AURORA, Colo. -- In the second largest federal discrimination settlement in Colorado history, the Albertsons supermarket chain agreed Tuesday to pay $8.9 million to workers at its former Aurora distribution center to resolve a racial discrimination case.

The settlement resolves three discrimination lawsuits initially filed in 2006 by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Albertsons LLC was accused of creating a hostile work environment based on race, color, and national origin discrimination at its distribution center on Tower Road. The warehouse was closed in late October for economic reasons.

The money will be apportioned among 168 minority employees who complained of discrimination between 1995 and 2008.

Black, Hispanic, Asian and Jewish employees said they were frequently exposed to racist and anti-Semitic slurs, graffiti, and threats.

The men's restroom included drawings of black and Hispanic men with nooses around their necks, a black man being riddled with bullets from a gun and the word "n*****," according to the lawsuits. There were also swastikas, "Go back to Mexico", "For Whites Only" and "Lazy N*****" scrawled on the work equipment minority employees used.

Upset workers found the men's room graffiti so offensive that they would wait to relieve themselves outside the building or go home at lunchtime rather than use the restroom.

Workers said they complained, but some of the graffiti remained up for years until the restroom was remodeled in 2005, according to court records. Workers recounted hearing white managers laughing openly at the racist scribblings.

In one incident, a black worker suffered a broken leg during a warehouse accident and was left lying in the aisle by two white workers who said, "That’s what your black ass gets" and "the n*****'s hurt himself again," according to court papers.

The injured worker wasn't helped until 25 minutes later when a shocked black supervisor found him and called an ambulance. After the worker recovered, he was fired without cause, the black supervisor testified in the lawsuit.

"These cases presented the EEOC with some of the most egregious examples of race, color, and national origin discrimination that the agency has seen in years," said Mary Jo O'Neill, regional attorney for the EEOC's Phoenix District, which includes the Denver Field Office.

"The graffiti was particularly shocking," she said. "Employers need to aggressively criticize such conduct, seek out the culprits and take swift action. Discrimination, harassment, and retaliation are no joke. Supervisors and managers need to take complaints seriously. And they need to know that we, as an agency, take retaliation very seriously."

Albertson's LLC spokeswoman Christine Wilcox said the company maintains that the allegations of racial discrimination happened before it took over operations at the distribution center in June 2006.

"Although we vigorously disputed the allegations made by EEOC, we nonetheless worked in good faith with the EEOC to come to a resolution consistent with our policy of a discrimination and harassment free environment and to put to an end to continued costly and disruptive litigation," Wilcox said in a written statement.

O'Neill disputed Albertsons' time-frame, saying the company or one of its affiliates operated the distribution center for several years prior to June 2006, according to the Associated Press.

The EEOC alleged that dozens of employees complained about the discriminatory treatment and harassment only to be given harder job assignments and get passed over for promotion or even fired in retaliation.

The EEOC also charged that minority employees were given harder work assignments and were more frequently and severely disciplined than their white coworkers.

The EEOC said managers were aware of and even participated in the harassment and discrimination.

A black worker reported that a white supervisor asked if he had seen "his brother hanging in the office." The worker looked around and saw that the supervisor was referring to a stuffed monkey hanging from a noose in the office as the supervisor and two other superiors laughed.

In another incident, a black worker said he was embarrassed in front of his entire crew when a co-worker said as he stood near the time clock, "Why don’t you just go cash your welfare check?" Three supervisors overhead the insult and said nothing to the worker who made the remark.

A Hispanic worker recalled that when the back of his shirt was wet one day, someone asked if he had "just swam over the river."

The Albertsons' settlement is second only to a $13 million age-discrimination settlement by Martin Marietta Corporation with the EEOC in 1996. The Boise, Idaho-based Albertsons LLC operates more than 235 Albertsons supermarkets in Colorado, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, New Mexico and Texas.