Price tag for training policy that led to sex discrimination in hiring: $3.1 million
A new lesson in hiring from the EEOC: You can’t get away with discriminating against a specific group of applicants by improperly structuring your training program.
New Prime Trucking, Inc., one of the nation’s largest trucking companies, will pay over $3.1 million and will make job offers to women who were victims of the employer’s discriminatory hiring policy, the EEOC announced.
The payments follow an earlier court order finding that the company violated federal law by discriminating against female truck driver applicants when it required that they be trained only by female trainers.
According to the court’s prior order, the company denied employment opportunities to women through its same-sex trainer policy.
Prime adopted its policy in 2004 after it was found in a previous EEOC lawsuit to have violated Title VII based upon the sexual harassment of one of its female driver trainees, according to the EEOC.
The agency filed the present suit against Prime in September 2011 based on a discrimination charge filed by Deanna Roberts Clouse.
According to the EEOC, because Prime had very few female trainers, its same-sex trainer policy forced female trainees to wait extended periods of time, sometimes up to 18 months, for a female trainer to become available, which resulted in most female driver trainees being denied employment. Male applicants were promptly assigned to male trainers. Prime ceased using its same-sex trainer policy in 2013 as a result of the agency’s suit.
After the court’s order on liability, Prime agreed to pay $250,000 to Clouse to resolve her claims. Last month, Prime agreed via consent decree to pay over $2.8 million in lost wages and damages for 63 other women who were denied job opportunities. The court order and consent decree were entered in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
The court permanently enjoined Prime from discriminating against applicants or employees on the basis of sex and banned Prime from implementing a same-sex trainer policy or practice that creates barriers to the entry or advancement of female driver applicants or employees.
The court also ordered Prime to give priority hiring consideration to the class members and make them immediately eligible for benefits without a waiting period.
