AT&T To Pay $756,000 For Religious Bias Against Jehovah’s Witnesses

The EEOC recently announced a favorable jury verdict of $756,000 in a religious discrimination lawsuit brought against AT&T Inc. on behalf of two male customer service technicians who were suspended and fired for attending a Jehovah’s Witnesses Convention.

The jury awarded the two former employees $296,000 in back pay and $460,000 in compensatory damages under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. During the four-day trial, the jury heard evidence that both men had submitted written requests to their manager in January 2005 for one day of leave to attend a religious observance. Both men had attended the convention every year throughout their employment with AT&T — Gonzalez worked at the company for more than eight years and Owen was employed there for nearly six years.

Read the full story here.

Caesars Palace To Pay $850,000 For Sexual Harassment And Retaliation

Caesars Palace will pay $850,000 to settle a sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit filed by the EEOC. The EEOC charged that the Las Vegas resort/casino’s Latina kitchen workers were subjected to repeated and sometimes severe sexual harassment. Read the full story here: http://www.eeoc.gov/press/8-20-07.html.

The suit claimed that male supervisors demanded that their female workers perform sex and other lewd acts with them or face being fired. The EEOC also charged that management failed to address and correct the illegal conduct, even though women complained about it. Further, the workers who complained were then retaliated against via demotions, loss of wages, further harassment, and more.

Caesars Palace has agreed to pay $850,000 to the employees identified by the EEOC to have been sexually harassed and further: “(1) to provide training to all employees in English or Spanish; (2) to provide semi-annual reports to the EEOC regarding its employment practices for a period of three years; and (3) to revise its employment policies and procedures to conform to its obligations under Title VII.”

Subway Franchise To Pay $166,500 For Disability Bias

The EEOC has received a favorable jury verdict of $166,500 in a disability harassment lawsuit brought against a Subway restaurant franchise on behalf of a female manager who was discriminated against and forced to resign because of her hearing impairment.

Read the full story here.

The Dallas jury of five women and two men awarded former area supervisor Tammy Gitsham $66,500 for lost wages and emotional harm and an additional $100,000 in punitive damages in the EEOC’s suit under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). The EEOC charged in the case that the Subway owner and one of his managers subjected Gitsham to a disability-based hostile work environment, including teasing and name-calling, because she is hearing impaired and wears hearing aids.

Since 1992, when the ADA’s employment provisions became effective, the EEOC has received more than 235,000 charge filings alleging disability discrimination, filed more than 700 ADA lawsuits, and obtained approximately $665 million in total monetary relief for charging parties.

English teacher awarded more than $235,000 for harassment.

The Baltimore Sun reports that an English teacher, Michelle Maupin, was awarded more than $235,000 last week in compensatory and punitive damages for harassment and retaliation during her time at Centennial High School. Read the full article here.

Maupin’s allegations stem from a turbulent period at Centennial when the school was rocked by grade-tampering investigations of two top administrators and allegations that the school was not welcoming to minorities. Maupin worked with the African-American Awareness club at the school.

Michigan Steel Tubing Company to Pay $500,000 to Settle EEOC Class Race Bias Lawsuit

A South Lyon, Michigan, steel tubing company will pay $500,000 and implement injunctive relief to settle a race discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The EEOC had charged that Michigan Seamless Tube, after purchasing the assets of its predecessor company, refused to hire African American employees of the predecessor. Read the full story here.

According to the EEOC’s suit, Michigan Seamless began hiring former employees of the predecessor in November 2002. During the company startup, 52 of the former employees were hired — none of them black.

Pregnancy Discrimination on the Rise

According to a report on MSNBC, The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) reports that they are seeing more complaints, and more suits filed, on behalf of pregnant women who have been discriminated against.

“The increase in pregnancy discrimination charge filings and lawsuits is cause for concern,” says David Grinberg, a spokesman for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Such charges filed with the EEOC, state and local agencies jumped nearly 19 percent to a record 4,901 last year, from 3,977 in 1997. And, he adds, “pregnancy discrimination lawsuits by EEOC have increased about threefold from six or fewer per year in the early to late 1990s, to 16 or more per year since 2001.”

Not only are women being discriminated against by not being hired or being fired because of pregnancy, but one of the biggest issues is how much time an employee can take after the baby is born.

South Florida Working to Attract a Diverse Workforce

“Several high-profile companies, from Coca-Cola to Wal-Mart, have been hit with discrimination lawsuits, which has sensitized big business to the cost of not addressing diversity issues.”

The Miami Herald published an article Monday about companies in South Florida working to attract a more diverse workforce. Read the full article here.

Promoting and embracing diversity in the workplace will yield any organization a variety of benefits. Diversity will help by bringing a range of ideas, approaches, and views to the table when performing tasks and problem solving.

A failure in Prompt Prevention

From The Messenger (3/30/07):

A federal agency is claiming that management at the Fort Dodge Georgia Pacific plant failed to protect a woman from sexual harassment there.

The woman’s supervisor didn’t take action on complaints that she was subjected to indecent exposure, groping and threats of rape, a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court alleges.
…

EEOC attorneys said that the key fact in the suit is the alleged inaction of the supervisor.

“That just invites harassment to spread through the work force and compounds the risk that an employer is going to be incurring a major financial loss.”

The all-too-common issue we’re dealing with here is a failure in Prompt Prevention on the part of Georgia Pacific’s supervisors. By law, employers must promptly investigate claims of inappropriate employee behavior immediately, or be subject to hefty penalties.

More men report harassment in the workplace

From AFP on Breitbart (3/14/07):

A record number of men reported being sexually harassed in the workplace last year, according to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Newly released data from the EEOC showed that 15.4 percent of the 12,025 charges of sexual harassment in fiscal year 2006 were filed by men, as opposed to 11.6 percent a decade ago.

You may have already guessed it, but many of the harassment claims filed by men are under the category of “same-sex harassment.” Since the case of Onacle v. Sundowner Offshore (1998), same-sex harassment has been held as a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Taken from one of our training modules on the Laws & Cases of Sexual Harassment:

Motorola – “Act like a man”

From the Kane County Chronicle – IL (3/10/07):

Motorola Inc. has settled a gender discrimination lawsuit with a former top female executive, days before the company’s chief executive was slated to testify in the trial.

In the lawsuit, [Theresa] Metty claimed that she felt she had to “act like a man” to keep her job working for the world’s second-largest cell-phone maker. At the same time, she alleged, she was criticized for having what was deemed a “male-like” management style.

Motorola had said Metty’s claims of discrimination were groundless and that women held high leadership positions in the company.

Though Motorola may have women holding high leadership positions in the company, this case may shed light on how the company values diversity in leadership styles. Leaders should be evaluated on their performance, not whether or not it fits an expected management style.