One step forward, two steps back in the battle for gender equality
There’s good news and bad in the effort to achieve gender equality in the workplace.
Strides toward pay equality …
Cloud-based software company Salesforce has invested $3 million in a program to ensure women and men in similar jobs are paid equally, according to a recent Huffington Post story.
“We’ve looked at every single female employee’s salary,” writer Emily Peck quoted Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. “So we can say we pay women the same as we pay men.” Benioff was speaking at a conference run by Fortune magazine.
The program was announced on the Salesforce blog in September. EVP Cindy Robbins said the company took a sample size of men and women across the entire company and all departments — all with similar tenure, levels and peak performance — and found a need to adjust some salaries for both women and men.
Salesforce expects this to be an ongoing process that will be continually monitored.
… And several steps backward
The EEOC continues to target companies that discriminate against women. Here are two recent examples.
In New York, Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA), the authority’s law enforcement division, will pay $206,500 and furnish other relief to resolve charges of pregnancy discrimination brought by female Bridge and Tunnel Operating Force Officers, the EEOC and the U.S. Department of Justice announced.
The EEOC and DOJ found that the TBTA has engaged in a pattern unlawful sex discrimination against the female officers when it declared them unfit for duty solely because they were pregnant. The officers were ordered to turn in their firearms and were transferred to unfavorable assignments. In addition, documentation from the officers’ doctors indicating their fitness for duty was rejected by the authority’s medical staff.
In addition to monetary relief, the settlement agreement requires that the TBTA provide in-depth training to all employees regarding the protection that Title VII affords pregnant TBTA employees.
The settlement agreement requires TBTA to distribute new and revised fitness for duty and workplace accommodation policies and procedures that conform to the requirements of Title VII and any other laws enforced by EEOC.
Under the settlement agreement, the TBTA will provide direction to its medical staff about the requirements of Title VII regarding the protection that the law affords pregnant TBTA employees.
And in Mississippi, Workplace Staffing Solutions, L.L.C., a Louisiana-based company, violated federal law by failing to hire at least 34 qualified women for temporary residential trashcan collector positions because of their sex, the EEOC charged in a lawsuit.
According to EEOC’s lawsuit, a qualified female, responding to an advertisement, contacted Workplace Staffing and attempted to apply for an open temporary position as trash collector in Harrison County, MS.
She was told that the position was a “male only” job, and was prevented from applying. The agency charges that at least 33 other qualified women applied for similar positions, but were never hired or offered a position. EEOC said that Workplace Staffing hired up to 130 men for these positions.
EEOC filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi after EEOC’s Mobile Local Office completed its investigation and after the agency first attempted to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process. The suit seeks monetary damages, including back pay, compensatory and punitive damages, hiring into the positions wrongfully denied the female applicants, where appropriate, and injunctive relief.
