Common Worker Discrimination Claims and EEOC Claims

Thousands of employees experience discrimination from their employers every year and are reporting. However, there are much more employees experiencing workplace discrimination and do not file a formal complaint or even report it internally. Research by Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in 2016, noticed that out of four, three employees who experienced harassment are not informing a supervisor, manager, or union representative about the harassment. And according to other researches, only one percent of employees are filing formal complaints against their employers regarding their workplace discrimination.

Types of discrimination charges filed

According to the report of EEOC, even with a less level of reporting of discrimination and harassment within the workplace, employees have filed 67,448 charges of workplace discrimination in the financial year 2020. According to the data collected by EEOC in the financial year 2020, retaliation in the workplace listed top with 55.8% of all charges filed.

Retaliation

Retaliation claims are the most prevalent one combined with discrimination claims since they usually need complaints regarding or opposition to discrimination in the workplace. Because of this intersection in claims and the fact that employees may have various characteristics or identities that permits them to defend, the total percentage of all kinds of claims declared is more than 100 percent.

Retaliation is not an activity restricted to the termination of an employee. Different varieties of retaliation include, shift in hours or job assignments, denial of promotions, reduction in wages, and undue negative evaluations. Hostility within the workplace is also a type of retaliation. If employees believe that the act of the employer is illegal and if they are experiencing any retaliation at the workplace, they must consult a labour lawyer for their assistance.

Discrimination against disabled persons

Along with the retaliation claims, the EEOC has also received more than 24,000 disability discrimination claims in the year 2019, and in 2020 it made up to 36.1 percent of all workplace discrimination charges. Discrimination against disabled persons can be made in many ways, such as terminating employees for absences related to disability, maintaining physical barriers, and making it impossible for employees in a wheelchair to get access to workplaces, depriving parking spaces for disabled employees, harassment by co-workers on disabled employees with impunity. The disability of an employee includes either physical or mental impairments that restrict daily activities.

Race discrimination

In 2019, the EEOC has received more than 23,000 charges based on race discrimination which has made up 32.7 % of all workplace discrimination claims. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits workplace discrimination on an employee’s race. Examples of discrimination based on race include unfair exercises regarding hiring, promotion, compensation, and firing of an employee, as well as allowing racial jokes, ethnic slurs, and offensive comments on the duty which will produce hostile work surroundings.

Sexual harassment

In most workplaces, sexual harassment remains a problem. According to the report, in 2019, EEOC has received more than 23,500 complaints of discrimination based on sex which has made up 31.7% of all workplace discrimination claims, and out of which more than 7,500 were classified as sexual harassment. More than 80 percent of the molestation claims were filed by the women. Sexual harassment includes sexually offensive jokes, sexual assaults, threats, or demands for a sexual favor.

EEOC claims

Discrimination within the workplaces remains widespread and also the numerous claims filed against discrimination remain steady. However, it has to be noted that 70 percent of the claims filed to the EEOC were discarded because of a lack of evidence. And out of those charges, only a few employees received notable financial benefits. If an employee files a workplace discrimination charge with EEOC, without ample evidence to prove the allegation, the charge will be given a low priority by the EEOC. Therefore, before filing a complaint with EEOC, an employee should seek the assistance of a skilled lawyer who can provide advice regarding the collection and presentation of adequate evidence to hold up a successful workplace discrimination claim. However, employees can go after legal proceedings on the state level as well as the central level.