The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has just released its numbers involving private sector discrimination filings for 2007. They’re up by 9%, the highest increase since 1993, as the EEOC received 82,792 filings. Bias charges based on race continued to be the most frequent. Race has been the most common claim since the EEOC went into business in 1965. Interestingly, for the first time, retaliation was the second most common charge and was at record levels. Claims based on sex/gender moved to third. The next most common, in order, were filings based on age, disability, national origin, and religion.

A federal court has ruled that a discrimination charge filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is a claim as defined by the involved employer's insurance policy ("a formal administrative proceeding commenced by the filing of a notice of charges").  Thus, the court concluded that an employer who did not notify its insurer of the EEOC claim lost its insurance coverage.  If you have employment coverage, and receive a similar charge, check your policy to determine when you have to give your insurer notice of the same.

According to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, race charges are most frequently filed. Sex discrimination is the next most common type, followed by retaliation. Disability, age and national origin claims come next. The number of retaliation claims is often surprising to people as many don’t realize that how you respond to a complaint is every bit as important as whether or not you’ve discriminated in the first place. In fact, some employers “win” discrimination claims and lose related retaliation allegations.

 

Pregnancy discrimination cases were at record highs as were the number of harassment cases filed by males (15% of all claims). Last year’s 75,768 claims against private employers was the first increase in filings since 2002.

 

How do you avoid these claims? There’s a simple, although less than glamorous solution. Implementing good, basic HR practices is the key. Train your managers and supervisors. Adopt, consistently use, and regularly communicate solid policies. Employ an effective performance appraisal system. Set high expectations for professional conduct, fairness, and respect in the workplace. Many discrimination cases have very little to do with discrimination but arise because an employee feels that he or she has been badly treated. Finally, use common sense. Much of HR and employment law is really about common sense and those people skills we learned in kindergarten.

Even the big law firms get hit with employment law claims.  In October of 2007, a major national law firm agreed to pay $27.5 million to resolve age bias claims filed by some of the partners in the firm.  The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently also settled, for over $4 million, a national origin discrimination case on behalf of Hispanic workers at one of the largest retail sellers of photographic, computer and electronic equipment in the New York metropolitan area.  A Nevada federal jury has awarded a former publishing company sales employee more than $3.7 million in damages for alleged age bias. The employee claimed he was discharged at age 53 as a result of a pattern of forcing out higher paid long-term employees and replacing them with younger, lower paid employees.  Finally, the United States Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has announced that a Texas food company has paid $1 million to settle claims that the company discriminated, based on gender and ethnicity, against some 5,300 applicants.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has issued a new policy guidance dealing with the issues of how employers should treat employees who have family care responsibilities. The guidance notes the following possible problems and illegal acts by employers, "sex-based stereotyping and subjective decision making regarding working mothers; assumptions about pregnant workers; discrimination against working fathers and women of color; stereotyping based on an association with an individual with a disability; and hostile work environments affecting caregivers." The guidance offers tips to employers, employees and EEOC staff on how to deal with such issues. You can read the guidance at www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/caregiving.html

The former general counsel (i.e. chief lawyer) with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) gave an interesting presentation last month at the National SHRM conference in Las Vegas on how to deal with the government agency. The presenter explained how the EEOC receives 80,000 charges of employment bias each year but annually only files 400 lawsuits. All EEOC charges are filed either “A” (watch out—they’re after you), “B” (unclear where the case may lead) or “C” (likely merit-less).

A couple of sentences in two employers’ employee handbooks seemed innocent enough. The first one involved confidentiality: “We honor confidentiality. We recognize and protect the confidentiality of any information concerning the company, its business plans, its partners [i.e., employees], new business efforts, customers, accounting and financial matters.”

In another in the ongoing lineup of EEO cases you can’t make up, Motherhood Maternity has agreed to settle a pregnancy discrimination case. The Philadelphia store which sells maternity clothes was accused of refusing to hire female applicants because they were pregnant.

While there was certainly a lot of ugliness in the Don Imus incident was there anything good that came out of it? One good thing is that it pushed the Anna Nichole Smith story off the never ending 24-hour news circus. Another outcome, and something certainly more worthwhile, is that it has spurred thought and dialogue regarding racism, sexism, civility, and a long list of significant issues. But since we’re talking about HR here, does the Imus mess have any lessons for us? While one hopes that such conversation doesn’t occur in the workplace, we all know that similar things are said, at least in some environments every day. The issue becomes what do you do about it?

HR Fact Friday will be a regular weekly posting to HR News & Views. I will cast out a net to uncover and share interesting, informative, unusual, and sometimes humorous HR industry facts. Where other sources are referenced, I will give full credit and provide links where available. This week I am summarizing findings released in February, 2007 from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on Job Bias Charges. The EEOC enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has set its 2007 enforcement priorities. Employers should pay particular attention to two of these priorities. First, the EEOC says it will place a greater focus on race discrimination claims. Second, the EEOC has decided to focus on alleged systemic discrimination and major class action litigation.