EEOC Remains Critical to Stopping Workplace Discrimination, Subcommittee Learns
WASHINGTON—Fifty years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, there remains a substantial, ongoing need to combat discrimination and advance civil rights in the workplace, members of the House Education and the Workforce Committee learned at a hearing on the Equality Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today.
“The foundation of our civil rights laws is to ensure that all Americans have the opportunity to participate in and contribute to society, while being able to provide for themselves and their families.
Unfortunately, far too often workers are not hired, are paid less, or are fired from their jobs because they are female, or pregnant, or African American, or have a disability,” said Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), the senior Democrat on the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections. “The EEOC enforces some of the country’s most important federal laws, including ones that prohibit discrimination against an employee or job applicant because of that person's race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information.”
By enforcing those laws, the EEOC plays a critical role in the continuous work to ensure fairness and equal opportunity in the workplace, members learned.
“Despite the tremendous progress made in ensuring equal opportunity in the workplace, sadly our work in eliminating discrimination in the American workplace is far from over,” testified Sherrylin Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “This work goes to the very core of what we aspire to be as a nation—a place where no one can be barred from employment simply based on stereotypes about their fitness for work, racial animus or hostility. The ability to obtain employment, to be promoted at one’s place of employment based on the successful performance of work, and to be appropriately and equally compensated for that work as similarly situated workers, goes to the principle of dignity that Title VII was designed to protect.”
In fiscal year 2013 alone, the EEOC received close to 100,000 new discrimination charges.
“The number of filed charges, however, does not come close to fully representing the millions of Americans who still endure unlawful discrimination and mistreatment in their workplaces,” said Ifill.
In one of its many efforts to prevent discrimination in the hiring process, the EEOC issued bipartisan guidance to help ensure that background information, such as arrest or conviction records, is not used in a discriminatory way by those making employment decisions. Research shows that the prevalence of criminal convictions is far higher among African Americans and Latinos than among white Americans, and that minorities are more negatively impacted by employment decisions based on this data.
The EEOC’s guidance ensures that employers’ criminal record policies are not overly broad and recommends that they consider three sensible factors: the nature and gravity of the prior criminal conduct, the time that has elapsed since the prior criminal conduct, and the nature of the job held or sought.
According to recent survey of 600 employers, 88 percent of respondents say they’ve adopted the EEOC guidance, up from 32 percent just a year ago. Furthermore, 12 states and 60 jurisdictions across the country have adopted so-called “ban-the-box” policies, delaying the consideration of criminal records until later in the hiring process, which was recommended by the EEOC guidance.
Congressional Democrats continue to press for long-overdue changes to our nation’s civil rights laws. Democrats have introduced a number of bills to address the many persistent forms of workplace discrimination, yet the House Republican majority has shown little interest in taking up any of this legislation. Democrat-proposed legislation to address these issues includes: the Fair Employment Protection Act, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act, the Paycheck Fairness Act.
“Both Democrats and Republicans agree that employers should have all the tools they need to reduce workplace violence, and today’s testimony showed that the Commission is willing to work with companies to achieve that goal while still fighting discrimination, ” said Rep. Courtney. “The hearing should have addressed a larger set of questions regarding the Commission’s mission, which over the last fifty years has made amazing strides to promote equality in the workplace. We should be seeking opportunities to work together to strengthen and update this nation's civil rights laws.”
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