on Moore issued Oct. 1, 2010, creamery executives countered that the women misheard Olson’s remark about Mormons and that the company already had decided to streamline its workforce by eliminating some of its processing and middle management positions.

“The CFO (Olson) stated that she did not recall making the comment, but also said that, if she did make the comment, she did not do so where it could be overheard,” state Human Rights Commission investigator Patricia Watts wrote in her ruling. “Investigation showed that after complainant’s coworker complained about the remark with the CFO, but concluded that the comment was ‘benign.’”

Watts also stated that the investigation did not show that Moore’s termination was part of a bona fide reduction in force.

“I find that complainant’s allegations that respondent (Matanuska Creamery) discriminated against her based on her sex and her religion and retaliated against her because she opposed discrimination and participated in a protected activity are supported by substantial evidence,” Watts wrote.

Contact K.T. McKee at kate.mckee@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.