6-15-06, 9:04 am
The EEOC has lost more than 575 staff members since 2001, or about 20 percent of its total workforce.
Although the agency has reduced its backlog of cases in recent years, it still faces a backlog of more than 30,000 cases and takes an average of 180 days to process a charge.
The total number of EEOC charges fell to 75,428 in 2005, the lowest number reported since 1992 and down substantially from 84,442 in 2002. The agency filed 417 lawsuits in 2005 and recovered $107.7 million for victims of discrimination.
The number and nature of the charges filed with the agency indicates that discrimination is still rampant in the workplace and far more enforcement is needed.
In 2005, 35.5 percent of the EEOC charges were based on racial discrimination claims.
On April 19, the EEOC issued new guidelines on the prohibition against discrimination in employment based on race and color under Title VII of the Civil Rights At of 1964, but it has no new resources to ensure compliance.
A 2005 survey of almost 2,000 U.S. workers by Hudson reported that 20 percent say that racial or ethnic discrimination exists in their workplace, and 23 percent know someone who has been affected adversely at work because of their gender.
Recent discrimination lawsuits demonstrate that even sophisticated high-profile employers are capable of engaging in blatantly discriminatory behaviors:
* Hollywood giant Universal Pictures is going to trial this summer over changes that it terminated an assistant director because he is black. * Popular retailer Abercrombie & Fitch paid $40 million in December 2005 to employees and job applicants who had been victims of discrimination in the company’s attempt to create a certain “look” for its sales workers, a policy that resulted in a young, white male sales force, with minorities relegated to back-room jobs. * Georgetowne Place, which operates homes for the elderly in 14 states, paid $650,000 in June 2005 to settle a lawsuit stemming from its practice of marking job applications from minorities and eliminating them from consideration, claiming that its elderly residents preferred white employees. * The Dial Corporation’s Armour meatpacking plant in Iowa paid more than $3 million in September 2005 to settle a sex discrimination suit brought by women who were refused jobs because they could not pass a strength test that was unrelated to the actual work required. * In March of this year, UPS was slapped with a lawsuit for discrimination based on religion when it tried to force an employee to shave his beard. * Also in March 2006, Lawry’s Restaurants, a large group of several restaurant chains, was hit with a suit after refusing to modify its policy of hiring only women for server positions.
The new EEOC guidelines also specifically warn employers that recruiting at predominantly white schools may also produce a pattern of discrimination that violates Title VII. With on-campus recruiting increasing this year, this warning is particularly important.
Another area that must be closely monitored is the growing use of employee referral programs as a source for job candidates. These programs, which fall under the EEOC’s warnings about word-of-mouth recruiting, may simply reproduce the same racial disparities and imbalances that exist in many workplaces.
The new EEOC guidelines specifically remind employers with employee referral programs that if white employees only refer white job candidates, the program may be found to have a discriminatory effect.
The EEOC brought charges against Carl Buddig & Company, a large Chicago-area meatpacker, when it found that the company’s recruiting and hiring programs, including its employee referral program, systematically excluded black job candidates.
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), which enforces anti-discrimination laws and regulations for the 30,000 companies that have federal contracts, recovered a record $45.2 million in 2005 for 14,761 workers who had been subjected to unlawful discrimination.
Almost all of the cases included systemic discrimination, where a significant number of workers or job applicants were subjected to discrimination because of an unlawful employment practice or policy. The average benefit per victim in 2005 was only $3,059.
The number of compliance evaluations completed by the OFCCP fell from 4,716 in 2001 to 2,730 in 2005, a 42 percent decline.
In 2003, the OFCCP shifted its focus to systemic discrimination cases, using automated statistical methods to prioritize companies for a more thorough investigation based n the probability that discrimination will be uncovered in a compliance review.
These changes at the OFCCP and the budget cuts at the EEOC must be closely monitored by unions to ensure that the agencies are truly enforcing anti-discrimination laws.
From Labor Research Association
