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The following article was published in the Charleston Post & Courier's Business Major, a featured monthly column in the Business Review Section on June 5, 2000. Anti-discrimination laws pose challengesBy DOROTHY P. MOORE Special to The Post and Courier Business Major Never before has our workforce been so diverse. With the percentage of women in the workforce nearly equal to men, new questions arise about Equal Employment Opportunity requirements and compliance programs. Is EEO less or more important in providing balance in the work place? Have the Uniform Guidelines, which were jointly adopted in 1978 and endorse the standard of the "best qualified" candidate for the job, taken on less meaning or more? How powerful is the more recent legislation, the Americans with Disabilities Act? What is the interface between recent legislation, court cases, and the Uniform Guidelines? What does compliance mean for the Carolina small-business owner? Business owners and company managers face these questions daily. Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, signed into law by President Bush, made it even more important for employers and their managers and supervisors to adhere to both the spirit and letter of EEO. The burden of proof of nondiscriminatory practices shifted back to the employer. Employees claiming intentional discrimination could ask for compensatory and punitive damages. The legislation substantially enhanced enforcement powers of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC enforces Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin; the Age Discrimination in Employment Act; the Equal Pay Act; prohibitions against discrimination affecting individuals with disabilities in the federal sector; sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1991; and Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act, with its recent amendments that extend coverage to businesses with 15 or more employees with disabilities in the private sector and to state and local governments. Now, the EEOC can not only ask the courts to require offending businesses to pay punitive damages but to also rule that managers and owners pay additional damages out of their own pockets. The amounts can be substantial. In late April, EEOC chairwoman Ida L. Castro visited Charlotte and Columbia to meet with community and business leaders. Her strategy as the EEOC director is to help create discrimination-free workplaces and to encourage voluntary compliance with the laws enforced by the EEOC. The purpose of her visit to the Carolinas, she said, was "to learn what we can do collaboratively to ensure that employers and workers understand their rights and responsibilities under the agency's anti-discrimination laws." She placed special emphasis over the lack of closure on discrimination in the workplace. In her meetings in Columbia, she exchanged ideas on strengthening local enforcement actions, increasing awareness, and methods by which customer service on equal employment opportunity matters could be improved. She emphasized "direct communication with small businesses and under-served minority communities to maximize collective efforts to prevent discrimination and enhance efficiency and fairness in addressing discrimination when found." Do workers still feel a need for the protections provided by EEOC? The answer can be found by examining the work of the combined offices in the Charlotte District, Raleigh and Greensboro, N.C., and Greenville. In the first six months of EEOC's current fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, the three offices received approximately 2,200 charges, a substantial increase over past years. The number does not include any of the additional cases filed at the state level with such agencies as the South Carolina Human Affairs Commission. Is there something new afoot in the filing of cases? How can an employer be better prepared to avoid facing EEOC charges? A recent voluntary $1.9 million settlement between the EEOC and Long Prairie Packing Company Inc. highlights the new type of case that has recently evolved. The settlement, which does not represent any admission of wrongdoing by LPP nor involve any judicial findings of a violation of law, resolves all claims in the class action EEOC lawsuit filed on behalf of a class of current and former LPP male employees citing a pattern of harassment by men against men and also disability-based harassment. The first of its kind, the case sets a new precedent. More than 37 years after the passage of the Equal Pay Act, women still earn only 75 cents for every dollar earned by men. Minority women receive the least compensation. In fiscal year 1999, the EEOC received 1,044 charges alleging violations of the Equal Pay Act. The number of cases has brought the pay issue to the top of the priority list. As a result, the EEOC has created an Equal Pay Day, an Equal Pay Task Force, and an expanded Web site (www.eeoc.gov) to enhance public understanding of wage discrimination and the agency's national enforcement plan that has identified broad-based employment practices involving pay. The litigation priority has been matched by action. Recently, the commission announced a $100,000 settlement of an equal pay lawsuit on behalf of a female professor who earned less than her male colleagues for doing essentially the same work and a $45,000 settlement of a wage bias suit against the Baltimore Cable Access Corporation for firing its first female executive director after she complained about being paid significantly less than her male counterparts in the industry. More large settlements may be coming. During her weeklong visit this spring, EEOC Chairwoman Castro announced the filing of three racial harassment lawsuits against employers in the Carolinas. What all this action indicates is that employers and managers need to be more careful than ever to create and maintain a selection system that is fair to all employees. For Questions/Comments about this site, contact dot.moore@comcast.net. Site designed by Jackye Cocoros. |