African American workers for an oil company in Texas  were taunted with racial slurs and nooses in the workplace and routinely were denied promotions, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

"I took it for a long time," said Dontrail Mathis, a 33-year-old painter's helper at the plant in Paris, nearly 100 miles northeast of Dallas. "I had a family to support."

A group of workers in Dallas, Texas filed a class charge with the EEOC last year against Louisiana-based oil-services Turner Industries, citing discrimination and a hostile work environment based on race. Two weeks ago, the EEOC determined "that on a regular basis, Black employees were subjected to unwelcome racial slurs, comments and intimidation, racial graffiti, nooses in the workplace and other symbols of discrimination."

"It bothers me and it disturbs me," said Stanrod Johnson, a welder. "It makes me think they think I'm stupid, or that I'm a child."

Michael Fetzer, the EEOC's district director in Dallas, issued a statement claiming that Turner managers were aware of a hostile work environment for Black employees but failed to make changes. Black workers received different, lower-paying job assignments and were denied promotions.

In a statement issued by John H. Fenner, general counsel for the Baton Rouge-based company, Fenner claims that the company conducted its own investigation and found no discrimination or retaliation against any worker.

"We aim to demonstrate that Turner's Paris, Texas, facility is free from any form of discrimination, retaliation or any other workplace conduct that violates either the law or our own high standards for employee conduct."

Last year, the EEOC found reasonable cause to support about 4 percent of race-based complaints against employers.

Turner Industries employs about 700 people at the Paris plant, 100 of whom are Black.