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I did read up on the EEOC website, and have read up on a few class action lawsuits, and yea , employers will settle, to get it over with, and yea there are penalties and awards posted of past cases, most recent 2017. this is especially so when there are more than 500 employees in the company.
thanks for the useful replies.
I agree with what you just posted-the EEOC does do these things, but you are talking about a class action lawsuit which will involve lawyers and lots of time and money AND you will have to be able to PROVE discrimination.
You don't have these elements. What you have is a case of unfairness. I actually agree with you on one point-it is awful to be treated unfairly but life is unfair. Hoping a government agency will swoop in and force management to change the schedule is just wishful thinking.
The employer can easily argue that although the job titles are the same the work is materially different and therefore the different scheduling priorities. The employer can also simply change his job title or change the seniority policy. They could also just hire a female "cashier" and have her work the warehouse instead and give her weekends off.
Couple of stories:
My daughter filed a complaint with the EEOC. As much as I love her and want to support her, it was a silly baseless complaint. She hoped her (former) employer would just write her a check to make it go away. The circumstances were totally different than yours but you can read about it here: Anyone been through EEOC mediation?
Take note of others experiences going through the EEOC process in that thread.
Two co workers where I was employed read about successful lawsuits from others in our industry about how overtime was calculated for our profession. Employers were using an exemption in the law to pay overtime at a higher threshold than the 40 hour mark. This turned out to be wrong and the lawsuits were like dominos across our industry.
These two coworkers hired a lawyer and got everyone into a frenzy about how our evil employer owes us all this back pay and we might be able to get double or even triple the amount we are owed!!!! The lawyer held a sign up meeting. I did not go but others told me it was like an infomercial. The cost to join was $100. About 20 (out of about 70) employees joined up. Most worked closely with the two organizers. I did not think it was good idea to sue my employer over this so I declined to join.
The suit was filed. Wanna guess what happened next? The two organizers quit and moved away. They moved far away with their families so it was obvious they had this planned out. All this crap and animosity stirred up and they are GONE.
The employer immediately changed the hours and schedules of the involved employees so they would not receive overtime under the new rules. OT was a built in part of our normal schedule so this caused a financial hit as well as a disruption to family life with the schedule changes.
Nearly every involved employee dropped out of the suit and returned to their normal work schedule.
The suit dragged on for THREE YEARS. In the end there were six people left, only one of which was a current employee. A mediation settlement was reached:
-One employee had died and I don't know what his widow got.
-Two got 20% of what they were owed, including one of the organizers
-Two got 40 % of what the were owed, including the other organizer
-One got 80%-about $10K. This guy easily lost more than that in OT over the years. He stubbornly refused to drop out because of principle. After the settlement was reached the employer dragged their feet ANOTHER YEAR before that employee got his money.
Moral of the story: It is a long lonely road suing your employer.
OP, why do you care so much about your "friend's" job? Let me guess, it's really you, right? Whether or not she is being discriminated against is her problem and all it does for you to obsess about it is rile things up further. Let her go find a lawyer, or better yet a different job and you should stay out of it before you get her fired.
She works in a non union business of more than 500 employees.
She has 16 years of seniority.
There are 2 positions, supervisor or cashier.
Seniority dictates favorable days off, hours distributed, overtime, hours.
So they hire a man, off the street. He is a cashier, hired as cashier, gets paid like a cashier. But he is given weekends off, for his hard work, and given favorable hours because he is a strong man. Senority is put aside to make this guy happy. He is used for stock, but works the same when not doing stock.
She has notifies her manager and HR of this unfair practice. She has held the same position, and worked for weekenda off. She has earned it, but it is stripped away, as extra incentive , to give to the stock guy.
The stock guy, with weekends of , less senior to a large number of supervisor, was groomed for and given a management position, passing up the all female supervisory staff. His position did not have an open position listed. The job wqs given.
I tell her, they are discriminating because he is a man. When he is on vacation, he schedule is replaced with another male co worker, less senior as well.
If the men are not around, stock is handled by the supervisor and other cashiers.
Tell me what this clearly looks like. What federal or local goverment agency can she turn to. She has complained, and recieves retaliation when she does.
(She has repeatedly requested for a piece of the weekend, but has been denied. She is even bumped by new seasonal employees. She was even cut hours during slow periods, while all the supervisor that work mornings, with weekends off, still get a full work weak, including the less senior stock guy. In my world if the temps are getting a better deal than the regular staff, something may be wrong with the regular staff. My thoughts, since it was brought up, is seniority. Many people think because they have been somewhere longer that they are entitled to more perks. In my world no one is entitled to anything. Performance is key in my world. The harder someone works and the more that they do will open more doors then being in a position longer then someone else. The fact is when someone starts to think they are entitled and feel the need to complain about others at work I have a feeling that they are not working as hard because either they think they earned the right to slack off or they are just upset that someone else is moving up. )
Poor lady getting screwed!
Quote:
Originally Posted by kapikap
This lady was not nor desire a management position, it just the atmosphere of having other tenured women supervisors completely overlooked by a newby male, with out a posted opening.
So they hired a guy that wanted to move into management and has done so, passing up your friend that did not want to move into management?
I would want to know if anyone was approached and asked if they wanted to move up. It would seem that may not be the case since everyone seems to want weekend's off and preferred time slots at work. Managers seldom get that benefit at most places of work.
I do not think all the facts are out there. It would be interesting to see if any of the employees were asked about becoming managers. Do any of the people have the same background as the new guy? Does the new guy have a degree that the others are lacking? Did the new guy specifically get hired for a management job but had to work in other positions to learn the business.
I remember years ago, back in 1990 getting a management job for a commercial window cleaning company. Fifteen employees. The company did high rise work, had store front route work, houses, other services. I had to start and learn each position. It was not announced to the other employees that I was going to be the manager. That may have been a strategic move on the owners part. I have no idea. What I do know is I learned the business from the bottom up. It gave me a better prospective on how to manage the company. I remember three of the guys wanted to know how I moved up to manager so fast. I ended up telling them that was what I was hired for.
The EEOC won't do jack. IF they deign to put you in the system, it will takes years and 95% of cases go to employer, if litigated.
Upon researching awards issued to victims of sex discrimination, most employers would raher settle then get bad publicity, especially if they always flaunt the good for working mothets and diveraity program propoganda
The complaint would go to the EEOC but I don't see a case here. There would have to be proof such as an email saying that she is being treated differently because she is a woman, or a pattern of preferential treatment of men. This can be explained by the employer as simply the male employee being a better worker than the friend. Seniority policy is not subject to law, exceptions can and are made all the time whether the policy is in writing or not. Employers are still able to do what is best for their operation. It's only enforceable in the case of a union contract.
The last man to hold these days off, prior to this hire, had this schedule. She was ok with it. But the new guy was just given the slot, with no consideration to the others.
op, why do you care so much about your "friend's" job? Let me guess, it's really you, right? Whether or not she is being discriminated against is her problem and all it does for you to obsess about it is rile things up further. Let her go find a lawyer, or better yet a different job and you should stay out of it before you get her fired.
sorry it bothers you that i like to help very old family friends
Location: In a city within a state where politicians come to get their PHDs in Corruption
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kapikap
Upon researching awards issued to victims of sex discrimination, most employers would raher settle then get bad publicity, especially if they always flaunt the good for working mothets and diveraity program propoganda
Nonsense. This has got to be the biggest myth out there right now. Every company worth their salt has had to deal with an EEOC charge. For every Gretchen Carlson that gets awarded huge sums of money, there are thousands of cases that go absolutely nowhere and cause zero bad PR for a company accused of discrimination.
Upon researching awards issued to victims of sex discrimination, most employers would raher settle then get bad publicity, especially if they always flaunt the good for working mothets and diveraity program propoganda
Please keep posting, especially if your friend files with the EEOC.
This will help the next person that comes along.
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