NEW YORK – A New York-based company that refurbishes cell phones at its factory in Long Island will pay $435,000 to settle a wage discrimination and retaliation suit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced on November 3, 2008. The EEOC had charged that First Wireless Group, Inc. engaged in a pattern or practice of race and/or national origin discrimination against a class of Hispanic workers by paying them less for doing the same job as Asian employees and by firing those who complained about the unlawful pay disparity. According to the EEOC’s lawsuit (Civil Action No.03-CV-4990) filed in September 2003 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, after a group of former Hispanic employees became aware that Asian employees were being paid $1.50 to $2.00 or more per hour for performing the same work, they circulated a petition asking for equal pay. Rather than looking into the employees’ complaints, the EEOC said, Firs...