EEOC Wins Big Settlements In Recent Discrimination And Racial Harassment Cases

Filed under: Discrimination,Labor,Legal,Management,News |

Among the horror stories are blatantly racist bosses, nooses hanging in the workplace, a county prosecutor turned workplace persecutor and systematic national origin discrimination.

EEOC

In the past few months, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, EEOC, has handled several cases involving severe racial harassment.

The cases include a $2.75 million settlement against an environmental clean up company where black and white employees were harassed and local country prosecutor who told female white employees to dump their white boyfriends and go out with local boys so they could “assimilate into the local culture.”

Here are some summaries of recent EEOC racial harassment cases—

Race harassment can be very costly for employers.

Racist employees cost Tampa-based environmental cleanup company WRS Compass $2.75 million and a three-year nationwide consent decree to resolve an EEOC racial discrimination case.

The EEOC’s suit against WRS Environment and Infrastructure, Inc., a WRS Compass subsidiary, involved seven black workers at its Lake Calumet, Ill., work site.

Targeted discrimination toward Filipino-American costs a central California hospital nearly a million dollars and three years of federal supervision and anti-discrimination training.

Delano Regional Medical Center, a hospital in California’s San Joaquin Valley, is paying $975,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by 70 Filipino-American hospital workers who were told they couldn’t speak their native language at work.

A superintendent at a Texas metal manufacturing plant who was racist and not afraid to show it, cost his company $200,000.

A federal jury awarded $200,000 in punitive damages yesterday to three former employees of AA Foundries in a racial harassment lawsuit filed by EEOC.

And what if you racist boss was a ranking law enforcement official?

Kauai County Prosecuting Attorney Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho broke federal law, according to the EEOC. According to published reports, Iseri-Carvalho and has also entangled the county in other lawsuits.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced a $120,000 settlement was reached with Shannon Weigel, who was a deputy prosecuting attorney on Kauai from November 2009 to February 2010.

The EEOC said the manager, County Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho, allegedly made continually disparaging comments to Weigel, who is white.

Other EEOC recent racial harassment cases include:

Sandia Drilling Sued by EEOC for Race Harassment and Retaliation.

Scully Distribution Pays $630,000 to Settle EEOC Class Action Race Discrimination Suit.

Other non-race EEOC harassment cases of note include:

In September 2012, a jury in Colorado awarded $187,000 in back pay, finding Radio Shack illegally fired a district manager after 25 years of service for reporting age-based discrimination by a new supervisor.

The judge in that case will next determine if the damages will be doubled based on the jury’s conclusions that the conduct was willful.

In July 2012, a jury in Baltimore found that several female employees of a microsurgery medical practice were subjected to sexual harassment and retaliation. The employees won $350,000 in compensatory and punitive damages.

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